Politics, Sexuality and Gender BA(Hons)

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Top reasons to choose this course

• Brighton is unique in offering an undergraduate course focused on this vital field.
• You will have the opportunity to apply to spend a semester studying abroad in your second year at a partner university.
• You can work with the Centre for Transforming Sexuality and Gender, which hosts regular talks, seminars, workshops and conferences, as well as offering research internships.
• Learn in a vibrant, progressive city with a reputation for radical, environmental and LGBTQI+ activism.
• Your lecturers are internationally recognised researchers on issues including populism, gender studies, the Middle East, environmentalism, migration, housing and political theory.
• You will engage with cutting edge academic research. The university’s Centre for Philosophy, Politics and Ethics hosts regular talks, seminars, workshops and conferences and offers an annual undergraduate research prize. 
• Guest speakers have included Caroline Lucas and Sue Shanks (Green Party), Yousef Eldin (BBC documentary producer), Nancy Hawker (Amnesty International) and Prof Angie Wilson (ex-Chair of the Political Studies Association, researching sexuality and politics), as well as representatives from Make the Shift, The Free West Papua Campaign and Brighton & Hove Community Land Trust.

• Assignments don’t just mean essays, we offer you assessment methods including films, podcasts, data visualisations, political speeches, social media campaigns; the types of projects that will be valued by employers.
• You will graduate with both theoretical and practical knowledge. Our courses offer practical skills and real-world experiences, with opportunities to undertake placements, design a campaign for a political organisation and learn digital communication skills.
• The university’s commitment to addressing global challenges is the lens through which you will learn and issues such as climate change, equality and inclusivity, and sustainability are embedded in all teaching on our politics courses.
• Our decolonised approach to teaching and learning places emphasis on lived experience, recognising that knowledge is held in communities not only in academic institutions.

Year 1 

In your first year, you will study five core modules that introduce you to the subject area, including specialist modules covering key approaches to the study of politics, sexuality and gender. You will also choose an option module.

Modules

Core modules

• Foundations in World Politics

  This module will introduce you to a critical historical perspective on the modern international political system. You will examine how the peoples and governments of the world came to be linked through an imperial system by exploring major world events and processes of global history. By taking a long view of modern politics, the module is an opportunity for you to place world politics in its historical context. The key topics you will explore include the origins of the international political system, slavery, imperial and colonial expansion, anti-colonial resistance and liberation, global governance, controversy and historiography.

• Introduction to the  Global Challenges Lab

  Supported by a tutor, you'll design and conduct a research project that addresses one of the global challenges identified by the UN’s sustainable development goals. You'll learn how to create blogs, podcasts and short films to communicate your research and ideas to a non-academic audience.

• Introduction to Politics, Sexuality and Gender

  This module foregrounds the centrality of sexuality and gender for understanding politics. You will be introduced to theoretical and conceptual approaches related to the field, with an emphasis on how political activity in this area has transformed political agendas and produced new ways of understanding the world. It draws on feminist, gender, sexuality, queer and trans studies, as well as political science, international relations, sociology and critical theory.

• Politics in Practice

  This module introduces ideas about how politics is practiced by state and non-state actors at local, national, and international levels. You'll take part in field trips, Q+As with political actors and engagement with political communications. You'll also be introduced to methods of data collection, as well as forms of qualitative and quantitative analysis.

• Sex and Politics: Defining Contemporary Issues

  This module develops your understanding of sexuality and gender as central aspects of the struggle for social justice. Drawing on a range of approaches, you'll explore how inequalities related to sexuality and gender are inscribed and mobilised in national and global contexts related to citizenship, including law and policy. In addition to identifying problems, you will examine perspectives that theorise how gender and sexual inequality might be further challenged and reduced.

Options*

• Global Challenges Lab: The Global and the Local

  On this module you'll learn from local politicians, community organisations and activist groups about how key global challenges are manifested in Brighton & Hove. Online learning platforms are used to find out about these problems on a global level. You'll conduct a group research project on one of these issues alongside learning skills in data analysis and visualisation, and developing podcasting and filmmaking skills.  

• Comparative Political Systems

  On this module you will be introduced to some of the key features of politics including institutions, political actors and political processes. You'll identify the most important political hallmarks, for example: the legislature, the executive, political parties, and electoral processes, in at least two contemporary states that illustrate democratic, partially democratic, or/and authoritarian political systems. You'll also be introduced to political concepts, such as power and the state, in order to analyse and compare those political systems.

• Introduction to Environmental Politics

  This module introduces you to the key theories and global institutions relevant to environmental politics, and how these debates apply in practice to contemporary and historical issues of climate crisis. You will learn about environmental justice, ecological modernisation, fossil capitalism and environmental ethics, alongside studying the global institutions that contest climate politics including the UN, nation states, fossil fuel companies and protest movements.

• Globalisation, Conflict and the Environment

  This module introduces key concepts, theories and questions in international relations and global studies. You will interrogate and evaluate the political implications of different approaches for the study of key aspects of our contemporary world. You will explore how concepts and theories are applied to contested global issues, such as environmental sustainability and war/conflict. 

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Year 2

In year two of your Politics, Sexuality and Gender degree you build your knowledge of the subject. You explore contemporary theories and practices of government and policy and examine key thematic issues relating to sexuality and gender, including the relationship between bodies and power. You'll get to specialise in the subjects that interest you most through choosing optional modules.

Core modules

• UK Politics
• Gender, Race and the Environment
• We, the People
• Unruly Bodies: Understanding and Contesting Normativity

Options*

• Global Challenges Lab: Research Communication
• Debating Contemporary International Relations
• Authority, Democracy and Justice
• Queer Writing
• Gender and Sexuality
• Researching Politics
• International Institutions
• Global Challenges Lab: Policy Solutions
• Experiencing the Workplace: Practices and the Community

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Final year

In your final year you will further develop your knowledge and skills, with a specific focus on the future and progressive change. You will explore the place of sexuality and gender in contemporary theories of social transformation and work with an external campaigning organisation to develop your understanding of how civil society groups can make interventions in the political sphere.

You also work on a major independent research project, supported by an academic supervisor. The project is an opportunity for you to develop an idea independently, using the skills you have honed throughout your course. Option modules provide more opportunities to focus on subjects that interest and intrigue you.

Modules

• Social Change Project OR Politics Dissertation
• Activism and Social Change
• Sexual Utopias: Imagining Radical Futures

Options*

• Community Placement: Theory in Practice

• Language, Gender and Sexuality

• Radical Political Economy and Anarchist Politics

• Global Social Policy
• Politics of the Right
• Colonialism, Capitalism and Climate Crisis
• Care, Ethics and Social Policy
• Psychology of Poverty
• Human Rights and Humanitarian Intervention
• Utopian Theory and Practice
• Feminism and Post-feminism

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Lab facilities

Mithras House is home to all our School of Humanities and Social Science courses. It has a series of ‘labs’, which may be used for teaching on your course or in your independent research work.

Life lab
A comfortable space with lounge furniture intended for qualitative research with larger groups. Due to its relaxed layout and naturalistic environment, the space is suited to research using focus groups, research using observation-based methods and child research.

The space is also used for teaching on some social science courses, as well as for dissertation research for projects.
 
City lab
A space designed for collaborative student learning. It is used by students and staff involved in the university’s Global Challenges programme, our collective mission to contribute towards solutions to tackling the pressing issues facing our world.

Design lab
A space housing our extensive collection of historic dress and textiles, which are used in some teaching on our History of Art and Design courses. It has the space and equipment to work on textile projects. Displays created by students on these programmes are on view in the social spaces of the building.

Stats lab
A specialist workspace with computing equipment for statistical analysis and projects involving video and audio editing software. The lab is accessible as a study space to students on psychology courses.

It is also available to students studying courses involving video and audio recording and editing, such as politics degrees and our creative writing programmes. The stats lab contains eight soundproof booths for recording or transcribing interviews undertaken as part of dissertation research.

VR and eye tracking lab
This lab is used for psychological research, specifically eye-tracking research and virtual reality research. Equipment includes an electroencephalography (EEG) headset and Electrodermal Activity (EDA) equipment.

Meet the team

Dr Joanna Kellond, course leader

Joanna's current research explores the relationship between theories of subjectivity and Critical Theory. She is interested in how understandings of subjectivity shape both social policy and critical theories of emancipation, with a particular focus on ideas about child development, gender, intersectionality and care.

More broadly, her research interests include psychoanalytic theory and praxis; psychoanalysis and social justice; the politics of mental health; Critical Theory; feminist theory; gender studies; cultural studies; the politics of reproduction and care. Read Joanna's full profile.

Other staff who teach on the course include: Dr Clare Woodford, Dr Heba Youssef, Dr Chris Wyatt, Prof Mark Devenney, Dr Robin Dunford, Dr German Primera Villamiza, Dr Chrystie Myketiak and Dr Zoe Sutherland.

Course fees

The fees listed here are for the first year of full-time study if you start your course in the academic year 2024–25.

You will pay fees for each year of your course. Some fees may increase each year.

UK undergraduate and some postgraduate fees are regulated by the UK government and increases will not be more than the maximum amount allowed. Course fees that are not regulated may increase each year by up to 5% or RPI (whichever is higher).

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

Find out more

• Brighton Boost – cost of living help for our new undergrad students. Find out about how we can help with your study, accommodation or travel costs and more...
• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international undergraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• Read our student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf) for more on University of Brighton tuition fees.

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