History with Foundation BA Honours

Critical thinking is fundamental to our ability to progress in an increasingly complex and changing world. It is an essential skill across a range of academic and practice-based disciplines.

This module helps you understand the importance and function of critical thinking both at university and beyond. By working in partnership with academic staff and peers, you will explore how critical thinking aligns with disciplinary practices, shapes scholarly knowledge, and addresses inequalities. Through problem-posing education and anti-racist practices, you will engage with real-world problems, fostering the ability to create a more just and sustainable world.

This module introduces you to the concepts of history and memory. Using topical case studies, the module invites you to consider how the past is related to the present and how history and memory are constituted, challenged and constantly evolving. Through the module, history is made relevant to you by asking to whom history and historical objects belong and what they mean to individuals and society.

This module introduces contemporary political questions in the global context. Current political issues such as statelessness, politics of underdevelopment, power and inequality, and climate change will be discussed and analysed. The idea of nations and nationhood features prominently in the module, as do the issues related to faith, religion and ideological belief. The module is designed to introduce concepts and themes such as democracy, power and politics, inequality, global society, human rights and states, territories and statelessness.

This module provides a foundation in the theory and practice of intercultural communication, to help you better understand the complexities of communicating with people from other cultures. You'll explore what is meant by culture and the relationship between cultures and identities and examine how culture influences you and others. You will reflect on how the language and non-verbal communication you use can impact understandings and what strategies you can develop to manage misunderstandings both socially and in more formal contexts. Throughout the module, you are given the opportunity to practice your communication skills through a range of activities.

This module introduces you to the key academic, professional, and personal skills essential for success at university. It encourages good practices in writing, presentation, and time management, while also fostering reflection to help you build confidence as you transition to higher education. Open to all students enrolled in courses delivered through Westminster Foundation Pathways, the module provides a creative and supportive environment where you can reflect on and develop their academic and professional journey. You'll work with specialist facilitators who play a crucial role in guiding your academic and professional development.

With a focus on managing academic choices in a higher education setting, the module emphasises the importance of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), using methodologies that prioritise equality, diversity, and inclusion. Through these lenses, you'll explore topics that prepare you to address real-world challenges as highlighted in the SDGs in a socially conscious, inclusive, and responsible manner.

This module explores some of the issues and intersections of identity through written and spoken expressions. It will include aspects such as language and gender, writing auto/biography, forms of writing, cultural identity and linguistic identity, and reading and writing about ‘others’ in fiction and non-fiction.

This is a module where teaching and learning takes place in small groups, with students meeting their academic tutor on a regular basis. The content of the tutorials is tailored to the individual group, designed to develop study skills and basic research skills; to help students understand assessment criteria and apply feedback; to learn through formative assessment and peer review. The tutorials also link academic and personal competencies to employability.

This module introduces you to history as an academic discipline and the study of the underlying practices and methodologies. In addition, the module offers a hands-on approach to acquiring the key skills of a historian. Field walks, visits to museums and archives and document handling sessions will encourage you to develop analytical skills and use London itself as a historical source.

This module provides you with an insight into the fabric of British history - from a social, cultural, political, and economic perspective - between 1760-1867. Through exploring a series of key moments, it traces the continuities and discontinuities of the period and strives to impart a textured understanding of modern British history that includes formerly marginalised voices. The module pays particular attention to the interplay between empire and metropole, and probes the ways that the British Empire influenced the everyday lives of Britons. The key moments under consideration include ideas of the empire; industrialisation; urbanisation; political reform radicalism; development of class politics; national identity; celebrity; the advent of mass-media and gender politics.

No historical period can be seen in isolation from those which preceded it, but so many of the crucial factors in the making of the modern world emerged and developed in the extraordinary 150 years from the middle of the eighteenth century to the early twentieth. Ideas such as liberalism, democracy, republicanism, imperialism, socialism, and nationalism of course had their antecedents in earlier times, but it is in our period that they develop a seemingly unstoppable momentum, with profound consequences for societies all over the world and for the individual people who lived in them.

Since the French Revolution protests have been among the key drivers of the course of modern history. Using a wide variety of case studies in different settings this module addresses: when and why do protests occur; who protests and for what reasons; the different ways in which protests are expressed, from anarchy to terrorism; how far the nature of protests has changed over time; why some protests succeed and others do not.

This module provides an introduction to the global history of the twentieth century, an age of extremes, looking beyond the traditional Eurocentric or Western approaches to the past. The module begins with the catastrophe of the First World War and ends with the dissolution of the Soviet Empire. Alongside major political shifts, the sessions on the module consider important cultural and social developments. You'll study a range of global turning points such as the Russian Revolution, inter-war feminism, the global rise of fascism, the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, the Holocaust, the origins of the Cold War, Cold War in Asia, the 1968 revolutions, the Cambodian genocide, and Apartheid.

This is a module where teaching and learning takes place in small groups, where you'll meet your tutor on a weekly basis. The content of the tutorials will be tailored to the group but will be used to develop study skills and work towards assessments and particularly in preparing you for the dissertation at level six.

This module will cover some of the following topics: Victorian sex scandals; queer nineteenth-century London; sex, race and immigration; women’s work pre-1914; ‘sexual conflict’ in Edwardian London; gendering of public space; masculinities and femininities; sexual relations and racial politics during WWII; the Wolfenden report; the ‘swinging sixties’ and ‘sexual liberation’; Soho and cultures of sexuality; policing sexuality and space; changing ideas of ‘the family’; sexism and homophobia today.

Four case studies in modern history, informed by staff research specialisms. Content may vary year-on-year.

In the context of the society and economy of the East End of London, this module examines the series of murders of women that took place in 1888 - the 'Jack the Ripper' murders. You'll look at the circumstances of the lives of the victims; the police investigation; the role of the press; sex work and violence against women; popular culture in 1888 and the rise of detective fiction as well as cultural reinterpretations of the murders since 1888 in novels, film, theatre and 'Ripperology'.

Four case studies in modern history. Content may vary year-on-year.

This module will allow you to undertake a substantial independent research project within modern history on a subject of your choice. The module will enable you to demonstrate the key historical skills of working with primary and secondary sources, as well as researching and writing history to a high standard.

Twelve case studies in modern history, informed by staff research specialisms.  Content may vary year-on-year.

Internship and work experience module in a cultural institution that is concerned with history. This may be in an archive, museum, gallery, or media organisation subject to the approval of the module leader.

Twelve case studies (six per semester) in modern history, informed by staff research specialisms. Content may vary year-on-year.

Fall of Berlin Wall; collapse of communism; the rise of China; genocide in Africa and/or the Balkans; terrorism; the rise of political Islam; Ukraine, Russia and the world; the Arab Spring and Middle East conflict; the impact of the AIDS epidemic and LGBTQ rights; globalisation and the rise of populism; sustainable development and the road to the SDGs; the impact of the Internet and AI.

This is a work experience placement associated with employment with an appropriate employer that you as a graduate might eventually join, such as a small or large business, an arts organisation or a subject-based placement in a school.

Assessment consists of a portfolio which you'll complete. You'll need to source your own placement. Support is provided via three face-to-face teaching sessions: one introductory session, one session focused on the assessment, and one drop-in session to discuss work towards the assessment. You are also strongly encouraged to make full use of the support offered by discussing your placement and coursework with the module leader during the semester. In cases where you are unable to secure a placement by the end of the first week of the semester, or where a placement has fallen through, the University will support and facilitate a change in module.