Liberal Arts

The module is designed as the foundational course in your first year of study. The module takes a broadly chronological approach to introducing a range of topics such as the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Imperialism and Consumerism. Each topic will be explored through an academic lecture and a seminar, with set reading.

In addition, each topic will have a visit to a site in London, supported by a podcast, which will enable you to hear a range of academics and others debating and posing questions for further discussion in your seminars.

You will develop the skills to question and critique ways in which knowledge is presented to you both in cultural institutions such as museums and galleries, and in the fabric of the city. For example, your study of the Enlightenment will be enriched by a visit to the Enlightenment Galleries at the British Museum, where you will explore how the development of museums fed into what we might call 'scientific' ways of thinking, and also how we interrogate and understand museum displays today. Equally, a study of changing patterns of how commodities are traded and consumed would be illustrated through looking at the history of the Docklands, and a visit to the Museum of London Docklands.

20 x 1-hour lectures (weekly); 20 x 1-hour seminars (weekly)

This first-year module examines the political, social and religious history of early modern Britain. Two momentous events dominate this period: the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, and the Civil Wars of the seventeenth. We look at the longer stories of religious, political and social change that contextualise both of them. Changes in government and the role of parliament, and the development of the modern state were accompanied by the growth of literacy, the public dramas of witchcraft trials, and the piecemeal articulation of complex religious identities – Protestant, Puritan, Laudian and Catholic. The course attends to the smallest scale of politics – in parishes and households – as well as the largest. By the end of the course, we see a new national identity, the beginnings of capitalism, rapid urbanisation, and a recognisable Church of England; we also see individual men and women expressing party political convictions and articulating new forms of identity

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/history/modules/level4/4AAH1003.aspx

20 x 1-hour lectures (weekly); 20 x 1-hour seminars (weekly)

This Group 1 module covers the history of Europe from the late eighteenth century through to 1991 – from the French Revolution to the fall of the Soviet Union. Attention will be given to social, cultural, economic and political history, and the way these components have interacted. Lectures and seminars will approach European history from a variety of angles. In chronological terms, the module will highlight key moments in European history (wars, revolutions) that had continent-side repercussions. In geographical terms, it will explore the uses, as well as the limits, of dividing European history into histories of discrete nations and states. In thematic terms, it will look at the formation and evolution of various collective actors—religious communities, classes, sexes, professions, generations—and consider how these groups have shaped and been shaped by historical change.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/history/modules/level4/4AAH1006.aspx

20 x 1-hour lectures (weekly); 20 x 1-hour seminars (weekly)

This module offers a broad overview of the history of Europe (including areas on both sides of the Mediterranean) from Late Antiquity to the whole fifteenth century. It covers problems of continuity and change in society, politics, religion, and culture; but it also introduces students to debates about the fate of the Roman Empire, the christianization of Europe, the impact of the rise of Islam, the meaning of the age of Charlemagne, the centuries of the Crusades and the European economic 'take-off', the effects of the great plagues and revolts of the fourteenth centuries, and finally about Renaissance, 'modernity', and the origins of European states. Students will have the opportunity to consider how a series of vast transformations formed European culture and to reflect on general themes, such as the interaction of religious orthodoxy and dissent, shifting perceptions of gender, or the friction between imperialist drives and cultural coexistence.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/history/modules/level4/4AAH1002.aspx

This module introduces you to a broad range of French narrative texts and to the fundamental principles of narratology. By the end of the module you should have a basic understanding of key concepts.

This module is one of the foundations of the degree. It provides students with the methodological and conceptual tools required to undertake comparative literary criticism. We examine a range of different approaches: thematics, genre, period, and theories of influence, tradition and intertextuality. These are practised on texts from the epic tradition, British and European Romanticism, and Modernism. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are required reading.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/complit/modules/level4/4aaycl04.aspx

Using a variety of texts and genres as case studies (including a short novel, articles, theatre, film and poetry), this course explores the way in which writers in C20th Spain have sought to renovate the arts.  Through an examination of new aesthetic trends and new treatments of stock themes such as religion, politics and love, it appraises the very characteristics of modernity and precisely what it means to perceive oneself as 'modern'. Lectures serve to situate writers and texts within the cultural shifts of their period, while seminars provide the forum for a closer investigation and discussion of set texts.

The aim of this module is to give first-year students a grasp of the main conceptual approaches, schools, methods, and sub-disciplines in Politics. This should both allow them to problematize and reflect critically on common-sense assumptions and understandings of political institutions and processes and lay the basis of the kind of analytical skills they will require in subsequent years.

Areas covered include the nature of politics and of power; the empirical study of political institutions and processes; international relations and international political economy; different theoretical approaches to the study of politics; and the main concepts of political philosophy.

This module offers a survey of the development of Western music ca.
1640-1790. The module aims to introduce students to different historical methods and perspectives, and uses a number of case studies to examine selected works, composers and institutions in their cultural, political and social contexts. The module is intended as a challenging introduction both for those familiar and those unfamiliar with the basic historical outlines of the period. Reading and listening recommendations will be supplied at the beginning of the module.

This course aims to provide an introduction to the entire history of German cinema, from the earliest recordings of circus acts by the Skladanowsky brothers (in 1895), through to the New German Comedies of the 1990s. German films, with their extremes of emotion and seismographic reflection of political and aesthetic change, have recorded and interpreted an era of unrivalled political turmoil and creative energy.  The aim of this course is to assess their distinctive contribution to a century which has been dubbed 'the age of cinema'.

The aim of this module is to introduce students to the central puzzles and problems in political philosophy. Under what conditions, if any, should we submit to political authority? What, if anything, makes the exercise of coercive power legitimate? What is the value of democracy? What kind of liberty should a just society aim to protect? What is our best understanding of a just society? Readings from both historical and contemporary sources, including Hobbes, Locke, Berlin, Rawls, Nozick.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/modules/level4/4aanb006.aspx

This Group 1 module covers the history of Britain from the late eighteenth century through to 1945. The focus is on political history broadly defined. Consideration is given to the impact of ideological, sexual, demographic, social, cultural and economic change on the political process and policy-making, as well as more conventional issues such as constitutional reform and party politics. Thus this module seeks to provide students with an appreciation of the wider contexts in which politics took place (social contexts especially), as well as a secure understanding of political developments themselves. The module is taught through a mix of wide-ranging thematic subjects and more focused chronological topics. Separate topics on aspects of social and economic history as well as some intellectual and cultural history complement topics on parliamentary and extra-parliamentary themes.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/history/modules/level4/4AAH1005.aspx

20 x 1-hour lectures (weekly); 20 x 1-hour seminars (weekly)

This Group 1 module provides an exploration of some of the chief themes in the history of continental Europe from the beginning of the sixteenth century until the end of the French Revolution. It concentrates chiefly on the structures of society -- demographic, economic, social, political, cultural, and intellectual -- and the way these changed over time through a series of events and major trends. By looking at the period in a structural as well as a chronological way, the module aims to provide students with an understanding of the most important forces acting on the social fabric as a whole and how that leads ultimately to the major changes in society evident from a comparison of Europe in 1500 and 1800.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/history/modules/level4/4AAH1004.aspx

20 x 1-hour lectures (weekly); 20 x 1-hour seminars (weekly)

The period between 400 and 1400 forged the political structures and national identities which still shape Britain today. This unique course traces the history of Britain from the Anglo-Saxon settlements between 400 and 600 to the English conquest of Wales and the Scottish Wars of independence either side of 1300. It considers the emergence of a single kingdom of England with strong institutions of government, the changes brought by the Norman Conquest, the birth of the common law, the causes of political revolt, the significance of Magna Carta and the development of parliament. It examines how a successful Scottish kingdom was established in the far north, and how and why Wales remained politically fragmented. All this is placed in a wide social, economic and cultural context with focus on commercialization, peasant survival and revolt, the tensions between church and state (epitomized in the Becket dispute), and the development of national identities.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/history/modules/level4/4AAH1001.aspx

This module is an introduction to the study of the New Testament for students who may have some, little or no knowledge of it and of its critical analysis. By completing this module students will gain a general familiarity with the contents of the New Testament and of the major approaches to these texts. The books of the New Testament will be considered within their historical contexts as literary compositions.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/trs/modules/level4/4aat1006.aspx

20 x 1-hour lectures (weekly); 20 x 1-hour seminars (weekly)

One 3-hour examination

This Group I covers the history of the British empire from the early eighteenth century to the Second World War. The course examines the causes and consequences of British imperial expansion and decline, and the relationship between the ruling power and the African, American, Asian and Australasian subjects it ruled. It looks at the history of empire from a global point of view, examining the connection between the British power and the worldwide exchange of commodities, cultures and ideas in the early modern and modern periods. But students will examine the specific local worlds in which Britons and others encountered one another, investigating the extent to which the British empire was a force that accentuated cultural and economic differences as well as linking different parts of the globe.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/history/modules/level4/4AAH1007.aspx

The module also helps lay the foundation for your own writing life in London over the course of your study at King's College London. Without a doubt London is one of the most stimulating environments in which to engage with literature; and the first semester of your first year marks the start of an exciting time and a place in which to develop your skills as a reader, as an observer, and as a writer.