French and Philosophy BA

Welcome to French at the University of Nottingham — this is where your journey to fluency will really begin to take off!

Designed for students who have completed an A level (or equivalent) in the language, this module will support you to improve in all the key areas of language acquisition: reading, writing, listening and speaking.

We'll support you to continue growing your language abilities, improving your speaking, comprehension and grammar usage through a wide range of source materials and lively classroom conversations.

You'll also become more culturally aware of the countries that make up the Francophone world and get a better understanding of their varying current affairs and culture.

This is the starting point for your French Studies journey at Nottingham. Having studied French at A level you’ll already have a good command of the language but now it’s time to go deeper. Together we’ll explore a variety of topics to help you develop a fuller understanding of the history and cultures of France and the Francophone world. These topics may include linguistics, politics, history, thought, literature, media, visual culture and cinema.

You’ll study a range of different texts, images and film, through which we’ll help you develop the core study skills necessary for studying this subject at degree level, such as close reading, essay writing, commentary writing, bibliographical and referencing skills, and visual analysis.

This module aims to introduce you to the course of French history since the French Revolution through the study of a series of historical figures, including Olympe de Gouges, Toussaint Louverture, Napoleon Bonaparte, George Sand and Charles de Gaulle. You will look at the way in which their 'stories' have been written and woven into the fabric of 'le roman de la nation', and how they have been appropriated to serve a range of different ends. It will also introduce you to the iconography of the French historical landscape. This module is worth 10 credits.

This module aims to introduce you to the comparative study of literature and culture, focusing in particular on how the city of Paris is represented in a range of texts (poetic, narrative and filmic) in the modern period (post-1800).

You will learn reading techniques adapted to different genres and media, and representations of the city will be considered within their broader social, historical and political context.

On this module, you will focus on a selection of themes that explore the distinctive social and political landscape of contemporary France: French political institutions, with particular emphasis on the presidency; political parties in France; and immigration and questions of identity.

A close analysis of these themes will provide you with a general understanding of contemporary French society and institutions. In more specific terms, you will begin to explore the ways in which France is faced with the challenge of adapting its republican traditions to a changing world.

This module aims to introduce you to the comparative study of literature and culture, focusing in particular on how the city of Paris is represented in a range of texts (poetic, narrative and filmic) in the modern period (post-1800). You will learn reading techniques adapted to different genres and media, and representations of the city will be considered within their broader social, historical and political context.

Welcome to French at the University of Nottingham — this is where your journey to fluency shall begin!

Designed for students who have little or no prior knowledge of the language, this intensive study module will support you to develop in all the key areas of language acquisition: reading, writing, listening, speaking and grammatical competence.

We'll use a set text book, but to keep the classes engaging and interesting, we'll also use a variety of contemporary texts which may include literature, newspapers, websites and audio recordings.

You'll also become more culturally aware of the countries that make up the French-speaking world and get a better understanding of their varying current affairs and culture.

This module aims to introduce you to the course of French history since the French Revolution through the study of a series of historical figures, including Olympe de Gouges, Toussaint Louverture, Napoleon Bonaparte, George Sand and Charles de Gaulle. You will look at the way in which their 'stories' have been written and woven into the fabric of 'le roman de la nation', and how they have been appropriated to serve a range of different ends. It will also introduce you to the iconography of the French historical landscape. This module is worth 10 credits.

This module is designed as an introduction to some of the main skills required to study literature by looking at landmark French texts (novels and films) in English translation. By choosing texts with varied thematic and formal features the module will give an insight into the range of themes and issues which have preoccupied writers in France, as well as the fictional forms they have used to explore these themes. The module will raise your awareness of a range of literary styles and techniques and the ways in which these may influence the reader. This module is for students taking French 1 Beginners only.

Ideas are at the heart of philosophy. Creating them, arguing your case and defending your thinking is a core skill. Equally, being able to interrogate other people's arguments is essential.

The knowledge, skills and tools to do this can be learnt. And that's what we'll do together in this module. We'll help you to:

• understand the nature and structure of arguments
• acquire critical tools for assessing the arguments of others
• improve your ability to present your own reasoning in a clear and rigorous manner, particularly in essays

Philosophy isn't just about opinions and arguments. It's also about clear proof. So we'll also develop some knowledge of logic and its technical vocabulary.

As a core first year module it will help you develop some of the key skills you need to philosophise with confidence.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This is your main starting point to explore philosophical thinking about understanding ourselves and relationship with the world.

It introduces several different areas of philosophy, and the links between them. These include:

• philosophy of the mind
• perception
• epistemology
• agency
• normative ethics
• meta-ethics

Some of the key issues we'll look at include:

• the relationship between mind and body
• free will
• moral scepticism and relativism
• the nature of moral judgements

We know our students come with a wide range of philosophical knowledge and skills so this core first-year module helps develop a common level of:

• understanding of philosophical terms and concepts
• skills in argument and debate

This gives you the building blocks for successful study and philosophising in the rest of your degree.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Philosophy can teach us to ask hard questions and help change the world for the better. 

We'll help you develop the skills to critically understand and constructively engage with a wide range of contemporary issues. Together we'll tackle topics relevant to university life and wider society. You should finish the module with a greater understanding of:

• the value of philosophical thinking in relation to the contemporary world
• using key philosophical arguments, concepts and methods in everyday contexts

Possible topics we'll look at

• What is the purpose of education?
• Why value free speech?
• Censorship and pornography
• Race and Racism
• Sexual identities
• Disability
• Implicit bias
• People, animals and the environment
• Migration and refugees
• Drugs and sport
• Ethics and artificial intelligence
• Mental illness

This module is worth 20 credits.

Come and explore some fundamental thinking about the world around us and our knowledge of it.

You'll look at questions such as:

• metaphysics – how should we think about the identity of things over time and through change? What does your personal identity over time consist in?
• philosophy of science – is science the guide to all of reality? Is there a scientific method?
• philosophy of language – what is truth? Is truth relative? Does language create reality?

An ideal introduction to metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of language.

This module is worth 10 credits.

• What is institutional racism?
• What do feminists mean when they say, 'The personal is political'?
• Are borders unjust?
• Are direct action and criminal damage legitimate forms of protest?

These are just some of the questions you'll think about on this module.

We'll take a critical look at some of the answers given by thinkers across the political spectrum, from right-wing libertarians like Robert Nozick to socialist anarchists like Emma Goldman.

We'll also look at some of the political contexts in which these questions have been asked and answered. This might include the:

• Peterloo Massacre
• civil rights movement
• invention of the police
• Paris Commune of 1871
• Black Lives Matter and Youth Strike4Climate movements

This module is worth 20 credits.

All religions have a distinctive philosophical framework. Together we'll look at some of the common concerns such as:

• the variety of conceptions of ultimate reality
• goals for the spiritual life
• the nature of religious experience
• the relations of religion and morality
• explanations of suffering and evil
• human nature and continuing existence after death

As there is such a range of beliefs we'll also look at the problems of religious diversity.

Some of the sources we draw on might include (but is not limited to):

• atheists - Feuerbach, Nietzsche
• Buddhists - Śāntideva, Dōgen, Thich Nhat Hanh
• Christians - Augustine, Pascal, Weil
• Hindus - such as the writers of the Upanisads and Shankara
• Jews - Spinoza, Buber
• Muslims - Mulla Sadra, Nasr
• Taoists - Zhuangzi

More contemporary thinkers might also be included.

With such a wide range of issues and traditions the exact mix will vary - each year will focus on a few key thinkers and themes.

This module is worth 10 credits.

Philosophy develops, confronts and destroys previous thinking. It reinforces the status quo and acts as a foundation for revolution. It's a product of its time and helps to shape the future.

Together we'll become familiar with some of the main philosophical ideas and thinkers that have shaped philosophy. And you'll come to understand how and why these ideas arose and developed in response to wider contexts and movements.

Influential thinkers might include:

• Plato and Aristotle
• Ibn-Tufayl and Ibn-Rushd
• Montaigne, Locke and Wollstonecraft
• Marx and Gandhi
• Fanon, Sartre and de Beauvoir
• Murdoch

Particular topics might include:

• ancient Greek conceptions of the good life
• reason and tradition in classical Islamic philosophy
• medieval philosophy
• existentialism
• Afro-Caribbean philosophy

You won't be taught whether any of these thinkers and thoughts were right. But by the end of the module you'll be able to recognise and judge for yourself the strengths and weaknesses of arguments on both sides of each philosophical issue.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module will build on the French language and cultural skills you developed in year one and get you started on your exciting journey towards degree-level French. We're going to take your language skills to the next level and by the end of this module you'll be ready to spend time living in a French-speaking country.

We'll push you to improve your confidence in reading comprehension, listening comprehension and oral skills. In addition to this you'll get the opportunity to develop your French writing skills through a variety of tasks such as creative writing, summary writing and even resume writing. You'll also practice translation activities.

We'll keep your studies interesting and relevant by using a variety of contemporary texts including journalistic articles and audio-visual clips.

The module is designed to introduce you to this particular period of French cinema by offering a detailed study of the New Wave of the late 1950s and early 1960s, focusing in particular on the films of Godard, Truffaut, Resnais and Chabrol.

As the module will show, New Wave film-makers often employed a variety of new and challenging formal techniques in order to make films that reflected an emergent, modern, iconoclastic sensibility in post-war France. For these reasons, the module combines a contextual approach with introductory teaching in film analysis.

Explore possible career avenues and gain practical experience in this interesting module which will show you how to apply your language learning to translation.

You'll gain a good understanding of the key concepts of translation theory, including equivalence, text type and skopos alongside linguistic theories such as register and relevance.

With these theories under your belt, you'll be guided through their application to your own translations. We'll work on the translation of a variety of texts to help you strengthen and embed your new skills.

This module engages in a detailed analysis of four recent Francophone films that deal with contemporary social issues and institutions: Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, L’Enfant (2005); Jacques Audiard, Un prophète (2009); Thomas Lilti, Hippocrate (2014); Stéphane Brizé, La loi du marché (2015). It focuses on the way in which the films present characters in a social context. The module looks at the ways in which these characters are subject to economic forces, interact with institutions, and function as members of social groups. The films are analysed from a formal perspective, considering the ways in which they all draw on the resources of cinematic realism in order to provide a representation of contemporary life that is both compelling and challenging for viewers.

This module explores contemporary art and media production in France and beyond, looking at how recent French art and ideas feature in and contribute to a cultural world-system. We will be looking at pioneering artworks from the late 20th century and the 21st century, examining work in film, visual art of many genres, photography, music and also media technology.

Beginning with key foundational artists from the 1960s and 1970s, we move on to consider works across artistic media, mostly from the 21st century, and this will form the principal course content.

We will be looking at the work of individual artists in detail, both for the value of the work, but also to explore how contemporary cultural production reflects and reacts to the world in which it is made. Visual art is particularly useful in this context as it necessarily contains a reflective element, and this is often critical of existing situations. We will also incorporate key readings by theorists who have reflected on the themes, media, technology and politics of both art and culture in the broader sense.

This module offers students an opportunity to explore actual cultural, economic and social differences within modern France through its representations in contemporary filmmaking. Beyond narrative themes, students will gain an understanding of how filmmakers engage the formal resources of cinema, both fiction and documentary, to capture the specificities of diverse spaces and places and to invite reflection on larger questions of identity and community, nation and citizenship, mobility and belonging.

What better way is there to truly understand a nation than by studying its literature and politics?

We’ll examine the various ways in which French writers have engaged with the political struggles of their time. By looking at ‘committed’ literature (which is literature that defends an ethical, political, religious or social view) produced by key authors you’ll learn how to unpick the tension between literature and politics that has shaped modern France.

Focusing on texts ranging from the novels of Jules Verne through to Élisabeth Vonarburg, this module will engage with key themes in French science fiction writing. Whether it deals with the discoveries of new worlds or the confrontation with new technologies, science fiction as a genre expresses the anxieties and hopes specific to the contemporary era. Science fiction is political in that it deals with questions of power, ecology and science. It is also philosophical, since it calls into question boundaries between cultures, times, genres and species. Drawing on these political and philosophical dimensions, the module will look in particular at how science fiction explores the ways in which identity is constructed and reconfigured by material and technological forces.

This module provides you with an introduction to the rich field of study known as sociolinguistics, which investigates the relationship between language and society through an exploration of the social contexts of language use.

Particular areas of focus in any one year of the module could include:

• intercultural communication
• politeness and face
• linguistic determinism
• power and solidarity
• language choice
• speech act theory
• the ethnography of communication
• language and gender
• approaches to the study of discourse/talk

This module is an introduction to the study of 18th century French literature, through a variety of texts chosen to offer an accessible approach to the period’s main literary genres and movements of thought. Alongside an investigation of how literature developed during this era, you will consider key questions that thinkers and writers grappled with:

• What is like to fall in love?
• What is happiness and how do we find it?
• How important is personal freedom?
• Are people naturally good?
• How do we live well with others?
• How do we learn about the world and make sense of our experiences?

You may wonder why 19^th Century French art is relevant to a student wanting to better understand today’s Francophone communities. To answer this let us take you back to a time pre-internet, pre-television, pre-photography to when historical art was a key communication tool for any society.

Together, we’ll examine eight French paintings from the key historical period of the Consulate (1799) to the Paris Commune (1871). By discovering what French citizens gained from ‘reading’ these images you will better understand their relationship with national identity, religion and political culture. It is these historical ideologies that laid the foundation for contemporary French society and your understanding of this will help you form a more thorough and nuanced appreciation of contemporary France and the Francophone world.

Among the huit tableaux to be discussed are David's Sacre de Napoléon, Delacroix's La Liberté guidant le peuple, and Meissonier's Le Siège de Paris.

Hear Dr Paul Smith give a brief overview of this module.

This module focuses on developments in French theatre in the mid-twentieth century. This includes plays that dramatise existentialist issues, as well as examples of what was known as the Theatre of the Absurd: a new, experimental approach to theatre, which flourished in France in the 1950s and 1960s. Authors studied will include Sartre, Beckett and Ionesco, and the module will analyse dramatic technique and theory, along with performance. The module will explore the various ways in which these plays challenged dramatic conventions and how they engaged with fundamental questions relating to meaning, causality, language and society.

This module will build on the language and cultural skills developed in last year's beginners' classes. Over the year we'll take you to the next level so that by the end of the module you'll be ready to spend time living in a French-speaking country.

We'll further develop your reading, listening, summary, translation and communication skills, building your confidence so that you feel happy working or studying abroad during year three.

This is the starting point for your French Studies journey at Nottingham. Having studied French at A level you’ll already have a good command of the language but now it’s time to go deeper. Together we’ll explore a variety of topics to help you develop a fuller understanding of the history and cultures of France and the Francophone world. These topics may include linguistics, politics, history, thought, literature, media, visual culture and cinema.

You’ll study a range of different texts, images and film, through which we’ll help you develop the core study skills necessary for studying this subject at degree level, such as close reading, essay writing, commentary writing, bibliographical and referencing skills, and visual analysis.

This module aims to introduce you to the comparative study of literature and culture, focusing in particular on how the city of Paris is represented in a range of texts (poetic, narrative and filmic) in the modern period (post-1800).

You will learn reading techniques adapted to different genres and media, and representations of the city will be considered within their broader social, historical and political context.

What better way is there to truly understand a nation than by studying its literature and politics?

We’ll examine the various ways in which French writers have engaged with the political struggles of their time. By looking at ‘committed’ literature (which is literature that defends an ethical, political, religious or social view) produced by key authors you’ll learn how to unpick the tension between literature and politics that has shaped modern France.

Focusing on texts ranging from the novels of Jules Verne through to Élisabeth Vonarburg, this module will engage with key themes in French science fiction writing. Whether it deals with the discoveries of new worlds or the confrontation with new technologies, science fiction as a genre expresses the anxieties and hopes specific to the contemporary era. Science fiction is political in that it deals with questions of power, ecology and science. It is also philosophical, since it calls into question boundaries between cultures, times, genres and species. Drawing on these political and philosophical dimensions, the module will look in particular at how science fiction explores the ways in which identity is constructed and reconfigured by material and technological forces.

This module provides you with an introduction to the rich field of study known as sociolinguistics, which investigates the relationship between language and society through an exploration of the social contexts of language use.

Particular areas of focus in any one year of the module could include:

• intercultural communication
• politeness and face
• linguistic determinism
• power and solidarity
• language choice
• speech act theory
• the ethnography of communication
• language and gender
• approaches to the study of discourse/talk

This module is an introduction to the study of 18th century French literature, through a variety of texts chosen to offer an accessible approach to the period’s main literary genres and movements of thought. Alongside an investigation of how literature developed during this era, you will consider key questions that thinkers and writers grappled with:

• What is like to fall in love?
• What is happiness and how do we find it?
• How important is personal freedom?
• Are people naturally good?
• How do we live well with others?
• How do we learn about the world and make sense of our experiences?

You may wonder why 19^th Century French art is relevant to a student wanting to better understand today’s Francophone communities. To answer this let us take you back to a time pre-internet, pre-television, pre-photography to when historical art was a key communication tool for any society.

Together, we’ll examine eight French paintings from the key historical period of the Consulate (1799) to the Paris Commune (1871). By discovering what French citizens gained from ‘reading’ these images you will better understand their relationship with national identity, religion and political culture. It is these historical ideologies that laid the foundation for contemporary French society and your understanding of this will help you form a more thorough and nuanced appreciation of contemporary France and the Francophone world.

Among the huit tableaux to be discussed are David's Sacre de Napoléon, Delacroix's La Liberté guidant le peuple, and Meissonier's Le Siège de Paris.

Hear Dr Paul Smith give a brief overview of this module.

This module focuses on developments in French theatre in the mid-twentieth century. This includes plays that dramatise existentialist issues, as well as examples of what was known as the Theatre of the Absurd: a new, experimental approach to theatre, which flourished in France in the 1950s and 1960s. Authors studied will include Sartre, Beckett and Ionesco, and the module will analyse dramatic technique and theory, along with performance. The module will explore the various ways in which these plays challenged dramatic conventions and how they engaged with fundamental questions relating to meaning, causality, language and society.

The module begins with an exploration of various theories of naming, paying particular attention to the works of Frege, Russell (including the theory of descriptions), and Kripke. We then turn our attention to various puzzles concerning the nature of meaning, including the distinction between analytic and synthetic sentences.

In the final part of the module, we move on to a discussion of some of the mainstream theories of meaning; particularly, a truth-conditional semantics, and we explore how this might be developed to take into account indexical terms such as 'I', 'now', and 'here'. Some of the skills acquired in Elementary Logic will be applied in this module.

We all have opinions about moral matters. But for most of us, our moral opinions are not very well-organised. Indeed, upon reflection we may discover that some of our beliefs about morality are inconsistent.

Normative ethics is the branch of moral philosophy that attempts to systematize everyday judgements about the rightness and wrongness of actions.

It's a wide area of study and we'll focus on two traditions within it:

• contractualism - which holds that the rightness and wrongness of acts depends on principles no one could reasonably reject
• character ethics - which emphasises the relationship between right action and good and bad character

By the end you'll have a clear understanding of:

• the aims and methodologies of involved
• some of the main theories, such as consequentialism, deontology, contractualism and virtue ethics (and some of their influential variants)

You'll also be able to:

• reason to a well thought-out position on various topics in ethics
• develop your own views, drawing upon the sources on which the module focuses

This module is worth 20 credits.

Where does the mind meet the world? In sensory perception.

By perceiving, we become conscious of a reality beyond our minds. Or do we?

Mind and Consciousness explores perception and perceptual consciousness.

It asks question such as:

• Do we really perceive a world beyond our minds?
• What are the theories of perception and perceptual consciousness?
• How do we distinguish different senses – what makes seeing different from hearing?
• Can our perceptions be biased? Do our prejudices change the way we see things?
• Is dreaming perceiving, or does it belong to another category of mind like imagining?

By the end of this module, you'll be able to:

• understand the main positions in the philosophy of perception
• analyse and evaluate rival views on these topics

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module explores contemporary treatments of issues pertaining to knowledge and the justification of belief. It addresses issues such as the following:

• The structure of justification and its relation to one's mental states and evidence (foundationalism vs. coherentism; internalism vs.externalism; evidentialism)
• The justification of induction; the notion of a priori justification
• The relation between your evidence and what you know
• The natures of perceptual experience and perceptual knowledge
• Safety and contextualist theories of knowledge
• Moore's response to scepticism
• Testimonial knowledge, "virtue" epistemology and its relation to "reliabilist" epistemology

Metaethics is about how ethics works. It's not about judging whether something is morally good or bad in any particular instance but critiquing the foundations used to make the judgements. Some of the questions we might ask are:

• Are there moral facts?
• What is moral truth?
• Do psychopaths really understand moral language?

Like many areas of philosophy metaethics has several branches and by the end of this module you'll be able to:

• understand the main positions in contemporary metaethics
• analyse and evaluate rival views on these topics

This module is worth 20 credits.

For a good pre-module introduction to the subject have a read of chapter six of Ethics for A level by Mark Dimmock and Andrew Fisher. It's an open-source resource so free to access.

What is science? Is there a scientific method, and if so, what is it? Can science tell us what the world is really like? Is it the only way to know what the world is really like? Does science progress? What is a paradigm and when/how does it shift? Is science socially constructed? Can a sociological study of the practice of science tell us anything about the nature of science? Is science "value-neutral"? Should we save society from science? What are "the science wars" and who won?

These are some of the questions we will explore in this module. We will start with the positivism-empiricism of the early 20th century and culminate with the postmodernism-relativism of the late-20th century and its aftermath.

Readings will include seminal works by Ayer, Hempel, Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyeraband, Bloor, and Laudan. While we may consider various examples from the history of science, no background knowledge of science or logic (beyond elementary first-year logic) is presupposed. 

This module addresses issues in social metaphysics and social epistemology. We will examine the metaphysics of social kinds and explore different accounts of social kinds that have been offered. We will also examine how the fact that we are situated in a social world can affect what we can or cannot know or understand about ourselves, each other, and the social world itself. We will also address ethical and/or political issues that arise once we take account of social metaphysics and social epistemology.

In particular, we might consider whether there are special kinds of injustices that arise due to our social reality. What is epistemic injustice and how does it relate to social injustice? How do certain privileged groups structure the social world that create and maintain privilege and patterns of ignorance that perpetuate that privilege? What are some obligations that we have, given metaphysical and epistemological concerns we have explored? 

• Are you obliged to obey the law even when you disagree with it?
• What features must a state have in order to be legitimate?

In this module we will approach these classic questions of political philosophy by examining the work of a number of important past political philosophers. This might include Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau but this isn't a fixed list - it may vary according to particular issues and student input.

We will look at both:

• why the thinkers' works have been open to different interpretations
• evaluate their arguments under these different interpretations

This module is worth 20 credits.

We look at some fundamental metaphysical questions about the cosmos. A selection of the following topics will be studied:

• Objects: concrete vs. abstract; existence and nothingness
• Sets and mereology
• Properties, Property bearers, Relations
• States of affairs and non-mereological composition
• Modality (including counterfactuals) and possible worlds
• Time, persistence, change, and the non-present

• What is art?
• Is there a relationship between art and ethics?
• What is the relationship between art and emotion?

Together we'll explore these philosophical issues and more. By the end of the module you'll:

• have a good awareness of many of the critical debates in the philosophy of art
• recognise and judge for yourself the strengths and weaknesses of arguments on the issues

This module is worth 20 credits.

We'll examine the Asian philosophical traditions, especially those of India, China, and Japan.

These Asian traditions address familiar philosophical themes - in ethics, epistemology, and aesthetics - but often approach them in ways that seem unfamiliar.

You may well find your culturally inherited presuppositions challenged. This is good! As global power relationships change understanding culture is vital to meaningful communication.

Topics we may cover include:

• Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism the relationship between morality and religion
• etiquette, ethics and aesthetics
• the family and moral life
• social and political philoosophy
• animals, natural environments, and human flourishing
• the nature of ultimate reality and the good life
• the relation of Asian philosophies to the Western tradition

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module explores some of the major thinkers, texts and themes of Ancient Greek philosophy. Ancient Greek philosophy stands at the beginning of the western philosophical tradition and western philosophy has been shaped by a sustained engagement with Ancient Greek thought in areas of philosophy, such as epistemology, metaphysics, ethics and political theory.

Topics and thinkers may include: Presocratic Philosophy; Heraclitus; Parmenides; the Sophistic movement; Plato and Platonism; Socrates and the Socratic Schools (Cynics, Cyrenaics and Megarics); Aristotle (ethics, political theory, natural philosophy, metaphysics); Epicurus and Epicureanism; Stoicism; Academic and Pyrrhonian Scepticism; Plotinus and Neoplatonism; Pythagoreansim. No knowledge of the Ancient Greek language is required.

This module takes formal logic beyond the basics (as covered in first year Reasoning, Argument, and Logic). We’ll cover Propositional Logic, First-Order Logic, and Modal Logic (going into more detail where these were covered in first year).

We’ll learn about existence, identity, possibility, and necessity, and we’ll learn formal techniques for testing the validity of arguments. We’ll apply these logical techniques to help us make sense of challenging concepts and arguments in metaphysics and philosophy of language.

Combine our in-depth sector knowledge with the Careers and Employability Service skills development experience to get noticed when applying for jobs and during interviews.

From constructing an outstanding CV to practicing graduate level interview skills we'll build on your existing abilities.

You'll also get something concrete to talk about through a multi-week work placement. This will be tailored as far as possible to your subject and career aspirations.

This sort of attention to detail is what makes Nottingham graduates some of the most sought after in the job market.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Following your time spent living in a French-speaking country this advanced module will be your final step towards fluency. We'll help you continue to improve your oral and written skills using a wide variety of texts.

Your grammar expertise and vocabulary shall be deepened through the production of linguistic commentary and summaries. In addition, we'll help you develop translation skills. Your French writing skills will improve immeasurably as we translate into and out of French creative writing in different registers.

This module explores how the Fifth Republic came into being and examines the problems of bedding in a regime that revolutionised French political culture without jettisoning the key features of the 'modèle républicain'.

We follow a chronological narrative of French politics between 1958 and 1969, and will also examine themes such as the ‘écriture de la constitution’, the clash of political visions and bipolarisation and its tensions. We conclude with de Gaulle's apparent act of 'political suicide' in 1969.

On this module we will look at the changing relationship between individuals and society in a French context. Key sociological concepts relating to the social construction of the individual are explored in order to analyse fiction and non-fiction texts that deal with work and social organisation in contemporary France.

The theoretical starting point of the module is Michel Foucault’s analysis of the emergence of ‘disciplinary’ societies.

Key fictional works include Laurent Cantet’s film L’emploi du temps and Thierry Beinstingel’s novel Retour aux mots sauvages.

This module looks at the various ways in which the novel has evolved and adapted to “the contemporary” by responding to the “everyday”. Giving an overview of the various approaches to the everyday in the contemporary novel from the 60s to the present, this module will explore how key authors negotiate, through their writing, the everyday’s indeterminacy and the unstable space it occupies between the social and the individual.

This module is designed to introduce you to the study of various forms of artistic work in relation to the political and social background of the French Revolutionary decade (1789 - 1799). A variety of works will be studied (theatre, opera, song, iconography, painting) in order to consider the reflection of contemporary events, the notion of politically engaged arts, and questions of cultural administration (theatrical repertory, representation, censorship and privilege).

You'll examine the range of social, political and philosophical questions raised by mass immigration to France in the post-war period. These questions will be tackled through historical analysis of patterns of migration and changing immigration policies, as well as through the study of relevant films, novels and theoretical texts which engage with questions of citizenship, identity and ethnicity.

This module will study the different ways travel has been used and represented in contemporary French and Francophone texts, arts and films. From tourism to exploration, from exile to migration, from pilgrimage to business travel, we will question the tacit ideologies found in contemporary travel discourses. We will study more specifically how contemporary discourses of travel have been, or not, adapting themselves to a post-colonial awareness and how it has enabled travellers to represent travel differently. The importance of this field has been steadily growing in between disciplines that range from literary studies to ethnography. The module will use these cross-cultural influences to create an arena in which to develop connections between key disciplines and different forms of arts (literature, ethnography, films and photography).

This module aims to introduce you to key aspects of French documentary cinema by considering a range of documentary cinematic techniques, and by looking at the ways in which documentary form has developed over time. The module examines the work of a range of filmmakers and explores the theoretical, socio-cultural and ethical questions raised by documentary cinema.

You will develop analytical tools that can be used to understand the different ways in which documentaries attempt to engage audiences and deal in sophisticated and often challenging ways with a range of issues.

This module looks at various issues relating to the field of language contact, including bilingualism, multilingualism and diglossia.

The module also explores the outcomes of such language contact:

• linguistic borrowing
• code-switching
• language maintenance
• language shift and language death
• the emergence of pidgins and creoles
• the development of language policy and planning
• the shaping of attitudes towards language

These topics will be explored by using examples from several different languages, and by looking at the French language in contact with other languages in France and further afield.

• The feminist and humanist aspects of Christine de Pizan's work.
• How Albert Memmi's philosophy of colonised identity is prefigured in his literary work.
• The representation of women in three novels by Dany Laferrière.
• The representation of women in the films of Jean-Luc Godard.
• The definition of malaise in the context of contemporary socio-economic and political issues in France.
• Presidential Power in the Fifth Republic.
• The urban landscape in surrealism.
• Translating humour from English to French.

This module focuses on the theory and practice of two modes of audio-visual translation: subtitling and dubbing.

The linguistic, technical, and cultural theoretical underpinnings of subtitling and dubbing from French into English will be examined in detail, and students will be able to put the theory into practice using professional dedicated software.

In this module students learn to devise and develop projects and teaching methods appropriate to engage the age and ability group they are working with. The module enables students to gain confidence in communicating their subject, develop strong organisational and interpersonal skills, and to understand how to address the needs of individuals.

The aim of this module is to provide you with an opportunity to write an 8,000-word dissertation on a philosophical topic, the precise subject of which is by agreement with the supervisor. At the completion of the module, you will have had an opportunity to work independently, though with the advice of a supervisor.

Karl Marx's thoughts and words have had an enormous impact on history. Revolutions have been fought, economic policies pursued and artistic movements established by followers (and opponents) of Marxism.

Together we'll examine some of Mark's original writing and explore his thinking. Specific themes we'll cover include:

• alienation
• the materialist conception of history
• ideology
• the labour theory of value

By the end of the module you should have a good overview of Marx's attempt to synthesise German philosophy, French political theory, and British economics.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module involves the study of a set of related issues concerning the nature and explanation of action and the requirements for free action and free will. Questions to be discussed are likely to include all or most of the following:

• What would it take for an action to be free (or an exercise of ‘free will’) in a sense that would make it an action for which we are morally responsible?
• Is there is any way in which our actions could be free in the relevant sense, whether or not determinism is true?
• How do actions differ from bodily movements that are not actions?
• Actions are typically (perhaps always) done for reasons, but what exactly is the relation between the reasons and the actions?
• Do the reasons cause the corresponding actions - and if they do, can this be the same kind of causation as is involved in ordinary ‘mechanistic’ causal explanation?
• And what about the fact that at least some of our actions seem to have purely physical causes?
• If they do, doesn’t this make any ‘mental causes’ of those actions redundant?
• What is the connection between intentional or voluntary action and rational action?
• In particular, it seems that we sometimes intentionally and voluntarily do things that we ourselves regard as irrational - but how is such ‘weakness of will’ possible?

In this module we'll ask questions like:

• How should human beings interact with the non-human natural world?
• Is nature intrinsically valuable, or does it possess value only by being valuable to us?

As part of this we'll cover topics such as:

• the moral status of animals
• the ethics of zoos
• responsibility for climate change
• whether there is any connection between the twin oppressions of women and nature
• the environmental impact of having children
• the ethics of restoring nature after it has been damaged by human development

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module investigates different kinds of contemporary logic, as well as their uses in philosophy. We will investigate the syntax and semantics of various logics, including first order logic, modal logics, and three-valued logics, as well as ways to apply formal techniques from these logics to philosophical topics such as possibility and necessity, vagueness, and the Liar paradox.

We’ll cover ways to reason and construct proofs using the logics we study, and also ways to reason about them. We’ll look at proofs regarding the limits of formal logic, including proofs of soundness, completeness, and decidability.

This module is an extended discussion of utilitarian approaches to moral and political philosophy, including utilitarian accounts of:

• the nature of wellbeing
• reasons and rightness
• rights and justice
• democracy
• individual decision-making
• praise and blame

This module will teach you how to communicate philosophy through a variety of different mediums, assessing them in each. We will look at how philosophy can be communicated through legal documentation, press releases, handouts, lesson plans, webpages, funding bids and posters (with optional presentations).

A number of the sessions will be delivered by professionals from outside the university, with support from the module convener. Seminars will be used to develop each of the items for assessment. You will be invited to draw upon your prior philosophical learning to generate your assessments, except in the case of handout where you will be set a specific philosophical task and asked to complete some (very basic) independent research.

Illness, ageing, death and dying are universal experiences. Yet discussion about them often only happens in times of emotional distress.

Together we'll explore philosophical issues related to human mortality in an open, supportive and compassionate way.

As well as a deeper understanding of the issues you will also build capacity to think sensitively and humanely about the human experience of ageing, illness, and dying.

Typical topics might include:

• experiences of being chronically ill
• psychiatry and mental health
• the oppression of ill persons · illness narratives
• the moral and spiritual significance of illness
• the experience of dying
• empathy, grief, and mourning
• death and the meaning of life
• the significance of human mortality to wider philosophical issues and concerns

This module is worth 20 credits.

We expect recompense when we work but appear to do recreational activities just for their own sake.

You'll use philosophical tools to examine the meaning and value of such recreational activities, exploring questions such as:

• Is recreational sex and drug consumption merely about pleasurable sensations?
• Why do we put such great effort into achieving seemingly arbitrary goals in sport?
• Does it make sense for fans to feel elated if they played no part in a team’s success?
• Is there something special about being in a zone of effortless attention whilst playing an instrument?
• Could risking death seeking sensations of the sublime by climbing a mountain be better than safely siting on your sofa watching trash tv?

The philosophy of mind addresses philosophical questions about the mind and aspects of the mind: mental or psychological states and capacities. Advanced topics in the philosophy of mind will focus on a specific area (or areas) of the philosophy of mind.

Which specific area (or areas) of philosophy of mind is in focus may vary from year to year. So the topics for this area of philosophy of mind may include:

• the nature of perception
• the nature of perceptual consciousness
• the directness or indirectness of perception
• the perception-knowledge link
• what properties or kinds perception can present
• issues about the senses
• specific issues about vision and audition

This module is a discussion of some philosophical problems pertaining to art. Topics could include definitions of art, the objectivity versus the subjectivity of aesthetic evaluations, emotional response to art, the ontological status of artworks, and Walton's theory of make-believe.

This module aims to promote a deeper understanding of philosophical issues pertaining to art. By the end of the module, you should be able to discuss and evaluate different views of the expressive power of art, to explain certain current views on the status of aesthetic evaluations, and to present the main contemporary viewpoints pertaining to the nature of artworks.

There is perhaps no more vivid example of the exercise of state power over individuals than through the institution of criminal law. This power relationship raises a host of important philosophical questions, such as:

• Is there a general obligation to obey the law? If so, what is the basis for this obligation?
• What sorts of acts should be criminalised, and why?
• What does it mean for someone to be responsible for a crime, or for the state to hold someone responsible?
• Is criminal punishment justified? If so, why?
• What is the proper role for the presumption of innocence: Who must presume whom to be innocent of what? 
• Is the state ever justified in imposing legal restrictions on offenders even after they have completed their punishment?
• How should the criminal law function in the international context?

We'll look at thinking from across history, from seminal figures such as Plato, Bentham, and Kant, to more contemporary philosophers such as Hart, Hampton, Duff, and others.

No experience of criminal law necessary. Ideal for both philosophers and practitioners.

This module is worth 20 credits.

One often hears the opinion that ethics is subjective. But what does this mean, exactly?

And one often hears the view that ethics is relative. But relative to what?

And what is ‘ethics’ anyway?

And if ethics is subjective, or relative, what does that mean for ethics as a discipline? Does it mean, for example, that our ethical pronouncements can never be incorrect, never be challenged, or never disagreed with?

This module addresses these and other questions about the foundations of ethics, and gives you the material to develop your own views of this peculiarly human phenomenon.

This module will focus on a critical examination of core aspects of Buddhist thinking, with emphasis on some of its basic psychological, spiritual, and metaphysical conceptions.

These include, in particular: the origin and nature of suffering; the no-self thesis; enlightenment; consciousness; experiential knowing; and the doctrine of Emptiness (the lack of inherent nature in all things and impermanence).

What is science? Is there a scientific method, and if so, what is it? Can science tell us what the world is really like? Is it the only way to know what the world is really like? Does science progress? What is a "paradigm" and when/how does it "shift"? Is science "socially constructed"? Can a sociological study of the practice of science tell us anything about the nature of science? Is science "value-neutral"? Should we "save society from science"? What are "the science wars" and who won?

These are some of the questions we will explore in this module. We will start with the positivism-empiricism of the early 20th century and culminate with the postmodernism-relativism of the late 20th century and its aftermath. Readings will include seminal works by Ayer, Hempel, Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyeraband, Bloor, and Laudan.

Politics and truth have always had a complicated relationship. Lies, bullshit, spin, and propaganda are nothing new.

Polarization is on the rise in many democracies and political disagreements have spread to disputes about obvious matters of fact.

But have we really entered the era of 'post-truth' politics? Is debate now framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the facts?

In this module, we'll explore questions such as:

• Should the existence of widespread disagreement in politics make us less confident in our own views?
• Are voters morally or epistemically obligated to vote responsibly?
• Is it rational for citizens to base their political views on group identity rather than reasoned arguments?
• Should we have beliefs about complex policy questions about which we are not experts?
• Is democracy the best form of government for getting at the truth?

This module is worth 20 credits.

Education plays a fundamental part in all our lives. It shapes who we are as individuals, our value systems, our political and religious outlooks. As a consequence it changes how society looks, how it operates, and what we think society ought to be like. Education then, is of the most profound importance.

As philosophers we are uniquely placed to think long and hard about education:

• what is its role?
• what should its role be?
• who gets to decide what is taught?

Rising to this challenge this module creates the space, and provides the tools, for you to do just this.

This module is worth 20 credits.