This special subject explores the development of the ‘precision ethos’ across the American military, and its representation within political rhetoric, cable news and print media, legal architecture, films, video games, and social media posts. Following the advent of airpower during WWI, strategists shared apocalyptic visions of bombers obliterating civilians as the traditional front lines of warfare were dissolved by verticality. Contra to this, a cadre of American strategists proposed an alternative vision — a precision ethos — through which a fusion of superior technology, intelligence, and training would bring military victory while sparing civilians and their environments. Part II explores the evolution of the precision ethos in the twenty-first century through the conflicts broadly labelled as the War on Terror. It considers how the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq challenged the precision ethos, raising debates about the strategic, political and legal requirements of balancing risk to combatants and civilians. It explores how the technology gave rise to a new phenomenon – the targeted killing of terrorists — which was accompanied by a special form of presidential media performance, and how the evolution of video game technology gave players the opportunity to engage in their own precision strikes against other online players, gamifying the precision ethos and embedding its tenets into a new generation of citizens.
Whether "living out" or "sitting in", Southampton students have been making their own history since the university was founded in 1862. In this module we will be bringing the stories of the young women and men who attended the University of Southampton to life, using a range of source materials that have never been looked at by historians before. Every week you will take part in a handling session at Hartley Library's Special Collections Department, working with original photograph albums, scrapbooks, letters and newspapers produced by Southampton students, from 1862 to today. Every week we will also be visiting buildings on and around campus, looking for traces left by earlier generations of students. What can the university's halls of residence, Student Union and other buildings tell us about changing ideas of the university? How have students' expectations of university changed over time? Have they come to Southampton hoping to "get ahead" in the world - or change it? To uncover these stories we will need to draw connections between our students' experiences and more familiar stories - of class and gender, war and protest. This module will be of particular interest to anyone interested in possibly working in the heritage or museum sector, as part of the course will involve hands-on experience of making original sources accessible to non-specialist audiences, as well as thinking about what buildings and spaces are worth preserving.
This module explores the origins of the Holocaust, the dynamics of Nazi persecution up to 1939 and the experience of Jews and other victims up to that point.
This module focuses on the implementation, experience and aftermath of the genocide of the Jews during the Second World War
This module explores the Holocaust as a problem of public pedagogy. It examines the establishment of Holocaust museums in both Jewish and non-Jewish communities between 1945 and the present. It treats questions of memorialisation and commemoration in a variety of different communities and case studies. It examines the Holocaust as a problem of education, in both schools’ settings and civil society initiatives. It explores the impact of the digital revolution on issues of communication, considering the evolution of Holocaust pedagogy and awareness in the post-survivor age. This module encourages students to develop their own communication activity.
This module examines both canonical and non-canonical representations of the Holocaust in the post-war world. It examines responses from survivor, victim and exile communities, from former perpetrator societies and from others; it explores the interplay of creative, affective, cultural, commercial and political logics in the evolution of such works after 1945; it asks after moments of controversy and conflict in relation to particular acts of representation. It stresses both the authenticity of survivors’ voices as they were articulated in various acts of testimony and the wider presence of political, institutional, cultural and other factors in shaping post-war understandings of the Holocaust that were always partial, anchored in their particular presents, and open to appropriation and misappropriation by others.
The module covers several major topics in genetics including the molecular principles of genetic variation, different patterns of Mendelian inheritance, epigenetics and genetic evolution within a disease setting. The module will introduce how model organisms can be genetically manipulated to model disease and investigate gene function. Genetic approaches to the development of therapies will be considered.
Most of current crises and conflicts have their roots in the history of empires – from the invasion of Ukraine by Russia to the wars in the Middle East. This module will introduce you to the ways in which empires shape our understanding of the ‘Other,’ through the example of the modern Jewish experience. It will enable you to understand the evolving political, socio-economic and legal position of Jews in the British and French colonial empires from the late 18th century to today. This module will provoke you to think about questions such as: How has otherness been constructed in Western Europe from the late 18th century to today? How did race and religion intersect in modern Western European empires? What was the interplay between antisemitism and colonialism? What role did Jews play as both agents and subjects of empire? How did colonisation and decolonisation impact past and present migration patterns? We will examine the construction of the imperial Other and Jewish responses to othering, including migration and Zionism. The module will also decentre narratives of the Holocaust and look at its non-western European context. We will analyse the complex relations between Jews, the imperial state and local populations, enabling you to gain a critical understanding of how contemporary debates on Muslim-Jewish relations in Europe emerged. By engaging with a wide variety of textual and visual sources – legal documents and press but also travelogues, films, petitions, caricatures, and art – we will unpack the relationship between Jews and empires and get acquainted with key concepts in the study of empires.
Most of current crises and conflicts have their roots in the history of empires – from the invasion of Ukraine by Russia to the wars in the Middle East. This module will introduce you to the ways in which empires shape our understanding of the ‘Other,’ through the example of the modern Jewish experience. It will enable you to understand the evolving political, socio-economic and legal position of Jews in the Russian and Soviet continental empires, from the late 18th century to its collapse. The module will provoke you to think about questions such as: How did the Russian empire and Soviet Union deal with religious and ethnic difference? How did modernisation interplay with imperialism and antisemitism? How did Jews negotiate their identity in the Russian and Soviet empires? We will examine the construction of the imperial Other and the way the Russian and Soviet power responded to the so-called ‘Jewish question’ from the end of the 18th century to Stalin. We will also analyse the Jewish responses to othering, including assimilation, migration and nationalisms. We will explore the complex relations between Jews, the imperial state and local populations, complicating your understanding of anti-Jewish violence and antisemitism in Eastern Europe. The module will decentre narratives of the Holocaust and look at its eastern European context. By engaging with a wide variety of textual and visual sources – legal documents and press but also petitions, films, petitions, caricatures, and art – we will unpack the relationship between Jews and empires and get acquainted with key concepts in the study of empires.
Where did the idea of ‘English Literature’ as we know it today come from? When and how did writers first start thinking of themselves as English authors? How did the mechanisms of book production and the material forms of books shape readers’ understanding and judgements of literary texts? This module will focus on the fourteenth through to the seventeenth centuries, a period in which writers invented and wrote themselves into literary traditions, made new, bold claims for English as a literary language and for their own literary art, and crafted new poetic, dramatic and prose forms. In so doing, they profoundly shaped later generations’ understanding of what English Literature is. But creating an idea of what English Literature is also involves forming an opinion about what it is not, and the module will encourage you to consider how literary traditions are created selectively, to think about inevitable silences and exclusions, and to reflect on how ‘English Literature’ is an invention, and how it might be constructed differently.
The knight is one of the most emblematic figures of the Middle Ages, a rich and multifaceted character: from the warrior whose privileged social status was justified by the exercise of violence to the gentleman who embraced a sophisticated aristocratic court culture. In this module, we will examine what shaped the ethics of these knights, what influenced their conduct and their state of mind, paying particular attention to the gap between the ideals of the knights' code of conduct and the reality of their lives (1100-1500). This exploration of elite culture will focus not only on the harsh realities of the battlefield in local wars and in more distant lands where knights pursued the crusading ideals, but also on aristocratic displays in tournaments, ceremonies, (extravagant) banquets and acts of devotion. This module is also a journey into gender identity (virility) and the social order dominated by the image of the preudhomme ('worthy man'). To carry out this investigation, we will use a wide variety of sources and media such as treatises on chivalry, chronicles, Arthurian novels, biographies, legal proceedings, statutes of the orders of chivalry, contracts of brotherhood in arms, books of tournaments and, of course, a Round Table.
This module examines a broad range of torts protecting a variety of different interests. The module begins by situating the law of torts in relation to the broad principles underpinning contract and criminal law; introduces you briefly to the broad range of torts, and then focuses on the fundamental principles of liability with particular reference to negligence. Other torts (e.g., nuisance) are considered, as are current issues of particular difficulty and importance in respect of tort law. You will be encouraged to consider and evaluate the role, nature, and functions of tort law, as well as its technical rules.
This version of Law of Torts is provided for you if you are studying the LLB (JD Pathway), the LLB Accelerated or the LLB Law with Psychology programmes. This module examines a broad range of torts protecting a variety of different interests. The module begins by situating the law of torts in relation to the broad principles underpinning contract and criminal law; introduces you briefly to the broad range of torts, and then focuses on the fundamental principles of liability with particular reference to negligence. Other torts (e.g., nuisance) are considered, as are current issues of particular difficulty and importance in respect of tort law. You will be encouraged to consider and evaluate the role, nature, and functions of tort law, as well as its technical rules.
Bills of lading and analogous shipping documents play important roles in the carriage of goods by sea. In this module you will study the functions of a bill of lading, cargo claims under the Hague-Visby Rules and rights of suit at both common law and statute. This involves the application of general principles of English commercial law, principally being an application of the law of contract, tort and bailment, to the specific field of the carriage of goods by sea. Legislation (and principles of its interpretation) will be examined, including in particular the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1971 (bringing into force in the UK the Hague-Visby Rules) and the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992.
This module introduces you to the law governing charterparties which are maritime contracts between shipowners and charterers for the hire of a ship for the carriage of cargo (or passengers) and as such form a critical part of the law governing the carriage of goods by sea. Charterparties may be voyage charters, time charters or bareboat/demise charters, and often go hand in hand with bills of lading, which in turn may import the application of the Hague-Visby Rules to the charterparties by paramount clauses. The study of this module involves an application of general principles of English (contract) law to the specific context of charterparties.
This module aims to introduce you to the theory and practice of the Lean Startup methodology, a hypothesis driven experimental model of entrepreneurship. Unlike other entrepreneurship modules, this module requires that you evaluate a provided idea, rather than developing one yourself. You will be introduced to the Lean Startup methodology in a series of lectures and seminars, including a number of practical methods and tools which you can apply in a project. In teams, you will seek to obtain customer feedback on a provided product or service prototype. You will then propose design changes based on that feedback. Your individual assessment will evaluate your team’s application of the Lean Startup method, and critically evaluate the method itself.
Blood, violence, terror, raids, pirates, rape and pillage are just some of the words associated with the Vikings in both the medieval and modern imagination. Their fearsome reputation is underlined by nicknames such as ‘Blood Axe' and ‘Skull-splitter', but violence is only one part of Viking history. The Vikings also formed extensive trade networks across Europe and into Asia, founded new countries, developed new technologies, created beautiful objects and left behind a literary tradition that influenced European culture for many centuries. In this module, by studying historical, literary and archaeological sources, you will examine both the reality of Viking society and how Viking identity was perceived over the course of the middle ages. Topics will include: Viking migration and settlements (for example, the foundation of Iceland), the mechanics of exchange (trade and gift-giving), kingship and kinship, travel and technology, the saga tradition and its influence, the material culture of the Vikings, religious beliefs and mission, perceptions of the Vikings and the formation of the Viking ‘myth'.
'The present generation,' wrote J. A. Froude in 1882 as he looked back at the first years of the nineteenth century, 'will never know what it was to find the lights all drifting, the compasses all awry, and nothing left to steer by except the stars’. Far from being a complacent or confident era, the long nineteenth century was often a time of upheaval, fragmentation, and novelty. In this core module for the MA English Literary Studies (Nineteenth-Century) pathway, you will study the radical potential of Romanticism, the feverish literary experiments of the high Victorian period, and the beginnings of modernism. Students will gain knowledge of key scholarly approaches to nineteenth-century literature, asking throughout how the period's writers responded to, and at times provoked, social, cultural, and personal change.
This core module for the MA English Literary Studies (Twentieth-Century) pathway, taught by all those contributing to the pathway in a given year, will introduce students to the key critical, theoretical, historiographical and conceptual debates surrounding the study of the long twentieth century. It will emphasise the issues which have been central to the emergence and revision of key areas of scholarship on the period over the last quarter century, and to effective methods for archival research.
This module explores the luxury consumer in the context of a fast-changing external environment, which is radically shifting the way that luxury is perceived and experienced, particularly by new emerging consumers such as Generation Z and Gen Alpha who have unique preferences and values. These consumers prioritise individuality and personalisation, seeking products and experiences that reflect their personal identity. Sustainability and social responsibility are crucial, and they favour brands that demonstrate ethical practices and environmental consciousness. This module explores the new areas of attention brands and businesses need to develop to appeal to the new generations of luxury, whilst delicately balancing the expectations of existing consumers.
This module examines changing notions of British (and, more specifically, English) national identity in relation to issues of race, ethnicity and immigration from the 1840s to the present day.
The module looks at the development of the English language, and examines its relationship with other, potentially rival, languages that have been spoken in the British Isles. It examines the effect of successive waves of conquest on the sociolinguistic situation which led to a situation of of diglossia or even triglossia, with English one of a number of varieties used in a set of socially determined domains. Using Haugen’s standardization model, we examine the factors which led first to selection and later acceptance of English as the dominant variety, and consider the associated linguistic processes of codification and elaboration of function. Working with short texts from different time periods, the module then introduces how and why grammatical changes occurred in Anglo-Saxon, Old and Middle English (e.g. loss of case marking, gender, weakening of the verbal paradigm) and their consequences for the modern language. We will also consider phonological changes (e.g. the Great English Vowel Shift) and their consequences for dialect differentiation. Throughout the module we make parallels with contemporary English by exploring ongoing change, including dialect loss and dialect levelling.
