History and Global Sustainable Development (V1L8)

First-year core GSD modules consider different perspectives that might be taken on global issues, corresponding to the United Nations’ three pillars of Sustainable Development – Economic, Social andEnvironmental. You’ll also complete a group project on a controversial, local, topical problem that poses significant sustainable development questions.

In your second year, you have a choice of GSD modules. You can take either Bodies, Health and Sustainable Development, which examines issues surrounding health and the representation of bodies in contemporary culture, or Food Security which will examine the relationship betweenfood and sustainability using theories and methods from the sciences, social sciences and humanities.

You will also choose a module from a range of options available across the University which has a focus on sustainability. Alternatively, after the first term at Warwick studying Bodies, Health and Sustainable Development or Food Security you may choose to travel to one our overseas partners, where you’ll continue taking relevant modules in Global Sustainable Development and your joint degree subject.

In your final year, you’ll be able to choose to study topics that raise global sustainable development issues from a range of options offered by the GSD Department (such as ‘Work’ and ‘Energy’) as well as from around the University. You’ll also bring together your knowledge, ideas and conclusions in a dissertation focusing on a GSD issue.

First-year History core modules introduce you to a variety of approaches to the study of history as you consider the subject from the points of view of culture, identity and the environment. You’ll develop your historical knowledge of the modern world from the mid-eighteenth century and explore the practice of history through the research process – from primary sources through to the presentation, dissemination, manipulation and consumption of historical interpretation. In the second year, you canchoose module options according to those aspects of early modern history which interest you most. Options available to our current students include: The European World 1500–1700, Gender, History and Politics in Britain, Africa and the Cold War, and A Global History of Food. You’ll choose your final-year modules from a range of advanced options and special subjects related to your chosen dissertation topic.

How will I learn?

You will attend lectures and take part in seminars, workshops and tutorials and work with your fellow students in teams on controversial, topical problems that pose significant sustainable development questions. You will undertake fieldwork, archival research, interviews with members of the local area and engage in peer discussion to propose alternative solutions. You will review the work of your fellow students.

You will be taught by a range of academics, from different disciplines, who will communicate their expertise on a specific issue and describe their methodology for addressing it. Your role is to bring together these various approaches and to develop your own informed stance on each issue.

How will I be assessed?

We have devised an assessment strategy that allows you to develop your expertise in addressing problems using a variety of perspectives from the Arts, Sciences and Social Sciences. We will teach you to use quantitative and qualitative methods of research, and this will equip you with a solid foundation from which you can approach contemporary problems critically and creatively.