Bachelor of Arts (BA)

BA Modern History with Economics

Explore the economic, political and social developments of the 20th century.
  • Duration: 3 years
  • Year of entry: 2025
  • UCAS course code: V136 / Institution code: M20
  • Key features:
  • Study abroad

Full entry requirementsHow to apply

Meet us

Discover if Manchester is right for you with an online or in-person meeting.

Learn more

Discover more about this subject area

Discover

Download our course brochure

Download

Fees and funding

Fees

Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2025 will be £9,535 per annum (subject to Parliamentary approval). Tuition fees for international students will be £26,500 per annum. For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.

Policy on additional costs

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

Scholarships/sponsorships

Course unit details:
End of the World and Apocalypticism

Course unit fact file
Unit code RELT21082
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 2
Teaching period(s) Semester 2
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

This course provides knowledge and analytical tools to understand and assess apocalyptic movements, the use of apocalyptic ideas and imagery in contemporary culture, and the effects of apocalyptic thought in politics and elsewhere. The course runs from examination of the biblical roots of much apocalyptic thought, via analysis of a range of historic apocalyptic groups, to present-day culture and politics.

Pre/co-requisites

Available on which programme(s)?

BA Religions and Theology

BA Philosophy and Religion

(BA Theological Studies in Philosophy and Ethics)

BA Comparative Religion and Social Anthropology

 

Aims

  • To explore and analyse texts and movements that focus beliefs or expression either on the end of the world or on other dramatic events conceptualised in end-of-the-world terms
  • To analyse how movements, texts and uses are expressed in ‘apocalyptic’ vocabulary and imagery
  • To explore and analyse cultural, social and political uses and effects of the above
  • To provide an opportunity for researching and presenting on the above. 

Teaching and learning methods

11 x two-hour interactive lectures, including study of texts, documentary clips, film clips, etc. 11 x one-hour seminars, including individual or small group (you choose whether individual or group) research project and presentation on an apocalyptic movement or cultural artefact(s) of your choice. c.7 hours of viewing films and documentaries and listening to accounts relating to apocalyptic movements or cultural artefacts.

Knowledge and understanding

By the end of this course unit you should normally be able to

  • Discuss the term ‘apocalyptic’ and describe typical features of apocalyptic ideas, texts and images
  • Describe a range of movements that have focused on end-of-the-world ideas or language
  • Discuss and contextualise key apocalyptic texts from biblical and other sources
  • Describe a range of historical or current uses or effects of apocalyptic ideas or imagery

Intellectual skills

  • Analyse apocalyptic movements, especially through contextualising them and understanding patterns and sources of apocalyptic ideas and related practices
  • Analyse use of apocalyptic ideas and imagery in cultural artefacts such as films and books
  • Analyse biblical and other religious apocalyptic texts, especially by putting them in the context in which they were written

Practical skills

  • Extract evidence of apocalyptic elements in cultural artefacts such as films or books
  • Extract evidence of apocalyptic elements in reports of movements and groups
  • Make clear presentations of results of research on apocalyptic movements or cultural artefacts

Transferable skills and personal qualities

  • Analyse films, reports and other sources
  • Discuss in groups on controversial topics
  • Engage empathetically with beliefs and actions of groups that are sharply different from mainstream society
  • Engage empathetically with beliefs and actions of societies, or sections of societies, that proceed on assumptions sharply different from yours.

Employability skills

Other
This course helps prepare students to work in contexts where they encounter beliefs, practices and cultural artefacts that may be sharply alien to them (or which, conversely, may be taken for granted by them). It prepares students to produce, engage with, and assess reports on such beliefs, practices and artefacts in an empathetic but analytical and effective manner.

Assessment methods

Assessment TaskFormative or SummativeWeighting
Individual or small group presentation on an apocalyptic movement or cultural artefact(s) + outline and bibliography for summative work Formative0%
Report or portfolio on the apocalyptic movement or cultural artefact(s) studies for the formative assessment Summative75%
Examination Summative25%

Feedback methods

Feedback method

Formative or Summative

Peer and Seminar leader oral feedback on presentation

Formative

Written feedback on report/portfolio outline and bibliography

Formative

Written feedback on report/portfolio

Summative and formative

Written feedback on examination

Summative and formative

 

Recommended reading

 

A wide range of online resources are available at the web-site of the Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM): https://censamm.org/resources 

Colin McAllister, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Apocalyptic Literature (Camb.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2020) https://www.librarysearch.manchester.ac.uk/permalink/44MAN_INST/bofker/alma992980719952701631 

The Bible (preferably New Revised Standard Version, with Apocrypha [Oxford: OUP, 2006]) Available for use on the web via various religious web-sites such as: https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/New-Revised-Standard-Version-NRSV-Bible/ or https://www.biblestudytools.com/nrs/ 

Filiu, Jean-Pierre, Apocalypse in Islam, translated by M.B. DeBevoise (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013) online (1 hour use): https://archive.org/details/apocalypseinisla0000fili/page/n23/mode/2up print copy: https://www.librarysearch.manchester.ac.uk/permalink/44MAN_INST/bofker/alma9933365954401631 

John Hall. Apocalypse: From Antiquity to the Empire of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity, 2009) https://www.librarysearch.manchester.ac.uk/permalink/44MAN_INST/bofker/alma992975951094301631 

Arthur H. Williamson. Apocalypse Then: Prophecy and the Making of the Modern World (Westport: Praeger, 2008) https://www.librarysearch.manchester.ac.uk/permalink/44MAN_INST/bofker/alma992982180675001631 

Monica Germanà and Aristeidis Mousoutzanis, eds., Apocalyptic discourse in contemporary culture : post-millennial perspectives on the end of the world (New York: Routledge, 2014) https://www.librarysearch.manchester.ac.uk/permalink/44MAN_INST/1rfd42k/cdi_askewsholts_vlebooks_9781315883861 

Anthony F. Aveni, Apocalyptic anxiety : religion, science and America's obsession with the end of the world (Boulder CO: University Press of Colorado, 2016) https://www.librarysearch.manchester.ac.uk/permalink/44MAN_INST/bofker/alma992976654139301631 

Adele Reinhartz. Bible and Cinema: An Introduction (Routledge, 2013) https://www.librarysearch.manchester.ac.uk/permalink/44MAN_INST/bofker/alma992976146434901631 

Crawford Gribben. Writing the Rapture: Prophecy Fiction in Evangelical America. Oxford: OUP, 2009 https://www.librarysearch.manchester.ac.uk/permalink/44MAN_INST/bofker/alma992975879560101631 

Walliss, Aston. “Doomsday America: The Pessimistic Turn of Post-9/11 Apocalyptic Cinema.” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 23.1 (2011): 53–64. https://www.librarysearch.manchester.ac.uk/permalink/44MAN_INST/1rfd42k/cdi_proquest_journ

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 22
Seminars 11
Independent study hours
Independent study 167

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Peter Oakes Unit coordinator
Andrew Boakye Unit coordinator
Kamran Karimullah Unit coordinator

Return to course details