Course outline
Teaching is delivered through lectures, supervisions and seminars. In the first year, you have around eight hours of lectures and one or two supervisions a week.
You’re assessed at the end of each year – mostly through examinations, though some papers are assessed by coursework. In Year 3, you can substitute one paper for a 10,000 word dissertation.
Year 1 (Part I)
In Year 1, you take four papers. At least three must be from the core subjects – politics, international relations, social anthropology, and sociology. Your fourth can be another core subject paper, or you can choose an archaeology, biological anthropology or psychology option.
Years 2 and 3 (Part II)
You choose one of three single-subject tracks (see below), or one of five two-subject tracks – Politics and Sociology, Social Anthropology and Politics, Social Anthropology and Religious Studies (Modern Religion), Sociology and Criminology, or Sociology and Social Anthropology (details of the tracks can be found here).
Please note that it’s not possible to change track between Years 2 and 3, unless switching from a two-subject track to one of the subjects within it. Some final year papers require you to have taken a relevant Year 2 paper.
Politics and International Relations
In Year 2, you study Comparative Politics, International Organisation, and History of Political Thought.
Your fourth paper can be two 5,000 word essays on politics and international relations; a statistics paper; or one offered in another HSPS subject or from others such as History or Psychology (please see the website for the full range).
In Year 3, you take a general paper in politics and international relations, plus three optional papers.
One of these can be a 10,000 word dissertation, and one can be from selected papers in another subject. You can choose from a broad range of papers in politics and international relations, covering diverse themes, regions and contemporary issues.
Social Anthropology
In Year 2, you take The Foundations of Social Life, Anthropological Theory and Methods papers and a paper on the anthropology of an ethnographic area. Your fourth is an optional paper.
In Year 3, you take two advanced anthropology papers – Ethical Life and the Anthropology of the Subject; and Power, Economy and Social Transformation – and choose a further two from a combination of optional papers, an ethnographic area paper and a 10,000 word dissertation.
Optional paper topics in Years 2 and 3 usually include urban anthropology, gender, development, science and society, media and visual culture, as well as choices from another HSPS subject.
Sociology
You take Social Theory, Global Social Problems and Dynamics of Resistance, and either Concepts and Arguments in Sociology or Statistics and Methods.
Your fourth paper can be a further sociology paper, or one from another HSPS subject, or from another department (see website for full list).
In Year 3, you choose three papers from a range of sociology topics – these might cover subjects such as media and culture; gender; war and revolution; global capitalism; racism, race and ethnicity; empire, colonialism, and imperialism; health, medicine and society; and criminology. One paper can be replaced by a dissertation of up to 10,000 words. Your final paper can be a further sociology paper, one from another HSPS subject, or borrowed from another department (see website for full list).
