BA Liberal Arts

Manchester is a culturally significant and diverse city in the North-West of the UK. Like any city, it faces a number of challenges as a result of global industrial shifts, new patterns of work and leisure, and flows and frictions between different cultures and ideas. Once a bastion of the Industrial Revolution, and now, in its post-Industrial state, at the forefront of innovations in computing and technology, a hotbed of revolutionary ideas, and important in sport and the arts, Manchester has gone through many changes and yet it retains a cultural identity.  

This module takes Manchester as a starting point for interdisciplinary exploration in the arts and humanities. We examine the values and politics of researching a complex city, reflecting on what different methodologies and methods might be suitable for examining key social issues in the contemporary city. Through a variety of media, the course examines different case studies from Manchester, enabling you to analyse themes around historical memory, gender and sexuality, race and religion, ecology and industry, with a key focus on issues of social change. 

• To develop students’ insights into the connections between the academy and society;
• To familiarise students with the cultural context of Manchester and its dynamism;
• To highlight the importance of the arts in shaping and reshaping culture.

Topics can include:  

• Revolution and protest – radical memory and history  
• Inequality and poverty  
• Religion and migration  
• Creative walking and placemaking  
• Urban planning and health inequalities  
• Trauma and collective memory  
• Sustainability and urban ecology  
• Race and oral history  
• Queering Manchester  
• Social responsibility and the civic university  

Weekly interactive lectures, seminars, and skills workshops; in addition, students are encouraged to attend weekly office hours to discuss queries and/or feedback. 

• An understanding of the dynamics of Manchester’s rich, diverse, multifaceted culture;
• Familiarity with some of the issues facing Manchester;
• An understanding of the importance of context and an ability to approach this through interdisciplinary methods (i.e. historical, geographical, intellectual, cultural);
• More detailed and critical knowledge of some of the challenges through summative assessments.  

• Use Manchester as a laboratory for Liberal Arts (i.e. interdisciplinary, challenge-led) learning;
• Identify and select appropriate sources for the development of independently-researched written and oral work;  
• Apply skills to problem-solving tasks and examination of case studies through seminars;
• Articulate, and suggest contributions to, the relationship between the arts (and art-based research) and culture;
• Begin to develop ideas and resources for the Engagement Project in Year ¾. 

• Critical reading and application in development of an argument;
• Group work and communication of ideas in co-operation with others;
• Ability to prepare and deliver a research reflection
• Independent approach to research;
• Reflective and self-aware learning. 

• An interdisciplinary competence;
• Critical and analytical skills highlighted through engagement with key texts and key themes and issues;
• Self-organisation skills and an ability to plan research in order to meet course deadlines;
• An ability to work independently, including conducting independent research, and to work with others in group work tasks;
• Effective oral and written communication skills. 

• DiYanni, Robert and Anton Borst, eds., Critical Reading Across the Curriculum, Volume 1: The Humanities (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2017)
• Beckett, John, Writing Local History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)
• Glick Schiller, Nina, ‘Localized neoliberalism, multiculturalism and global region: exploring the agency of migrants and city borders’, Economy and Society 40.2 (2011): 211-38
• Matras, Yaron and Alex Robertson, ‘Urban Multilingualism and the Civic University: A Dynamic, Non-Linear Model of Participatory Research’, Social Inclusion 5.4 (2017): 5-13
• Nevell, Michael, Manchester: The Hidden History (Stroud: The History Press, c2008)
• Wildman, Charlotte, Urban Redevelopment and Modernity in Liverpool and Manchester (London: Bloomsbury, 2016)
• Janet Wolff and Mike Savage (eds.), Culture in Manchester: Institutions and Urban Change Since 1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013).
• Charlotte Wildman, ‘Urban Transformation in Liverpool and Manchester, 1918-1939’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 55, No. 1 (2012), pp. 119-143.
• Stuart Hylton, A History of Manchester (Chichester: Phillimore, 2003).
• Lynne Pearce, ‘Manchester: The Postcolonial City’, in Lynne Pearce, Corinne Fowler, and Robert Crawshaw (eds.), Postcolonial Manchester: Diaspora Space and the Devolution of Literary Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), pp. 20-78.