- UCAS course code
- VR21
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Bachelor of Arts (BA)
BA Art History and German
- Typical A-level offer: ABB
- Typical contextual A-level offer: BBC
- Refugee/care-experienced offer: BBC
- Typical International Baccalaureate offer: 34 points overall with 6,5,5 at HL
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
- Find out more from student finance
- Eligible UK students can apply for bursaries and scholarships
- Funding for EU and international students is on our country-specific pages
- Many students work part-time or complete a student internship
Course unit details:
Sex, Money, Power: Mapping Modernity from Marx to Arendt
Unit code | GERM30992 |
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Credit rating | 20 |
Unit level | Level 3 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 2 |
Available as a free choice unit? | Yes |
Overview
In an influential 1982 study, the critic Marshal Berman cites a formulation from the communist manifesto, whereby ‘to be modern is to be part of a universe in which … “all that is solid melts into air”’. According to Berman, the experience of modernity thus involves at least two steps: first, the dissolution of traditional certainties regarding everything from our sense of self to the organisation of our societies; and second, the countless, often contradictory efforts to regain a sense of orientation in this context. Perhaps not coincidentally, some thinkers who have significantly contributed to unsettling such time-honoured beliefs, while also inaugurating new ways of understanding the modern world, hail from the German-speaking lands: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Hannah Arendt, among others. By introducing these author’s writings on political and libidinal economy---on art, culture, and identity---this unit asks: what might their accounts of ‘Sex’, ‘Money’, and ‘Power’ mean to us today?
Aims
The unit aims:
- To develop knowledge and understanding of the concept of modernity and key expressions thereof in the fields of political and libidinal economy, as well as art and culture.
- To develop key competencies in the critical analysis of key texts in modern intellectual history
- To develop critical thinking and higher order conceptual reasoning and analytical skills
- To develop advanced skills of written and verbal communication
Assessment methods
Task | Formative or Summative | Weighting within unit |
In-class, group oral presentation | Formative | |
Commentary | Summative | 40% |
Essay | Summative | 60% |
Resit Assessment: Essay
Feedback methods
Task | Formative or Summative | Feedback method |
In-class, group oral presentation | Formative | Orally, in class |
Commentary | Summative | Written via Turnitin |
Essay | Summative | Written via Turnitin |
Recommended reading
- Berman, Marshal, All That is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity (London: Verso, 1982)
- Marx, Karl, The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978)
- Marx, Karl, Capital, Vol. 1, trans. Paul Reitter, eds. Paul North & Paul Reitter (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2024)
- Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1974)
- Nietzsche, Friedrich, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1995)
- Freud, Sigmund, The Penguin Freud Reader, ed. Adam Philips (London: Penguin, 2006)
- Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism (London: Penguin, 2006)
- Arendt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (London: Penguin, 1922)
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
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Lectures | 11 |
Seminars | 22 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 167 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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Sebastian Truskolaski | Unit coordinator |