See how long it will take you to get to college. Please select the campus of the course you wish to study.
You have asked yourself what shapes the ideas of a “nationalist” or an “environmentalist”, what “feminists” think or “anarchists” aspire to? This course offers you a chance to discuss these questions with other students and your tutor and collaboratively arrive at answers. Content will be drawn from current political discourse and students may – amongst other things – discover the different, at times conflicting currents, of Feminism, learn to make a distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism or find out how to tell a deep and shallow environmentalist apart. Students will be learning about ideologies` capacity to guide us, influence our perception and encourage us to view society in a particular way. In class discussions we do not only reflect on the political dimension of ideologies, but we also consider what they do to citizens’ behaviour and political choices, in brief: How they exercise power over us. After briefly discussing the term “ideology,” the course critically assesses political thought generated since the 19th century in the west and introduces political ideologies that continue to shape societies worldwide: Fascism, Nationalism, Anarchism, Feminism and Environmentalism.
What will we cover?
- Anarchism
- Fascism
- Nationalism
- Feminism
- Environmentalism
What will I achieve?
By the end of this course learners should be able to...
- explain their respective ideological worldviews
- understand why alternative ideologies are attractive to their followers
- develop the capacity for critical thinking about their own and others’ ideologies
- discuss constructively the most significant contributions to political ideology
A mixture of lectures/ short presentations by the tutor and class discussions. A comprehensive bibliography will be given at the beginning of the course. Also, (brief) reading materials will be handed out at the end of sessions. Participants will be expected to read brief texts, and/or watch documentaries/short videos, and/or listen to short podcasts about the emergence and ascendancy of ideologies before and after lessons. Please note, that as the course progresses, learners are encouraged to take a more active part in the course – this will be achieved through a mixture of smaller group work but also class discussions.
A list of further readings will be given to participants. The list will include suggestions of books to purchase, as well as of free resources such as newspapers, podcasts, online articles, and videos. While you are not required to buy any of these, you may wish to purchase some books, subscribe to specialized magazines, or attend talks or webinars on the issues addressed in class in order to deepen and broaden the subject knowledge gained in this course. However, this is not a requirement.
See how long it will take you to get to college. Please select the campus of the course you wish to study.