Course units

There are two types of course units in the Liberal Arts course that are designed to give you both structure and flexibility in your studies: core units and thematic clusters.

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Core units

These are bespoke courses that will give you the theoretical and methodological foundations needed to contextualise knowledge from across a range of different disciplines.

You'll also gain the skills to communicate ideas with different academic and non-academic audiences.

In core units, you'll be able to specialise in topics, based on your interests. Our core units are:

Research Methods in the Arts
Humanities in Public: The Past, Present, and Future of Ideas that Shape the World
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Foundations for Study in the Arts
Understanding Rhetoric: The Arts of Persuasion
Arts & The City: People, Power & Protest
Creative Manchester: Engagement Report
Reflections on Liberal Arts
Independent Research Project (optional)

Thematic clusters

Units from across the University are structured into thematised categories in order for you to identify where you'd like to specialise or broaden further your interests.

These clusters give you the most freedom and flexibility in what to study while helping you to filter and navigate the 500+ units that are available to you (subject to availability and timetabling restrictions).

You'll be invited to discuss your options with your academic advisor as you progress through your course.

Our thematic clusters provide an innovative way to help you to decide what you want to study, free of disciplinary boundaries.

You'll be guided by your Academic Advisor to take a mix of these different clusters as you progress throughout your course, which will ensure that you're getting the most out of your degree.

There are ten thematic clusters.

Core concepts

Art in Theory
Finding Happiness in the Ancient World
Making of the Modern Mind: European Intellectual History in a Global Context
Study of Meaning
Phonology
Semantics: The Composition of Meaning
Aesthetics
Truth and Truth Telling
Being Human[e]
World Philosophies: Ethics and Ideas in the History of Thought
Ancient Greek Philosophy
Introduction to Ethics
Ethics
Contemporary Social Thought
Power and Protest
Introduction to Ethnographic Reading in Social Anthropology
Key Ideas in Social Anthropology
The Good Life: An Anthropology of Ethics
Science and the Modern World
Moral Geographies
Expressions of Creativity

Methodologies

Digital Ways of Seeing
Spatial History: Mapping the Past
Producing Digital Projects
Data Literacy in a Digital World
Doing Archaeology 1
Doing Archaeology 2
Quantitative Methods in Language Sciences
Experimental Phonetics
Computational Linguistics
Forensic Linguistics
Criminological Research Methods
Critical Thinking
Formal Logic
Contested Foundations of Social Thought
Contemporary Social Thought
Decolonising Sociology
Social Thought from the Global South
Measuring Inequalities (Unequal Societies)
Introductory Statistics for Economists
Applied Statistics for Social Scientists
Essentials of Survey Design & Analysis
Answering Research Questions Using Statistical Models
Market Research
Global Market Research
Theory and Method in Demography
Answering Social Network Analysis
Quantitative Evaluation (of Policies, Interventions and Experiments)
Data Science Modelling
Microeconomics 1
Macroeconomics 1
Introductory Mathematics
Advanced Mathematics
Advanced Statistics
Microeconomics 2
Macroeconomics 2
Introduction to Mathematical Economics
Econometrics
Quantitative Methods
Microeconomics 3
Macroeconomics 3
Introduction to Ethnographic Reading in Social Anthropology
Key Ideas in Social Anthropology
Science and the Modern World
De-Colonising Geographies: Theory, Methods, Praxis
Current Topics in Biology

Individuals and ideas

Living and Dying in the Ancient World
Tomb and Temple: Religion and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt
Ancient Medicine
Dealing with the Dead: The Archaeology of Death and Burial
The Archaeology of Ritual
Aetiology and Euhemerism: Analysing Greek Mythology and Mythography
Ancient Medicine
Introduction to Humanitarianism
Introduction to Global Health
War, Migration and Health
Children in War and Displacement in the 20^th and 21^st Century
Language, Mind and Brain
Psycholinguistics
Topics in Language Development
Cognitive Linguistics
History of Religion in Japan
History of Modern Islamic Thought
Religious and Political Ideologies of Modern China
Bodies, Sex and Gender in Japan
Buddhism in Japan
Contemporary Debates in Islam
Historical Controversies in the Study of Israel/Palestine
Introduction to Christianity
Introduction to Judaism
Religion, Ethics and the Environment
Introduction to the Study of Religion
Bible in Ancient and Modern Worlds
Interpreting Religion
Religion, Culture and Gender
God at the Movies
Jewish Philosophy and Ethics
End of the World and Apocalypticism
Problems in Theology, Philosophy and Ethics: Evil
Science and Islam
Religion in Political Philosophy
Jewish Tradition Today
Contemporary Religion in the British Isles
Lived Religion: Places, Practices, Beliefs
Making Sense of Christ
Psychology, Crime and Criminal Justice
Drugs and Society
Personality Disorder and Crime
Introduction to Metaphysics and Epistemology
Introduction to Philosophy of Mind
Applied Philosophy
Islamic Philosophy
Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy of Race
Philosophy of Science
Existentialism
Hegel and Marx
20^th Century Analytical Philosophy
Philosophy of Psychology
Philosophy of Action
Religious Language and Metaethics
Existentialism
Sociology of Mental Health and Illness
Security, Radical Uncertainty and Global Pandemics
Anthropology of Kinship, Gender and Sex
Anthropology of Religion
Anthropology of Development and Humanitarianism
Anthropology of Childhood, Youth and Education
The Good Life: An Anthropology of Ethics
Medical Anthropology
The Anthropology of Health and Wellbeing
Bodies in History: An Introduction to the History of Medicine, 1500-1999
Bodies in History: An Introduction to the History of Medicine, 1500-2000
A History of Biology in 20 Objects
From Cholera to COVID-19: A Global History of Epidemics
Madness and Society in the Modern Age
From Sherlock Holmes to CSI: A History of Forensic Medicine
Biogeography
Are We Alone? The Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Understanding Mental Health

People and places

Art Spaces
Before the Black Death: The Golden Age of Siena
Early Modern Europe
Constructing Archaic Greek History
Introduction to the History and Culture of Pharaonic Egypt
The Making of the Mediterranean
The Story of Britain
Discoveries and Discoverers: Sights and Sites
The World of Late Antiquity: Europe and the Med from the Severan Dynasty to the Rise of Islam
The Conquering Hero: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Alexander the Great
Neolithic Britain
Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds (6th c. BCE – 3 c. CE)
Roman Women in 22 Objects
Greece in Britain, 1750-1950: Discovery, Dialogue, and Modernity
Introduction to the History and Culture of Pharaonic Egypt
Slavery in the Ancient Greek World
Exile
Neolithic Britain
Egypt in the Graeco-Roman World
Forging a New World: Europe c.1450-1750
An Introduction to the Medieval World
Histories of the Islamic World
From Reconstruction to Reagan, American History 1877-
From Jamestown to James Brown: African American History and Culture
Living Interventions
The Study of the Speech Community: Manchester English
Introduction to Chinese Studies
Identity in Modern France
Italian Cultural Studies
History and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa
Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa
Introduction to the Cultures of the Lusophone World
Cultures of the Hispanic World
Themes in Spanish and Latin American Studies
China’s Borderlands: Culture, Ethnicity, and History
Race and Empire in the French-Speaking World
Modern and Contemporary Japan: Social Dynamics
Themes in the Histories of Arab and Jewish Nationalisms
Women and Gender in the Middle East and North Africa
The Making of Modern Russia
History of Latin America
Culture and the Cold War in Latin America
Dangerous Liaisons
Exoticism and Orientalism in 19th Century France
Culture and Society in Germany 1871-1918
Travellers’ Tales: Italy in the British Imagination
Culture and Empire in the Spanish Golden Age
Memory and Culture in Post-Franco Spain
Contemporary Religion in the British Isles
Lived Religion: Places, Practices, Beliefs
Explaining Crime and Deviance
Philosophies of Resistance
Inequalities in Contemporary British Society
Getting Personal: Intimacy and Connectedness in Everyday Life
Racism and Ethnicity in the UK
Family, Relationships and Everyday Life
Gender, Sexuality and Culture
Global Migration
Identity, Power & Modernity
Power and Protest
Security, Radical Uncertainty and Global Pandemics
Introduction to Population Development & Social Change
Market Research
Global Market Research
Theory and Method in Demography
Introduction to Development Studies
Introduction to Economic History
Topics in Economic History
Power and Culture: Inequality in Everyday Life
Cultural Diversity in a Global Perspective
Anthropology of Development and Humanitarianism
Anthropology of Childhood, Youth and Education
Anthropology of Displacement and Migration
Black Identities and Cultures in Latin America
Introducing Human Geographies I
Introducing Human Geographies II
The Human Planet
North American Cities: Change and Continuity in the Metropolis
Life Course Geographies: Social Transformation and Intergenerational Justice
Introduction to Tourism
Creating a Sustainable World: 21st Century Challenges and the Sustainable Development Goals
Creating a Sustainable World: Applying the Sustainable Development Goals

Governance and societies

From Republic to Empire: Introduction to Roman History, Society & Culture 218-31BC
Cities and Citizens
The Roman Empire 31BC - AD235: Rome’s Golden Age
Politics and Society in Classical Greece
The First Cities: The Archaeology of Urbanism in the Near East
The Roman Army and the North-West Frontiers
Revolutionary Cities: The Urban World of the Central and Late Middle Ages
Introduction to Conflict Analysis
Key Concepts in International Disaster Management and Humanitarian Response
Institutions and Governance
Everyday Peace Building and Security
Rethinking Crisis
Emergency Humanitarian Assistance
Building Nations: Nations, Nationalism and Post-Conflict Reconstruction
Language Policy and Planning
Revolution and Reaction in German Culture
Empire and Culture in East Asia
The History and Sociopolitics of Palestine/Israel (1882-1967)
100 Years of Revolution: Russia from Lenin to Putin
Aesthetics and Politics of Italian Fascism
The 1989 Revolutions and their Aftermaths
Socialism and Post-Socialism in China
The Politics of Business in Latin America
History of the Spanish Atlantic World: Empire, Trade, War
Religion in Political Philosophy
Crime and Society
Explaining Crime and Deviance
Understanding Punishment
Drugs and Society
Comparative Studies in Crime and Criminal Justice
Youth, Crime and Justice
Organised Crime
Criminology and Mass Violence
Victims, Crime and Justice
Inequalities in Contemporary British Society
Global Social Challenges
Work, Organisations and Society
Political Sociology
Work, Economy and Society
Education and Society
Social Class and inequality in Britain
Youth Politics and Activism
Secrets, Lies and Mass Deception
Alternative Economies: Ordinary Economies
Quantitative Evaluation (of Policies, Interventions and Experiments)
Introduction to Development Studies
Introduction to Economic History
Microeconomics 1
Macroeconomics 1
Microeconomics 2
Macroeconomics 2
Managerial Economics
Introduction to Mathematical Economics
Econometrics
Economics for Public Policy
Topics in Inequality & Poverty
Topics in Economic Growth
Topics in Labour Economics
The Chinese Economy
Natural Resource Economics
Topics in Development Economics: The Role of Incentives in Politics, Markets and Institutions
Topics in Economic History
Money Banking & Financial Markets
Climate Change Economics and Policy
Power and Culture: Inequality in Everyday Life
Introduction to Business Anthropology: Consumers, Companies and Culture
Political and Economic Anthropology
From Cholera to COVID-19: A Global History of Epidemics
The Nuclear Ages: Global Nuclear Threats from Hiroshima to Today
Geographies of Globalisation
Economic Geography
Transport Geographies
Life Course Geographies: Social Transformation and Intergenerational Justice
Digital Technologies and the City
Global Urban Futures
Designing Sustainable Futures
Introduction to Planning and Development
Policy for Cities and Regions
Urban Theory, Planning Ethics
Sport Business
Fundamentals of Finance
Business Economics
Fundamentals of Financial Reporting
Fundamentals of Management Accounting
Introduction to Corporate Finance and Financial Instruments
Global Contexts of Business and Management
Firms and Management in Comparative Perspectives
Consumers and Markets

Texts and contexts

Art Works: Ice Age to Baroque
Art Works: Rococo to Now
Introduction to World Cinema
All About Eve: Encountering the First Woman from Antiquity to Today
Art in Britain
Art in Theory
Art in Vienna
Art in South Asia
The Neo-Avant Garde and the Crisis of Medium, 1945-1974
English Baroque
The Global Renaissance
Art After Modernism: Approaching Contemporary Art
Art of Medieval Manuscripts
Picasso
The Odyssey
Virgil’s Aeneid
Through Cicero’s Eyes
Greek Epic Poetry
The Artistic Mind: Greco-Roman Art and its Reception
American Literature 1492 – 1900
American Film: History and Theory
Theory and Text
Literature and History
Modern Chinese Literature and Cinema
Visual Cultures in China and East Asia
Temptations of the Tragic: Love and Death in French Literature
Gender and Sexuality in French Cinema
Spectres of Fascism: Literature, Film, and the Visual Arts in Germany and Austria since 1945
Weimar Culture? Art, Film and Politics in Germany, 1918-33
The Italian Renaissance
Core Themes in Animated Film and Visual Culture of Postwar Japan
Introduction to Postcolonial Arabic Literature
Brazilian Literature
Visual Culture in Modern Spain
Empire and its Aftermath: The Marking of Modern Portugal in Art, Literature and Film
Writing Women in the Spanish Golden Age
Modern Latin American Literature
Protest Music in France
Art and Culture in France in the Digital Age
Screening the Holocaust
Introduction to the History of the Book
Nature, the Environment and Politics in Modern Arabic Literature
Social Issues in Portuguese and Spanish Film
The Supernatural in Latin American Literature and Film
Transnational Identities in Latin American Literature
Modern Spanish Music: A Cultural History
Approaches to Musicology
Music and its Contexts
Early Opera
Music Cultures of the World
Analysis
Advanced Study in Musicology
Bible in Ancient and Modern Worlds
God at the Movies
Gender and Sexuality in the Bible
Hegel and Marx
Advanced Topics in Aesthetics
Visualising Society
Materiality and Representation
Screening Culture
Anthropology of Vision, Memory and the Senses
From Frankenstein to The Matrix: Science Fiction and Film
Digital Marketing & Promotion

Communication and culture

Cultural and Creative Industries: Arts and Socioeconomic Development
Global Cultural and Creative Industries: Policy, Evidence and Development
Decoding Inequality: Reimagining Digital Culture
Digital Ways of Seeing
Producing Digital Projects
Data Literacy in a Digital World
Art and Technology in Ancient Egypt
The Stuff of History: Objects Across Borders, 1500 – 1800
Pragmatics: Meaning, Context and Interaction
Variationist Sociolinguistics
Changing English Language
English Word and Sentence Structure
The Sounds of Language
History and Varieties of English
From Text to Linguistic Evidence
Analysing Grammar
Typology
Stylistics of English
Language Contact
English Phonology Past and Present
Minimalist Syntax
Discourse as Social Practice
Romance Linguistics
Introduction to German Linguistics
Media, Performance, Internet
German Dialects
Culture, Media and Politics in the Soviet Union and PostSoviet Russia
Tonality – Form and Function
Tonality – Motive and Meaning
Techniques of Tonal Harmony
Musical Notation
Music and Consumption
Analysis
Harmony and Counterpoint
Classical Harmony
Philosophy of Mathematics
Issues in Epistemology
Language and Oppression
Media, Culture and Society
New Media
Understanding Social Media
Advanced Social Network Analysis
Introduction to Business Anthropology: Consumers, Companies and Culture
Information Visions: Past, Present & Future
Spatial Thinking with GIS: Constructing and Exploring Virtual Worlds
Understanding GIS
Mediterranean Quaternary Landscapes
Digital Technologies and the City
Sociology of Leisure
Marketing and Consumers
Business Economics in the Cultural and Creative Leisure Industries
Introduction to Sport
Sport and Development
Sport Business
Fundamentals of Technological Change
Technology, Strategy and Innovation
Marketing
Case Studies in Digital Transformation
AI: Robot Overlord, Replacement or Colleague?
Language, Mind and Brain
Digital Society: Your Place in a Networked World
Trust and Security in a Digital World: From Fake News to Cybercriminals
Visualising Information: Use and Abuse of Data

Ecology and environments

Art and Ecologies
Introduction to Disaster Management
Disasters and Development
Systemic Approaches to Disaster Management
Disaster Mobilities of Climate Change
Reading the Rainforest: Visions of the Amazon
Environment and Society
Sustainability, Consumption & Global Responsibilities
Sociology of HumanAnimal Relations
Natural Resource Economics
Climate Change Economics and Policy
The Crisis of Nature: Issues in Environmental History
Climate Change and Society
The Human Planet
Ice Age Britain
Introduction to Landscape Ecology and Remote Sensing
Environmental Processes and Change: The Global System
Dynamic Earth
Climate Change: Science and Society
Economic Geography
Hydrology and Catchment Systems
Spatial Thinking with GIS: Constructing and Exploring Virtual Worlds
Quaternary Climates and Landscapes
Environmental Restoration
Green Planet: Plant Ecology and Global Change
Wildlife in the Anthropocene
Peatlands
Our Frozen Planet
Global Urban Futures
Pyrogeography: Fire in the Earth System
Energy, Society and Space
Designing Sustainable Futures
Introduction to Ecology and Conservation
Environmental Policy and Designations
Green Infrastructure and Sustainable Cities
Climate Change and Society
Creating a Sustainable World: 21st Century Challenges and the Sustainable Development Goals
Creating a Sustainable World: Applying the Sustainable Development Goals
From Antarctica to Outer Space: Surviving and Thriving in Extremes

Leadership and engagement

Managerial Economics
Introduction to Leadership and Management
Event Feasibility
Contemporary Perspectives on Events and Tourism
Exploring Enterprise
Entrepreneurial Skills
Tools and Techniques for Enterprise
Advanced Technology Enterprise
Enterprise Feasibility
Enterprise Strategy and Marketing
Developing Business Ideas
Fundamentals of Management
Managing Business Operations
New Product Development and Innovation
Work Psychology for Career Success
Management of Knowledge and Innovation
Strategy
Human Resource Management
Investment Economics and Innovation
People Management and Change
Communicating with Confidence
Developing an Entrepreneurial Mindset
Leadership of Learning – with Teacher Placement
Leadership in Action Online (MLP)
Entrepreneur: Innovator and RiskTaker
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: Your Role in Shaping a Fairer World

Languages

Intensive Greek 1
Intensive Latin 1
Middle Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Advanced Latin Language 2
Advanced Greek Language 2
Advanced Latin Language 3
Advanced Greek Language 3
Arabic Language 1
Arabic Language 2
Arabic Language 3
Arabic Language 4
Arabic Language 5
Catalan Language & Culture 1
Catalan Language & Culture 2
Chinese Language 1
Chinese Language 2
Chinese Language 3
Chinese Language 4
Chinese Language 5
Chinese Language 6
French Language 1
French Language 2
French Language 3
French Language 4
French Language 5
French Language 6
German Language 1
German Language 2
German Language 3
German Language 4
German Language 5
Italian Language 1
Italian Language 2
Italian Language 3
Italian Language 4
Italian Language 5
Italian Language 6
Japanese Language 1
Japanese Language 2
Japanese Language 3
Japanese Language 4
Japanese Language 5
Japanese Language 6
Portuguese Language 1
Portuguese Language 2
Portuguese Language 3
Portuguese Language 4
Russian Language 1
Russian Language 2
Russian Language 3
Russian Language 4
Russian Language 5
Spanish Language 1
Spanish Language 2
Spanish Language 3
Spanish Language 4
Spanish Language 5
Spanish Language 6
Introduction to Classical Chinese
Business Chinese
Media and Business Arabic
Russian Translation: Theory and Practice
New Testament Greek
Biblical Hebrew
New Testament Greek II
University Language Courses

BA Liberal Arts (2024 entry)

Find out more about the course and apply through UCAS for 2024 entry.

BA Liberal Arts with International Study (2024 entry)

Find out more about the course and apply through UCAS for 2024 entry.

BA Liberal Arts (2023 entry)

Find out more about the course and apply through UCAS for 2023 entry.

BA Liberal Arts with International Study (2023 entry)