The History of Ideas

In recent times an interest in spirituality has developed that is independent of mainstream religious institutions and traditions. This course will consider why this has happened and how it is best understood.

What is love in the modern world? Join this course to explore the notion of love in popular culture and media from the 18th to the 20th centuries. 

Toleration, and religious toleration in particular, is a central liberal value. How did it come to have this status, and should we accord it as much value as we do?

Everybody is ‘for’ liberty and freedom, but what exactly does it involve? How might our understanding and appreciation of it changed over time? Is freedom something we ‘have’ or is it something that is contingently exercised? To what extent does the freedom of others affect my own? How might one conceive of a ‘free’ society? In this course, you will be introduced and invited to think critically about the idea of freedom and its conceptualisation in western thought, focusing particularly on the impact of liberalism and how it shaped our understanding of what it means to be free and live in a (un–) free society.

What is shame and how is it seen in different historical and cultural contexts? This course by Anita Kasabova explores various aspects of shame and its family of feelings across different cultures and languages

Descent and renewal are recurrent themes in mythology and usually involve a journey into the underworld to bring about profound changes. We look into the myth of Demeter and Persephone, mystic rituals of transformation and Jungian interpretations of feminine archetypes

Does history have a meaning over and above the particular events and processes that make it up? Join this course to consider key issues and texts in this important area of philosophical debate.

Particularly since the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement and resonating calls to abolish the police, the prison industrial complex or even fossil fuels, we have seen an unprecedented increase in the language of abolition in public discourse in recent years. But what is it that abolitionists really want? How are we to understand abolitionism as a political project and an emancipatory practice?

Join this course and explore the big ideas that emerged in response to the  Industrial Revolution - not only an economic and technological upheaval but also an intellectual turning point.

In this course we will examine the history of philosophical pessimism and how its proponents viewed the human condition. Always in a minority, philosophical pessimists have dared humanity to face the worst!

Moral beliefs and practices have varied radically over time. What implications does this have for our own moral commitments? Could the history of morality undermine or even support the authority of morality?

The subject of motherhood is experiencing a surge of interest across a variety of platforms: in literature, art, theory as well as political discourse, a generation of women are voicing the discontents and joys that come with the experience of parenthood and the role that they as mothers occupy in society, willingly or not. This course explores the topic across a range of examples and perspectives from the present and the recent past.