Humanities resources

Our humanities resources have been developed by our academics and researchers to help you enrich you curriculum and introduce your pupils to the many humanities-based subjects we teach at Manchester.

Resources include Why Study videos, workshop outlines, activity sheets and lectures from some of our internationally renowned academic staff, including Professor David Olusoga.

Our Faculty of Humanities houses more than 90 subjects, taught within four Academic Schools:

Suitable for multiple age groups

  • Star Lecture - Professor David Olusoga is one of Britain’s foremost historians and the presenter of landmark documentaries series including Civilisation, A House Through Time and Black and British: a Forgotten History. To commemorate Black History Month 2019, the University and Creative Manchester invited Olusoga to provide the keynote lecture at our KS3/4 Black History Study Day.
  • Watch videos of our Classics and Ancient History researchers discussing key questions in their field  and suggesting some answers. Includes short talks on Boadicea, Roman Gladius and learning Greek and Latin.
  • Our Department of Egyptology offers free online courses including a course for primary school KS2 on Egyptian History and Geography.
  • Students can learn about the variation in the English language and its dialects across the UK with our interactive maps (use Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge to see the maps).
  • Multilingual Manchester provides an amazing insight in the many languages spoken and known in Manchester. Visit their website to explore this through maps and data and get involved yourself using LinguaSnapp - Manchester's Multilingual Landscape app.
  • The Centre for New Writing and Creative Manchester have launched their poetry competition – poems can be submitted until 21 June 2020. 
  • Our Religion and Theology Department has an educational resource titled Entering Early Christianity via Pompei - A virtual guide to the world of the New Testament. Come with us to Pompeii, where abundant evidence of common first-century living conditions will inspire you to think about Roman life and Christianity in a new way. 

Primary

  • Check out our Children’s University of Manchester website for modules KS level online modules on: Ancient History, History, Art and Design, and Languages. (You'll need Adobe flash to access some sections of the website, but many of our subject sections are also accessible via apple products and mobile devices now too. Where possible we recommend using a PC to access the site’s full content). 

Secondary

  • Star Lecture – Dr Christopher Godden To honour the 2014 anniversary of the beginning of WW1. In October 2014, Dr Chris Godden examined the ways in which British men and women understood the war while it was being fought, as well as analysing the role played by British government propagandists. Through an examination of WW1 propaganda posters, students saw how such sources could help historians research public opinion during WW1. 
  • Our Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute’s graphic novella After Maria, by Dr Gemma Sou and John Cei Douglas, about a family’s recovery from Hurricane Maria, is an ideal teaching resource for KS3, 4 and 5 to explore the effect of and responses to tropical storms.
  • A new History of Medicine digital resource has been produced to support home learning as well as satisfy the curiosities of anyone interested in Manchester’s healthcare past. The resource explores 19th and 20th-century medical objects from the Museum of Medicine and Health and contains thought-provoking questions about the origins and uses of these objects. The themes in the resource echo the National Curriculum Key Stage 4 History Module “Medicine Through Time” and each object in focus has a local connection to the city of Manchester. The Museum of Medicine and Health, in the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, holds one of the most extensive collections of medical artefacts in England.

Post-16

  • Star Lecture – Dr Ingrid Hanson and Dr Douglas Clark: On Halloween 2018, Dr Ingrid Hanson and Dr Douglas Clark hosted a lecture for 150 A-level students to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein. This lecture explores the sources and ideas that influenced the creation of Shelley’s work and traces the impact this immensely popular story had upon a later generation of writers and artists. 
  • Star Lecture – Professor Jerome De Groot: In November 2017, Dr Jerome De Groot delivered a lecture on Shakespeare and his cultural legacy to Year 12 and 13 students. During this lecture, Dr De Groot looked at how we approach the study of Shakespeare and, in particular, the different ways of thinking about his work. In discussing why we read Shakespeare at all, he used extracts of Hamlet and the numerous interpretations of this play to demonstrate how Shakespeare’s works explore the gamut of human emotions throughout the ages.
  • Star Lecture – Emeritus Professor Lou Kushnick: Professor Lou Kushnick OBE was a lecturer for over 40 years. He is the author of several books and founder of the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource Centre: at The University of Manchester. His lecture on 5 November 2015 was aimed at sixth-form and college history students studying the civil rights era in the USA.
  • Star Lecture – Professor Andrew Russell: Former University of Manchester lecturer, Professor of Politics, Andrew Russell, lectured sixth-form students from schools and colleges around the north-west on political engagement in young people. Professor Russell explored: why many countries in Europe have low registration and low turnout for voters under the age of 24; the arguments for lowering the UK voting age to 16; and what causes voter apathy.
  • Lecture on US Presidents and civil rights – Dr. Andrew Fearnley: At a time when international attention is once more focused on the US presidency, and in a year when millions have mobilised to demonstrate that Black Lives Matter, Dr. Andrew Fearnley considers the role that presidents played in ‘advancing the position of African Americans’ in the period from the US Civil War to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.