The content of the module will be determined by student choice of 3 topics from a menu of options specifying particular political challenges. Examples include:
Social media and 'fake' news
Populism
Independence movements.
War and political violence.
Digital governance and the rise of algorithmic society.
Refugee Crises/Violent Borders.
Climate Change.
World Poverty.
AI, Robots, and the future of work.
The options may vary from year to year as new issues become salient and may be partly dependent on staff availability.
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
There will usually be two in-person lecture sessions per week. The majority of these will be conventional lectures delivered by the module team. These will be recorded unless the technology fails.
We may occasionally bring in guest speakers, depending on availability. These sessions may be in-person or online depending on the location of the speaker. It is up to each speaker whether their session is recorded, but this will be discussed with them and announced to students in advance so you can make decisions accordingly.
There will be a fortnightly student-led seminar. We expect students to attend these unless they have a very pressing reason not to, since being able to discuss the issues covered is a crucial part of the learning process.
Assessment
Assessment strategy
The assessment strategy of this module is designed to form and develop concise analytical skills (assessment 1), long form research (assessment 2) skills.
