Bachelor of Arts (BASS)

BASS Philosophy and Criminology

Debate the causes and consequences of crime from a moral perspective.
  • Duration: 3 or 4 years
  • Year of entry: 2025
  • UCAS course code: VL53 / Institution code: M20
  • Key features:
  • Study abroad
  • Industrial experience

Full entry requirementsHow to apply

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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

Scholarships and bursaries, including the Manchester Bursary , are available to eligible home/EU students.

Some undergraduate UK students will receive bursaries of up to £2,000 per year, in addition to the government package of maintenance grants.

You can get information and advice on student finance to help you manage your money.

Course unit details:
Political and Economic Anthropology

Course unit fact file
Unit code SOAN20821
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 2
Teaching period(s) Semester 1
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

This course examines how social anthropology critically approaches the entanglements of politics and economics in diverse locations around the globe and how these entanglements are inflected in everyday life. The course explores how anthropologists continue to develop new directions in anthropology that provide us with analytical tools to explain and understand current events affecting people's lives around the world. 
The lecture course will cover the following themes:

• Week 1: Locating 'the Political' and Power: Introduction to Political Anthropology;
• Week 2: European Expansion and the Modern World System;
• Week 3: The Modern State; 
• Week 4: Militarism and War;
• Week 5: Cynicism, Irony and Politics; 
• Reading Week; 
• Week 6: Capitalism, Money and the Market;
• Week 7: The Financial Crisis;
• Week 8: The Politics of Labour in Post-Industrial Economies;
• Week 9: 'Precarity' and the Changing World of work;
• Week 10: Course revision and final essay preparation; 
 

Aims

  • Identify different anthropological approaches to the study of political processes and power in the everyday;
  • To identify how anthropological analysis embedded in history can explain political and economic phenomena today;

Learning outcomes

On completion of this unit successful students will be able to: 

  • Identify a range of anthropological approaches to the study of political economy; 
  • Distinguish anthropological approaches to the crises of industrial and financial capitalism and the key social science concepts that these engender;
  • Recognise the diverse set of historical conditions around the world that render making a living in late capitalism a contested domain of human interaction;
  • Critically mobilise different theoretical approaches to analyse the workings of power in their everyday forms; 
     

 

Teaching and learning methods

Lectures and tutorials

Assessment methods

  • Book club (worth 30%);
  • 3000 word final essay (worth 70%)
     

 

 

Feedback methods

Students will receive feedback via:

  • Discussions in lectures and seminars, and during presentations;
  • Mid-semester essay;
  • Final essay;

 

Recommended reading

  • Carrier James. 2012. A Handbook of Economic Anthropology. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd;
  • Hann Chris. & Keith Hart. 2011. Economic Anthropology. Cambridge: Polity Press;
  • Llewellyn Ted. 2003. An Introduction to Political Anthropology. USA: Praeger Publishers; 
  • Narotzky, Susana. 1997. New Directions in Economic Anthropology London. Pluto 
    Press;
  • Vincent, Joan (ed.). 2002: The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory and Critique. Oxford: Blackwell;

 

 

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 20
Tutorials 10
Independent study hours
Independent study 170

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Michelle Obeid Unit coordinator

Additional notes

Length of course: 10 weeks

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