B.Sc. Politics with English Literature (Hons)

Module structure

• Introduction to Politics: Power and the State
• Introduction to International Relations

• Social & Political Thinkers from Machiavelli to Keynes
• Social Politics and Policy

• Interdisciplinary research

• History of English Literature I
• History of English Literature II
• Shakespeare

Compulsory module:

• Them and Us: Comparative Government and Politics
• Ideas & Conflicts in Social and Political Thought

Plus 30 credits from:

• Theorising International Relations
• Public Policy Analysis
• European Integration & Disintegration
• Political Organisations
• Political Ideologies

• Enhancing interdisciplinary skills

• Constructing the Self
• Radical Subjectivities

Plus 15 credits from:

• Contemporary Literature: Gender and Sexuality
• Contemporary Literature: Post-colonial Fictions

Professional Training placement year, taken as a professional work placement and / or period of study abroad. Your activities during this period will be relevant to your Major subject (unless otherwise stated).

• Personal and Professional Development
• Evaluation of Placement Learning
• Transfer of Placement Learning

Compulsory:

• Dissertation
• Cosmopolitanism, Global Justice & Democracy

Plus 15 credits from:

• Greening European Integration
• Case Studies in Globalisation
• American Foreign Policy
• Negotiating Politics
• British Politics: Prime Ministers, Parties and Parliament
• Critical Terrorism Studies
• Political Communication & Media

Optional modules:

• Tragedies of Blood
• The Theatre and the Novel
• Language Diversity
• Writing on the Metropolis
• Travel, Landscape & Identity in 20th-century Fiction
• Postmodernism and Beyond: The Word and the World
• Gothic to Goth
• Creative Writing and Professional Practice I
• Creative Writing and Professional Practice II

How you'll split your time

You'll find your lectures and tutorials extremely stimulating, but a Surrey degree is so much more than just your classroom learning.

The information below details some of the extra opportunities and advantages of becoming a Surrey student. Naturally, many of these will be defined by your choice of Major (such as where you spend your Professional Training placement), but don't forget that your Minor will also add a valuable dimension to your Surrey experience.

The Department of Politics' outstanding and innovative teaching has been recognised with a number of awards and fellowships, including the Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award (Maxine David, 2012) and the Higher Education Academy Nano-teaching Award (Simon Usherwood, 2012).

The Department has been awarded a number of fellowships through initiatives promoting excellence in Professional Training and enhancing students’ experience through enquiry-rich approaches to develop negotiation-based learning (Simon Usherwood, 2007), to incorporate survey design in teaching political psychology and electoral behaviour (Tereza Capelos, 2008), to develop enquiry-based learning and to establish an enquiry-based learning group (Maxine David and Roberta Guerrina, 2008).

As part of the Teaching with New Technologies (TeNT) scheme – which encourages lecturers to experiment with emerging technology – the Department of Politics has received awards to work with interactive whiteboards (Simon Usherwood, 2007), to use Second Life to collect public opinion data (Tereza Capelos, 2008), to use social networking websites, and to develop a wiki for EU self-study (Roberta Guerrina and Maxine David, 2008).

Finally, we maintain an active involvement with social media as a tool for teaching and learning, and strive to apply innovative teaching methods through interactive learning, direct observation and simulation games. You benefit from inclusion in and engagement with research projects that our academic staff are currently undertaking.