This module aims to provide you with in-depth study of a topical issue, Sustainability, using a multi-disciplinary PBL approach. Over the course of the year we will examine four key problems using a variety of disciplinary approaches, and acquire a detailed understand of current debates and theories. The problems are, broadly, as follows:
How do we define sustainability?
What do we mean by sustainability? Who has the right to define it? Are accepted definitions equitable? Which behaviours are sustainable? Which are not?
What is the role of individuals in achieving sustainability?
Given the contested nature of the term sustainability, how do we engage the general public? What impact can individuals have? How is sustainability represented in culture? What is the role of education in achieving sustainability?
Can business be sustainable?
How and why do we measure sustainability? How has globalisation impacted on sustainability efforts? How do firms introduce sustainability in supply chains? What is the link between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability? Are there alternatives to present economic models?
What are the challenges around population?
Is population a problem? How do we deal with migration? How can we make our cities sustainable?
This module uses transdisciplinary Problem-Based Learning approaches to support students to generate problems arising from a range of narratives about the end of the world, and to consider how these problems reflect complex concerns about individuality, morality, the social contract, and the afterlife. Beginning with historical mythological narratives and encompassing religious, political, and ecological apocalyptic theories and scenarios through to the modern day, this module will encourage students to think in transdisciplinary ways about the roles played by apocalyptic narratives in historical and modern societies. The module will make use of literary, religious, philosophical and historical texts, films, music, images, environmental science data, news and social media, and political narratives to encourage students to develop comparative analytical skills and think across disciplinary boundaries.
Welcome to Utopia: Text, Theory, Practice. As the title of the module suggests, we will consider the concept of utopianism as it is enacted in creative texts (literature and film), in social and political thought, in theorisations of the utopian tradition, and in lived experiences and social practices. At its simplest, the concept of 'utopia' (a pun on eutopia, meaning good place, and outopia, meaning no place) can be understood as a response to one the most fundamental 'problems' that humans throughout the ages have wrestled with: What should a better (perfect?) society look like, and how can it be constructed? 'Utopia' is a contested term, which has been defined variously in relation to content, form and function, and we will examine the usefulness of different theoretical approaches while investigating how real-world problems are addressed through the 'imaginary reconstitution of society' (Levitas). Ideas and activism combine in utopian studies, an interdisciplinary field which takes the long view to explore the evolution and circulation of ideas over time and in different contexts. Through the interrogation of diverse source material and case studies, we will explore key sub-problems in the utopian tradition relating to politics, gender, 'race', living communally, town-planning and architecture, education, and borders and resources. Our approach will be both archaeological and architectural: we will analyse what has been said and done by others in order to construct our own forward-looking responses.