Criminology and Sociology

CRM4001
Being a Criminologist 20 credits

This module is organised around the idea of the competent criminologist. It informs students about the constituent elements of competence, which include knowledge of crime, crime control and the wider contexts in which these are constructed; skills that facilitate the collection, use and critical analysis of academic, official and mediated sources of knowledge about crime; and values and ethics that inform both understandings and debates about crime and crime control. It seeks to provide students with a grounding of what it means to be a competent criminologist.

SOC4002
Social Identities and Inequalities 20 credits

This module explores how and why social inequalities influence lived experience and social identities. It focuses on a range of substantive issues, such as poverty, social class and hierarchies, health, gender and sexuality, family and kinship, neo-colonialism and 'race', and violence and ethnicity. This module explores how these influence culture, social identities and lived experience throughout the life-course.

SOC4004
Introduction to Social Theory 20 credits

This module introduces students to key features of classical social theory. These features are placed within the context of the Enlightenment, Modernity, the emergence of modern science and social science, and their use for contemporary social analyses.

CRM4006
Introduction to Criminological Theory

This module introduces students to criminological theory. The module addresses the importance of theory in criminology and professional policing, critically examines a range of criminological theories, and applies criminological thought to a variety of practical concerns throughout history, including contemporary social life and problem-solving policing.

CRM4008
Forensic Criminology: Criminal Investigations

Examining police investigation techniques and methods from crime scene to court. Students conduct a criminal homicide investigation scenario looking at crime scene investigation, forensic science and the use of evidence, within the construction and prosecution of criminal cases. Students will also learn about professionalisation, ethics, accountability, legitimacy, profiling and the media.

CRM4009
The Criminal Justice System: Police, Prosecution, Probation

Examining responses to crime primarily in England & Wales, drawing upon comparative examples and focusing on the criminal justice process, extending to crime founded upon different rationalities, such as restorative justice and risk management. This module incorporates workshops from our School-level employability lead about opportunities and support, including details of the optional placement year.

CRM5004
Critical Perspectives on Crime Control 20 credits

This module examines a range of critical social scientific perspectives which have sought to make sense of crime control within its wider social context and in terms of its wider social significance. It considers the contributions of key social science theorists such as Stanley Cohen, David Garland, and Loic Wacquant and others whose work has focused upon crime control, and it seeks to apply their core ideas in order to illuminate our understanding of contemporary features of policy and practice.

SOC5011
Contemporary Theories of Society and Culture

The module introduces current theoretical disputes framed within the context of classical and early modern theories of society and culture. These debates are linked to historical events and social and cultural research that reciprocally influence contemporary theoretical change. Foundational disciplinary questions are broached, and formative critical workshops assist in developing theoretical analysis and evaluation.

SOC5014
Theories and Practices of Punishment and Rehabilitation

This module focuses on punishment and rehabilitation in the context of criminal justice in the 21st century, namely the purpose of the justice system in a contemporary context, punishment and/or rehabilitation? The module places a critical emphasis on the experience of learning about crime and justice within a CJS context and working collaboratively to create a critical and reflective dialogue on crime and justice issues.

SSR5000
Designing Research from Questions to Proposals

In this module, students develop their knowledge and practical skills in qualitative and quantitative social research methodologies. The students also learn how to use computer software packages to help with the collection and analysis of data. In addition, students gain knowledge of how to create a research proposal.

CRM5010
Beyond the Mainstream, Critical and Alternative Perspectives

This module takes recent developments in criminological theory and analyses the potential for criminology as a discipline to contribute to understanding, contextualising and countering some of the greatest challenges facing society and the planet today. The emphasis on harm tests the boundaries of mainstream criminology and encourages students to think beyond social and legal constructions of crime.

ARH5009MX
Politics of Renaissance Art

This module offers historically based study in the art and culture of Europe c.1300 - 1600. It uses focused treatments of particular periods/regions/groupings to analyse the relationship between power, patronage and ideology. Attention will be paid especially to closely focused studies of selected historical instances of art practice and/or historiographical and methodological issues of relevance.

LHSS5000
Stage 2 Professional Development, Placement Preparation and identifying opportunities

This module is for students in the School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences who are interested in undertaking an optional placement in the third year of their programme. It supports students in their search, application, and preparation for the placement, including developing interview techniques and effective application materials (e.g. CVs, portfolios, and cover letters).

ANT5012MX
Worlds Otherwise: Science Fiction, Digital Realms and the Anthropology of the Future

This module teaches students how to use ethnographic methods to make sense of the internet, which we now increasingly inhabit. Students learn how to navigate and analyse platforms such as Facebook or TikTok. They study how these technologies transform our relationships, identities, and ideas of truth. The module also examines the socio-cultural and ethical aspects of digital worlds (e.g. Second life).

ENG5020MX
World Literatures

This module examines literatures written in English from around the world, explore what literature can tell us about cultural imaginaries of world, globe and planet in an era in which global interactions have increasingly come to shape our lives.

SOC5012
Food, Culture and Society

This module aims to provide a critical understanding of sociological issues relating to food and foodways, (the beliefs and behaviours surrounding the production, distribution and consumption of food both on an individual and collective level). The module encourages critical reflection and practical experience of research in the area of food and foodways, with a focus on lived experience.

CRM5011MX
Crime, Criminology and Film

The module aims to provide students with a critical appreciation of harm and crime by exploring relevant issues from film, television, music, fiction literature and art. By applying a criminological lens to different forms of popular culture, students will be able to examine a variety of media forms in terms of its content and its contemporary political, social and economic context using different theories and concepts.

HIS6017MX
The Secret Cold War: Culture, Espionage, and Identity, 1945-1991

This module examines Cold War competition through cultural, intelligence, and ideological dimensions. Topics include cultural diplomacy, propaganda systems, espionage operations, proxy conflicts, and the weaponisation of race and gender identities. Students analyse primary sources to understand how soft power and covert operations shaped superpower rivalry between 1945-1991 and beyond.

LHSS6000
School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Placement Year

Students have the opportunity to gain work experience that will set them apart in the job market when they graduate by undertaking an optional flexible placement year. The placement must be a minimum of 24-weeks (which can be split between a maximum of two different placement providers) and up to a maximum of 48-weeks over the course of the academic year. The placement is flexible and can be undertaken virtually, part or full time and either paid or voluntary. Students will have the option to undertake their placement year abroad. This year allows them to apply and hone the knowledge and skills acquired from the previous years of their programme in the real world.

SSR6000
Dissertation

This module provides students with the opportunity to undertake their own sociological, criminological, professional policing or anthropological research project, working independently but under the supervision of an academic member of staff from the relevant discipline.

CRM6006
Working for Justice 20 credits

This module supports students to reflect on the knowledge, skills and experience that they have acquired throughout their degree/extra-curricular activities, in order to focus on their vision for future employment and related activities. Students will engage with academics, careers and employability staff and practitioners working within the criminal justice field, and so develop concrete ideas for their pathways into employment and/or ongoing study.

SOC6002
Food, Culture and Society 20 credits

This module aims to provide a critical understanding of sociological issues relating to food and foodways, (the beliefs and behaviours surrounding the production, distribution and consumption of food both on an individual and collective level). The module encourages critical reflection and practical experience of research in the area of food and foodways, with a focus on lived experience.

CRM6016MX
Green Criminology: Climate Justice and the Planetary Crisis

This module will address theoretical perspectives, methodological issues, and empirical research related to the field of green criminology, including applied concerns, such as policy and social/political praxis, through a range of concepts, topics, and themes that are central to green criminology.

ANT6003
Gifts, Commodities and Crises: A contemporary guide to economic anthropology 20 credits

This module that uses ethnographic evidence from across the world to examine how humans exploit their environments (and each other) to make a living. Focus will be on how “value” is socially produced, on how to make sense of the different ways in which people produce, distribute, consume, accumulate, and own resources, and on how economic practices interact with other spheres of society.

ARH6009MX
Politics of Renaissance Art

This module offers historically based study in the art and culture of Europe c.1300 - 1600. It uses focused treatments of particular periods/regions/groupings to analyse the relationship between power, patronage and ideology. Attention will be paid especially to closely focused studies of selected historical instances of art practice and/or historiographical and methodological issues of relevance.

HIS6017MX
The Secret Cold War: Culture, Espionage, and Identity, 1945-1991

This module examines Cold War competition through cultural, intelligence, and ideological dimensions. Topics include cultural diplomacy, propaganda systems, espionage operations, proxy conflicts, and the weaponisation of race and gender identities. Students analyse primary sources to understand how soft power and covert operations shaped superpower rivalry between 1945-1991 and beyond.

PIR6013MX
Foreign Policy: Issues, Actors and Explanations

This module introduces students to the study of foreign policy. It explores a range of theories to explain how and why foreign policy decisions are made, and it then seeks to apply them to case studies drawn from international politics. The aim is to improve understanding of how foreign policy decisions are made, and to subsequently provide explanations.

SOC6007
Theories and Practices of Punishment and Rehabilitation

This module focuses on punishment and rehabilitation in the context of criminal justice in the 21st century, namely the purpose of the justice system in a contemporary context, punishment and/or rehabilitation? The module places a critical emphasis on the experience of learning about crime and justice within a CJS context and working collaboratively to create a critical and reflective dialogue on crime and justice issues.

CRM6012
Critical Hate Studies 20 credits

This module presents the problem of ‘hate crime’ to students by identifying legislation, policy and practice that has been framed within its context in the UK and abroad. It will deconstruct the notion of hate crime and provide a critical reflection on the notion of ‘hate’ and its manifestations in late modernity.

CRM6019
Deviant Leisure

This module explores contemporary developments within the study of leisure and consumerism, offering a theoretically informed understanding of key issues at the forefront of the discipline. Students will have the opportunity to study the changing nature of criminology’s engagement with leisure against a backdrop of global consumer capitalism.

CRM6020
Gender, Sexuality and Society

This module critically examines steadfast and emergent social issues at the interplay between social control and the social, providing students with a critical understanding of how the social is regulated socially, culturally and legally. We will do this by looking as social issues in urban space. We will explore meanings, cultural significance, and political consequences from a criminological perspective.

CRM6021
Terrorism, Radicalisation and Extremism

This module provides students with an opportunity to explore the nature and contours of contemporary terrorist threats in a domestic and international context, and the infrastructures, policy frameworks, practices and technologies through which such threats are countered and responded to, both in the real and virtual worlds.

SOC6006
The Politics of Wasted Lives

The module explores contemporary theories of surplus populations and how aspects of Modernity actively ‘wastes’ or makes superfluous the lives of outcast communities (eg. refugees, slum communities, segregated, concentrated and incarcerated peoples). Students critically reflect upon the political and ethical dimensions of social science for its part in Modernity’s processes and the wider impact of social research.