Faculty of Education, Health and Social Care
Modern Liberal Arts
Module Catalogue
Semester 1 - 2015/2016
Module code:
Module Title:
LA1001A
Freedom (is to learn) 1
Module Credits:
15.00
Number of Periods: 1
Module Tutor:
Nigel Tubbs
Description:
This module is the first of the two compulsory modules in year 1 called Freedom is to
Learn. There is continuity across the two semesters in terms of approach and themes.
Both modules explore three distinct areas of enquiry within the liberal
arts tradition: freedom, education and nature, looking at both ancient and
modern sources. They explore the question of freedom in relation to the
education of the self in particular, as well as with regards to the tradition of liberal
arts education per se. Indicative issues are those to do with equality of
opportunity with regard to higher education, the nature of responsibility in a
community, the nature of the political and notions of determinism, and work and
ideas in the study of nature within the tradition of liberal arts education.
Specific to:
Modern Liberal Arts
Modern Liberal Arts Joint
Availability:
A
Assessments:
50%
50%
15/16
Essay
Essay
S1
Winchester
Module code: LA1002
Module Title: First Principles
Module Credits:
15.00
Number of Periods: 1
Module Tutor:
REBEKAH HOWES
Description:
This module explores the principal theme that has characterised ancient and medieval
Liberal Arts. The search for first principles - those principles which must be
presupposed in order to explain how anything exists at all - has been the holy grail of
liberal arts. In this module we will explore aspects of this search in all of the liberal
arts; in literature, philosophy, mathematics, geometry, astronomy and music, as well
as in the related areas of theology and politics. This will act as an introduction to work
in these areas that will be followed up in future modules.
Specific to:
Modern Liberal Arts
Modern Liberal Arts Joint
Availability:
A
Assessments:
50%
50%
15/16
Essay
Essay
S1
Winchester
Module code: LA1005
Module Title: Ancient Canonic Tragedy
Module Credits:
15.00
Number of Periods: 1
Module Tutor:
Derek Bunyard
Description:
The subject matter of this module is the mythic and tragic as developed in the
narratives, poems, and art of earlier civilisations. There are three dimensions of
content selection: the first is breadth • as far as is consistent with the other criteria,
examples will be sourced so as to include non-Western accounts, rather than the more
usual ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman samples. The second criterion is depth, and
here the module attempts to introduce a progression on the basis of the myths/tales
engagement with a philosophical notion of the tragic. The third criterion looks to
presenting a diversity of media forms so that some estimate can be made on the
nature and form of the rhetorical contexts within which these accounts were enacted.
Specific to:
Modern Liberal Arts
Availability:
A
Assessments:
50%
50%
15/16
Essay
Essay
S1
Winchester
Module code: LA1009
Module Title: Athens and Jerusalem
Module Credits:
15.00
Number of Periods: 1
Module Tutor:
Description:
The liberal arts are built upon ancient Greek foundations, and have tended to exclude
ancient Jewish texts or read them through a Greek lens. This module seeks to redress
this by introducing the Jewish voice to create a dialogue. We will explore and contrast
the differing world-views of how the world began, how enlightenment is achieved, the
path to wisdom, the futility of life and the question of death. We will then experiment
with a Jewish approach to the trivium and quadrivium, asking questions like: What
does Hebraic astronomy look like? How did ancient Jews view music?
Specific to:
Modern Liberal Arts
Availability:
A
Assessments:
50%
50%
15/16
Essay
Essay
S1
Winchester
Module code: LA2001
Module Title: Freedom (is to learn) 2
Module Credits:
15.00
Number of Periods: 1
Module Tutor:
Nigel Tubbs
Description:
This is the first of two compulsory modules in Modern Liberal Arts at level 5. This
module allows students considerable scope in the direction of their work. Each week
introduces a new set of issues within which to discuss ideas surrounding freedom.
Indicative content here includes assessing freedom within the perspectives of
cosmopolitanism, feminism, colonialism, Islamic philosophy, Orientalism, slavery,
Holocaust, and existentialism. It is intended that Hegel’s analysis of the master/slave
relationship in the Phenomenology of Spirit will form the starting point for discussions.
Specific to:
Modern Liberal Arts
Modern Liberal Arts Joint
Availability:
A
Assessments:
50%
50%
15/16
Essay
Essay
S1
Winchester
Module code:
Module Title:
LA2003
Athens and Jerusalem
Module Credits:
15.00
Number of Periods: 1
Module Tutor:
Description:
The liberal arts are built upon ancient Greek foundations, and have tended to exclude
ancient Jewish texts or read them through a Greek lens. This module seeks to redress
this by introducing the Jewish voice to create a dialogue. We will explore and contrast
the differing world-views of how the world began, how enlightenment is achieved, the
path to wisdom, the futility of life and the question of death. We will then experiment
with a Jewish approach to the trivium and quadrivium, asking questions like: What
does Hebraic astronomy look like? How did ancient Jews view music?
Specific to:
Modern Liberal Arts
Modern Liberal Arts Joint
Availability:
A
Assessments:
50%
50%
15/16
Essay
Essay
S1
Winchester
Module code: LA2007
Module Title: Utopia and Tragedy
Module Credits:
15.00
Number of Periods: 1
Module Tutor:
Derek Bunyard
Description:
The specific focus of this module is utopias and dystopias as sites for ideological
investigations of what counts as the socially normal and the socially deviant, and how
this tension is played out through the experience of the tragic within a social collective.
The media texts chosen are selected on the basis of their capacity to develop a
reflective analysis of present states of sociality. Theoretical and philosophical
components are split: in this case between the political philosophy of the state, and
the aesthetics of collective and mass representation.
Specific to:
Modern Liberal Arts
Modern Liberal Arts Joint
Availability:
A
Assessments:
50%
50%
15/16
Essay
Essay
S1
Winchester
Module code: LA2012
Module Title: Spirit: in Ruins
Module Credits:
15.00
Number of Periods: 1
Module Tutor:
REBEKAH HOWES
Description:
This module begins by exploring the difficult philosophical notion of spirit. By looking
at the metaphysical, political and ethical dimensions of spirit as it has been understood
in the Western tradition we may find that spirit expresses and generates some of the
most profound of human experiences and ideas, including life and death, self and
other , master and slave, God and man. By thinking philosophically about these
experiences we will in turn explore questions concerning the significance of spirit in
and for some of the most difficult painful and controversial episodes of human history.
But we cannot do this without also understanding ways in which it has been an
instrument of collectivism, individualism, and exclusion in the course of its own
development.
Specific to:
Modern Liberal Arts
Modern Liberal Arts Joint
Availability:
A
Assessments:
50%
50%
15/16
Essay
Essay
S1
Winchester
Module code: LA3007
Module Title: Modern Tragic Lives
Module Credits:
15.00
Number of Periods: 1
Module Tutor:
Derek Bunyard
Description:
This module completes the trajectory of modules that have followed the perception of
tragedy from the earliest records of public art; in this module the focus turns upon the
Modern. As with the level 5 module, ideological analysis offers a starting point, but
rather than this being considered at the level of the state, it now focuses on the
individual subject and this subject’s hopes and despairs. The opportunity is therefore
taken to consider psychoanalytic accounts of the vicissitudes of the subject, but two
further dimensions of analysis are also included: a review of the forms of
representational strategy that have become appropriate with the development of
electronic media, and a retrospective study of the contemporary place of myth and the
heroic, and of the utopian/dystopian distinction under modernity.
Specific to:
Modern Liberal Arts
Modern Liberal Arts Joint
Availability:
A
Assessments:
50%
50%
15/16
Essay
Essay
S1
Winchester
Module code: LA3014
Module Title: Spirit: Life and Death
Module Credits:
Number of Periods:
Module Tutor:
Description:
15.00
1
REBEKAH HOWES
This module is the last of three modules looking at the various meanings and
interpretations of ‘spirit’. In this module we will reflect on some of the issues raised so
far, and look ahead to ways in which spirit might be seen as at the end of any useful
contribution to modern life, or perhaps issuing in a renaissance out of the ruins and
ashes of various horrors. Using philosophical and theoretical approaches this module
will think through the nature of the ‘spirit’ in relation to human freedom, language,
history, time, truth and God. But to do this requires also that we think about what it
means to be human and so the module encourages us to explore various dimensions
of experience which teach us something of our humanity, in life, and in death.
Specific to:
Modern Liberal Arts
Modern Liberal Arts Joint
Availability:
A
Assessments:
50%
50%
15/16
Essay
Essay
S1
Winchester
Module code: LA3901
Module Title: First Principles: Core Texts
Module Credits:
15.00
Number of Periods: 1
Module Tutor:
Description:
One version of a Liberal Arts education expresses itself through the study of what is
called ‘the canon’ of Great Texts. In the USA in the 20th century the project was redefined at the University of Chicago when University president Robert Hutchins
collaborated with Mortimer Adler to develop a course for the purpose of filling in gaps
in higher education, to make one more well-rounded and familiar with the "Great
Books" and ideas of the past three millennia. It was felt that such study was an end in
itself, and that association with and study of great texts would take root in the
students character, especially with regard to virtue. Mortimer Adler lists three criteria
for including a book on the list: the book has contemporary significance; that is, it has
relevance to the problems and issues of our times; the book is inexhaustible; it can be
read again and again with benefit; the book is relevant to a large number of the great
ideas and great issues that have occupied the minds of thinking individuals for the last
25 centuries. Our module enables individual tutors to choose their own core text and
to build a period of intensive study in and around that text.
Specific to:
Modern Liberal Arts
Modern Liberal Arts Joint
Availability:
A
Assessments:
100%
15/16
Essay
S1
Winchester