Critical Theory MRes

Put ‘theory to work’ on contemporary themes such as:

• globalization and digital cultures
• new media and technology
• social movements and networked activism

You'll use approaches that may include - but are not limited to - media and communication studies, feminism and critical race studies, science and technology studies as well as discourse analysis and political economy.

The module also helps to prepare you for your dissertation. It includes four workshops covering topics such as:

• refining a research question
• building a theoretical framework
• establishing an appropriate methodology
• identifying relevant primary and secondary sources

This module is worth 20 credits.

You will explore the links between aesthetics and politics as they have become manifest:

• within particular social and cultural constellations
• in the philosophical tradition that informs contemporary critical and cultural theory

Starting with debates in and around the work of the Frankfurt School before and after World War II, the module will trace out:

• historical connections in discussions of aesthetics and politics - from the 'visual strategies' of Hobbes's Leviathan to contemporary 'shock and awe' and the society of the spectacle
• conceptual affiliations and applications (such as Romanticism and the literary absolute, modernist art movements and Bergsonian philosophy, 'ethico-aesthetics' and subjectivity, kitsch and cultural capital)
• specific aspects of creative practices - from montage and collage to cutting and pasting, glitch and digital aesthetics - with a view to exploring the complexities of the relationship between theory and practice.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Explore the role of technology in:

• shaping processes of symbolic exchange
• the material organisation of cultures
• the growth of communication 'power' and subjective capacities for action

The module draws together research in media and communication theory, history and philosophy of technology, geography and the sociology of communication, material cultures.

You'll consider debates about:

• the division between technical and cultural understandings of the world
• links between technology and experience
• critical appraisals of ideas about network and information society
• technological determinism
• digital infrastructures
• theories of socio-technical organisation

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module introduces you to the wide range of interdisciplinary research happening in the Faculty of Arts. We invite you to ‘think outside the box’ in relation to your own research, while learning key research techniques and methods. The module aims to:

• introduce the ideas, practices, complexities, and opportunities of interdisciplinary research in the arts
• enable you to practice critical self-reflexivity about the conventions and expectations of your own disciplines in relation to those of others
• train you in core research skills necessary for graduate-level study
• develop your confidence in communicating research findings to non-specialist audiences

You will build on your existing research skills gained from your university career to date. Furthermore, you will develop a more nuanced understanding of your own research practice, inspiring you to explore different approaches questions. In addition, you will develop an understanding of professional practice in areas such as:

• academic publishing
• knowledge exchange
• dissertation planning and writing
• professional communication

This module is worth 20 credits.

You’ll discover how an arts and humanities masters degree can be used to:

• transform society, politics and culture
• enhance your range of careers and opportunities

You’ll explore the skills particular to your own discipline and how they can impact on wider issues. This will help your understanding of the function of arts and humanities, and how they can be applied, in wider society. In particular you’ll get greater understanding of what is meant by knowledge exchange and public engagement.

With an emphasis on ‘learning through doing' you’ll collaborate with other masters’ students on consultancy projects, working to solve real-life briefs from a range of cultural industries and schools.

By the end of the module you’ll have:

• developed a portfolio of professional skills and experience
• worked on issues of research, networking, grant-writing and cultural exchange
• learnt how to engage, communicate and create.

This module is worth 20 credits.

An introduction to some of the key research skills required to become a more effective researcher and successfully complete your MRes.

You'll also develop a range of transferable professional skills - from writing and presentation to public engagement and project management.

You will also engage with key methdological concepts and debates within the arts and humaniities.

This module runs for one semester and is worth 20 credits.

Develop the practical and intellectual skills required to bring your MRes dissertation to completion.

You'll typically cover:

• research planning
• archive mining
• data management
• practical training in thesis presentation and structuring
• key theories and approaches relevant to all students in the areas of arts and humanities

It is not necessary to do MRes Research Skills 1 to enrol on this module.

This is a full-year module worth 40 credits.

This module introduces you to the key thinkers, themes and debates that constitute the European critical tradition. The module provides a contextual overview of primarily post-Kantian critical philosophy and critical theory mainly in the German tradition of the 19th and 20th Centuries.

It is likely to cover thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud as well as Heidegger, Adorno and Benjamin. Each thinker will be presented both in terms of their interlocutors and respective historical contexts, and in terms of their subsequent interpretations and uptake in a variety of disciplines and approaches.

Discussion is structured around several overarching themes that have driven critical and philosophical debate. These are likely to include:

• the limits of reason;
• power and knowledge;
• history and historicity;
• subjectivity;
• the politics of culture.

This module explores the work of a range of thinkers who have interrogated the work of the philosophers who constitute the “canon” of thinkers schooled in the European critical tradition.

It follows on from and engages with the work explored in Traditions of Critique but the structure of the discussion it presents can be followed without attendance on that module.

Following in its thematic development the exploration of the limits of critique, it revisits the history and geography of critique by offering an introduction to a number of thinkers, from a range of backgrounds, including postcolonial theory, feminism, structuralism and post-structuralism, and considers the variety of ways in which such thinkers have problematised central tenets of European Enlightenment thinking.