Liberal Arts BA

You will need to pick one from these two core Liberal Arts modules:

• Reading the World: Global Mobilities
• Reading the World: Bodies and Society

You will need to pick one from these two core Liberal Arts modules:

• Cultures of Nature
• Material Cultures

See the optional modules for full module descriptions.

Dive into the fascinating ways human cultures across history and around the world have understood and interacted with nature. This interdisciplinary module explores the religious, philosophical, and creative ideas that have shaped our relationship with the non-human world. 

From ancient beliefs to modern perspectives, you’ll examine how societies have expressed their connection to the Earth through art, literature, and traditions. Discover both the shared themes and unique differences in how cultures view their responsibilities to the planet.

Along the way, you’ll engage in thought-provoking discussions about today’s environmental challenges, seeking pathways for meaningful dialogue and action. 

Ever wondered how the things we own, use, and cherish influence who we are? In this module, you’ll explore the powerful role objects play in shaping our habits, values, and identities. From personal keepsakes to national symbols, the material world is central to our lives. You’ll investigate design, consumption, and reuse, examining how objects communicate meaning, from museum artefacts to everyday items. 

Through an interdisciplinary lens, you’ll uncover the stories behind objects - why we desire them, how we use them, and what they say about us. Whether it’s a treasured heirloom, a trendy product, or a recycled item, you’ll learn how objects reflect and shape culture, economics, and ethics. By critically engaging with the material world, you’ll discover that while we create objects, they also create us.

How do gender, race, class, faith, and other frameworks shape the way we experience and understand the world? You’ll explore the forces that organise our global society, from human migration and cultural exchange to the impact of imperialism and environmental change.

Working individually and in groups, you’ll critically engage with diverse traditions of knowledge, examining how borders are created, crossed, and redefined. Through case studies focused on the Global South, you’ll investigate themes like the mobility of ideas, cultures, and commodities, and how global processes like globalisation shape identity and social experience.

This module not only deepens your understanding of global issues but also hones your research, analysis, and argumentation skills, preparing you for your Signature Project.

This module delves into the powerful frameworks of gender, race, class, sexuality, faith, and health that influence how we perceive, experience, and navigate society. Through interdisciplinary analysis, you’ll explore how the world is read through the lens of human bodies , bodily relations, and the social structures which surround them. 

Drawing on a range of social, cultural, and creative case studies, the module explores how the historical and contemporary construction of personhood, bodily feeling, and embodied identity has been inscribed, read, and rewritten as a fundamental site of power.

Managing Tourism and the Environment: Conflict or Consensus

This module will examine and explore the interactions between and the management of tourism and the environment from the perspective of key stakeholders including business, government, non-governmental organisations, tourist and local communities, the emergence of environmentally concerned consumers and the implications of different environmental paradigms for tourism development, and the role played by pressure groups in influencing tourism development and the emergence of nature/eco-tourism.

Sustainable Tourism Futures

This module will survey the international tourism industry in the 21st century. Starting with lectures on the history and sociology of tourism and its broader cultural significance, it will analyse trends in tour operation management, sustainable transport practice, niche markets like eco-tourism, and investigate and evaluate the various social, cultural and environmental impacts which the tourist industry has on destinations. 

International Entrepreneurship

This module will develop your understanding of entrepreneurship in an international context through considering a range of key issues and topics. The module adopts a critical and broad-ranging social science approach to the subject and aims to provide you with the ability to analyse entrepreneurship from an international perspective within the context of a wide range of management, organisation studies and social science debates.

Other available modules

• Sustainable Innovation in Entrepreneurial Organisations
• Management Science for Business Decisions

Explore the past and its role in today’s world: from prehistoric cultures through ancient Greece and Rome, to the Industrial Revolution and beyond.

Indicative modules

Archaeological Theory

You will focus on the relationship between concepts, interpretive approaches and analytical frameworks in the design and implementation of archaeological research projects.

Communicating the Past

Your aim in this module is to communicate a topic to the general public. How you choose to do that is entirely up to you, whether that be through written work, articles for a magazine, web, a video or even a phone app. 

Other available modules

• Performance and Display
• At Home with the Greeks and Romans
• Studying Classical Scholarship
• Religion and the Supernatural
• Classical Language(different levels available depending on previous experience)
• Archaeological Finds
• Analysing Archaeology
• Mediterranean Prehistory
• Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean
• Osteology
• The Lives of Ancient Objects

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other classics and archaeology modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please see our Classics BA or Archaeology BA degrees.

Indicative modules

Studio Project

This module aims to further your understanding of research processes and practices with specific focus on the process of developing a research question and design.

Encountering Culture: Media, Art and Screen Experiences

Learn how experiences with media, art and screen culture are shaped by factors such as race, gender, class, sexuality, and disability, and how this influence can change over time.  You will examine the history and critical theories of cultural experience and reception and discuss questions of interpretation and meaning. 

Objects and Technologies

This module explores the historical development of the technologies and objects through which media is created and experienced. You will interrogate the concepts of ‘technology’ and ‘object’ and question your own assumptions about what constitutes both categories.

Other available modules

• British Empire and its Cultural Legacies
• Travelling Stories - Narrative Locations
• Cultures of Collection and Collections
• Emotions, Affect and the Senses
• Revivals: Art in Dialogue with the Part
• International Study: Art and Place
• Creativity and Creative Labour
• Immersive Experiences
• Beyond the Screen: Franchising, Transmedia and More
• The Secret of Success: Manufacturing Value in the Screen Industries
• Journalism and News Media
• Communicating Identity
• Persuasive Communication and Political Belief

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and other Cultural, Media and Visual Studies modules that might be available to Liberal Arts students, please see our degrees in:

• Film and Screen Studies
• International Media and Communications
• Cultural and Creative Industries
• Art History and Visual Culture

Explore formal and informal education through a variety of disciplines such as sociology, psychology, philosophy, history and politics. These modules will help you challenge established educational practices and debate issues such as social justice in education, inclusion, alternative education, and education and mental health.

Indicative modules

Education Beyond Borders

Examine education theory and policy debates beyond the UK. You’ll study three main strands: 1) Major accounts regarding the purpose of education 2) The increasingly transnational nature of education policymaking, and 3) considering critiques of these globalising trends through case studies.

Curriculum and the Politics of Knowledge

We’ll attempt to answer some big questions: What should be taught? Why emphasise some knowledges and not others? Who decides? How do learners experience the curriculum? And how does assessment influence this?

Learning in the digital future

We’ll consider how digital technologies are changing the way people learn, as well as how they play, make friends, qualify in a field, gain employment and participate in the world around them.

Other available modules

• Researching Education: Key methods and studies
• Understanding Counselling in Education
• Literacy, Learning and Education
• Mathematics and Science in School

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other education modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please see our Education BA degrees.

At Nottingham, we go beyond your love of books. Our huge choice of optional modules in everything from Vikings to drama mean you can discover new passions, explore what you already love, and tailor your degree to what interests you the most.

Indicative modules

Modern and Contemporary Literature

Explore the astonishing transformations and innovations of literature in the 20th and 21st centuries. Moving between genres, the module unfolds chronologically from modernism, through the inter-war years, and into postmodernism and contemporary writing.

Twentieth-Century Plays

Theatre makers in the long 20th century have been dealing with a series of pressing artistic and social issues, many of which still concern us today. What makes a play worth watching? Why do audiences enjoy watching bad things happening? How are minority groups represented on stage?

Ice and Fire: Myths and Heroes of the North

Odin, Thor and Loki: where do their stories come from? In this module, we learn about the origins of their myths from images on stone and wood in the Viking Age, as well as the written texts of the Middle Ages.

Other available modules

• From Stanislavski to Contemporary Performance: Practice and Theory
• Shakespeare
• Literary Linguistics
• The Psychology of Bilingualism and Language Learning
• Language Development
• Language in Society
• Victorian and Fin de Siècle Literature: 1830-1910
• Talking Horses to Romantic Revolutionaries: Literature 1700-1830
• Contemporary British Fiction
• Names and Identities
• Dreaming in the Middle Ages: Visionary Poetry from England and Scotland

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other English modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please see our English BA degree.

Dive into current hot topics like climate change, globalisation, and our relationship with the earth whilst gaining skills to analyse data related to the world in which we live.

Indicative modules

Urban Geography

Examine the social, economic, cultural and historical geographies of cities to understand the importance of urban geography and how it can differ across a country.

Cultural and Historical Geography

Explore how geographers have explained cultural and historical developments, and how culture and history make geographies, with regional foci on South Asia, the Artic and British-European relations.

The Changing Environment

Consider the mechanisms for and evidence of, global environmental change.

Other available modules

• Rivers in the Landscape
• Rural Environmental Geography
• Economic Geography

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other geography modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please our Geography BA degree.

Indicative modules

Health Protection

This module will explore the epidemiology, risk factors, prevention and control measures for communicable diseases, blood borne viruses (including HIV), TB, meningitis, hospital acquired, food and water borne infections as well as environmental impacts on population health (e.g. air and water pollution, housing) and bio-terrorism. It will cover the basic principles of infection control, outbreak control, and immunisation.

Research and Evidence in Health Improvement

The module will cover the following learning topics such as health improvement, assessment of critical health issues, ethical and legal considerations, and application of evaluation methods.

Promoting Health and Well Being

This module builds on the foundations of the introduction to health promotion and public health. The module requires students to apply the principles of working in partnership with individuals, families, and communities to facilitate health improvement in a multi-disciplinary context.

Promoting Health Across the Life Span

This module explores the physical, mental, and psychosocial influences that effect an individual’s health across the life span.

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other history modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please see our Health Promotion and Public Health BSc degree.

Develop your love of history further, gaining the skills to research, write and debate. Choose from a wide range of historical periods from the early medieval to the present, with the opportunity to focus on countries and regions around the world, including Europe, Africa and Asia.

Indicative modules

Rule and resistance in colonial India

Critically consider the history of the British imperial expansion in India from the mid eighteenth century, through to the Rebellion in 1857. It covers: the rise of trade relations with India, the growth of territorial rule through war and negotiation with Indian rulers, resistance to imperial rule through mutiny, and the debate over sati (widow immolation)

Race, Rights and Propaganda: Race and Identity in the Cold War Era, 1945-1990

Examine how the United States and Soviet Union dealt with issues of race and identity during the Cold War years, confronting racial questions, challenges and liberation movements from both within their own borders (and each other’s) and in several theatres of superpower conflict – including the Middle East, East Asia and post-colonial Africa - and often viewing them through highly racialised lenses.

The Second World War and Social Change in Britain, 1939-1951: Went The Day Well?

Analyse social change in Britain during and after the Second World War. Key issues may include: gender roles, impact of the lived experience, propaganda, creation of the NHS and educational reform, reconstruction of cities, post-war austerity and the construction of memory.

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other history modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please see our History BA degree.

Are you fascinated by abstract concepts such as infinity and symmetry? Do you want to develop your skills in problem solving and analysis? Our mathematics modules will allow you to pursue your mathematical interests at a deeper level.

Indicative modules

Scientific Computation

Most mathematical problems cannot be solved analytically or would take too long to solve by hand. Instead, computational algorithms must be used. In this module, you’ll learn about algorithms for approximating functions, derivatives, and integrals, and for solving many types of algebraic and ordinary differential equations.

Complex Analysis

Study the theory and applications of functions of a complex variable, using an approach oriented towards methods and applications. You will also learn about functions of complex variables.

Vector Calculus and Electromagnetism

You will be introduced to the vector differentiation operations of gradient, divergence and curl, integration methods for scalar and vector quantities over paths, surfaces and volumes, and the relationship of these operations to each other via the integral theorems of Green, Stokes and Gauss.

Other available modules

• Differential Equations
• Real Analysis
• Applied Statistics and Probability

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other mathematics modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please see our Mathematics BSc degree.

Choose from a range of language and culture modules to continue a language you’ve already got some knowledge of or start a new one from scratch.

Indicative modules

Options to learn the language at different levels and explore the cultures of:

• Arabic
• French
• German
• Japanese
• Korean
• Mandarin Chinese
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish

You can also learn about teaching foreign languages.

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other modern languages modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please see our Modern Languages BA degree and Language Centre options.

Music has a profound effect on us as individuals and shapes wider society. It's used for personal pleasure, intellectual stimulation, celebration, mourning, and political propaganda. We invite you to explore music through a wide range of modules covering musicology, performance, composition and music technology.

Indicative modules

Music, Film and Media

Discover the different styles and uses of music in cinema and other media – including television, video games, and advertisements – as we explore the aesthetic, cultural, and technical aspects of music in these contexts.

Developing Performance Practice

This year-long module offers students the opportunity for continued intensive development of their performing skills. Regular individual lessons with a vocal or instrumental tutor, spread throughout the year, form a core part of the studies.

How Music Changes Lives

Explore how music has the power to impact and change people’s lives.  

Other available modules

• Pathways in Music History
• Music, Ethics and Identity
• Music, Politics and Conflict
• Creative Orchestration
• Sound Design and Synthesis
• Popular Music and Society
• Composing for Voice
• Studio Recording Practice

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other music modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please see our Music BA degree.

Philosophy can be transformative. You can do it for its own sake as well as for its ability to shape lives, institutions, and society. Our modules give you the option to explore many aspects of philosophy from its foundations in Ancient Greece to how it helps us understand events taking place across the world today. 

Indicative modules

Freedom and Obligation

This module offers a rigorous grounding in formal and philosophical logic, building on the basics covered in Introduction to Theoretical Philosophy. You'll delve deeper into Truth-Functional Logic, First-Order Logic, and Modal Logic, exploring these areas with greater rigour and completeness. 

Social Philosophy

Examine the metaphysics of social kinds and explore different accounts of social kinds that have been offered. We will also look at how the fact that we are situated in a social world can affect what we can or cannot know or understand about ourselves, each other, and the social world itself.

Buddhism and the World

This module combines philosophical, historical, and sociological perspectives to study Buddhism. Students will explore Buddhism as both a philosophical and religious tradition, focusing on how Buddhist teachings are applied in today’s world.

Other available modules

• Space, Time and Motion
• Exploring European Philosophy, Ancient and Modern
• Mind and consciousness
• Knowledge and Justification
• Moral Philosophy
• Philosophy of Art
• Religion in Britain: Interfaith Encounters in a Secular Age
• Freedom and Obligation
• Aesthetics
• Philosophy of History
• Applied Ethics
• Truth, Meaning and Existence
• Formal and Philosophical Logic
• Africana Philosophies and Religions
• Being, Becoming and Reality
• Islamic Philosophy and Theology
• Central Themes in Biblical Studies
• Buddhism and the World
• Philosophies of God: Unsettling Belief
• Ecotheologies of Love: Christian Theology and Climate Change
• Interfaith Encounters and Project Design

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other philosophy, theology and religion modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please see our Philosophy BA and Theology and Religious Studies BA degrees.

How do relationships between nations shape our world? Who holds power, and how do political processes impact our daily lives? Our Politics and International Relations modules will help you answer these questions and more.

Indicative modules

Democracy and its Critics

This module investigates the nature of democratic principles, the arguments of democracy's opponents and the claims of those who say that contemporary life is inadequately democratised.

Experiencing National Identity

The module will explore how national identities are expressed, experienced, and contested by citizens and political actors in a range of contexts. It will ask how and why we should investigate identity from an everyday, ‘bottom up’ perspective, while also examining discourses of national identity performed on the (inter)national stage.

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other politics and international relations modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please see our Politics and International Relations degree.

Psychology is the scientific study of mental processes and behaviour. You'll have the opportunity to learn about the structure of the brain as well as the perceptions, thoughts, feelings and actions of people.

Indicative modules

Advanced Social Psychology

This module will examine current issues and topics in social psychology such as; social cognition and social thinking, attribution, attitudes, persuasive communication and attitude change, social Influence, conformity and obedience, group decision making and behaviour change culture, intergroup behaviour, prejudice and discrimination, perceptions and motivations.

Conceptual and Historical Issues in Psychology

You’ll learn about the scientific, historical, and philosophical underpinnings of psychology as a discipline, which will demonstrate the inherent variability and diversity in the theoretical approaches to psychology.

Personality and Individual Differences

You will explore psychological explanations of personality and individual differences. In particular, the major personality theories are considered in detail and the application of these theories to areas such as abnormal psychology, criminal behaviour, and health are discussed.

Other available modules

• Advanced Developmental Psychology

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other psychology modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please see our Psychology BSc degree.

How are societies organised? How and why are certain kinds of behaviour categorised as ‘crime’, and how should we respond? What has been the influence of the digital age on our society?

Indicative modules

Sociology: Identity, Self and Others in a Digital Age

Examine the key debates in digital sociology, paying particular attention to the rise of new social media and how this affects identity, belonging, intimacy and civic participation. Your main focus will be how Web 2.0 has affected perceptions of self and social relations, exploring why some people engage with new technology whilst others actively resist it.

Social Inequalities: Causes, Patterns and Change

Gain an overview of socio-economic inequalities within and between societies, exploring major theoretical and practical issues regarding data analysis and policy evaluation.

Crime Stories: Crime, Justice and the Media

Explore theory, research and illustrative media examples addressing the relationship between crime, justice and the media. Examining both factual and fictional representations of crime and justice, we reflect upon depictions of crime, criminals and victims in media and methods of analysing these representations.

Other available modules

• The Body, The Self and Others
• Police, Policing and the Police
• Controversy: Experts, Post-Truth and Fake News
• Sociology: Identity, Self and Others in a Digital Age
• Youth, Crime and Justice
• China: Beyond the Headlines
• Understanding Religion in Contemporary Society
• Prisons & Society
• Classical Sociological Theory
• Contemporary Sociological Theory

More information

For more detailed module descriptions and to see other sociology modules that may be available to liberal arts students, please see our Sociology BA and Criminology BA degree.

This module is based around a challenge: how do we use the digital humanities?

You are presented with a series of problems about how we can use the arts and humanities to address some of the major issues we face in technology and society.

For example, the acceleration of technology in both private and public life is immense, but this rapid pace of change should not prevent reflection.

In this module, you consider the major contemporary issues of how technology shapes our present and our future. We respond to these concerns using the specific skillset of the arts and humanities, where we ask: what does it mean to be human?

This module is worth 10 credits.

Stand out in your job search with employability skills and hands-on experience.

Learn key skills, from constructing an outstanding CV to practicing interview technique, before completing a part-time placement in the spring. This will be for one day a week, or equivalent, for up to eight weeks.

You can apply for placements in relevant local organisations. The dedicated faculty placement team have an established list of providers, or you can arrange your own placement, subject to approval.

Our placements include a range of sectors, including:

• creative and cultural industries
• media
• marketing
• heritage and museums
• the music industry
• education
• charitable and third-sector organisations

These are subject to change each year.

You will develop a wide range of transferable skills, including:

• communication
• presentation
• organisation
• professionalism
• time management skills

Assessment is through an online portfolio of materials, including application materials, reflective writing and a research report.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Community engagement is important in many careers, from politics and social work to marketing and business.

We do not work in a vacuum - our research and activities are linked to individuals and groups across society. By learning to engage with communities, researchers can reach wide audiences, learn from them and collaboratively make a real contribution to overcoming social problems. 

We need to understand how engagement works in order to work collaboratively, respectfully and sustainability with communities.

In this module, we will:

• Explore how our staff and students work with communities – from supporting immigrant communities settling into Nottingham, to engaging with schools to promote literacy and career opportunities
• Discuss how activism and advocacy can become part of academic work
• Explore how community engagement is structured and organised and how we can ensure our work within the arts and humanities has relevance and impact for diverse audiences

This module will prepare you for your future career, by focusing on the key skill of the arts and humanities: our ability to support and engage with those around us.

This module is worth 10 credits.

Explore the histories and legacies of colonisation, alongside the routes to justice through decolonisation.

Using examples from across the globe, we explore the impact of colonisation on society, politics, economics, and culture.

You will consider contemporary examples and a wide range of evidence, sources and perspectives, including from:

• art
• film
• literature
• archive materials and documents
• music and performance

You will also explore the debates around reconciliation, restitution and justice.

Together we will build an interdisciplinary analysis, drawing upon the research of the whole faculty to uncover, assess and deconstruct the practices of colonialism and their implications for our contemporary world.  

This module is worth 10 credits.

Doing an arts and humanities degree means you’ll gain the skills which are essential for changing the world we live in. Not only that, you are uniquely positioned to understand people, processes and culture.

This module lets you apply that knowledge to solve a real-life problem. The aim is for you to develop your understanding of your degree, and the range of careers open to you.

You will work in an interdisciplinary team on a real project connected to impact, which we define as our ability to ‘make change happen’. These projects have been designed by individuals, groups and organisations that are looking to make a difference to our world. This might be about sustainability, business, equality, culture, politics or society.

Teams will be given a project brief. You will then be guided through how to shape a project, and how to work as a team and deliver results. This will give you the employment skills and experience to show how you can make an impact as an arts and humanities graduate.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Wellbeing, the crisis in mental health care, and clapping for NHS staff during the Covid pandemic are all examples of health humanities. On this module, you will be exploring contemporary challenges in this area.

To build a healthier society, enabling access to healthcare for all, we must consider how people act, behave and build connections.

You will look at:

• how the arts and humanities respond to major issues in health, medicine and wellbeing – i.e. exploring how individuals use art, literature and culture to understand pain and loss, or analysing human behaviour with regard to new medicines and our relationship to health sciences
• topics such as cultural representations of health, places of medical treatment, or the relationship between medicine and emotions

The major challenges in health provision and healthcare can be influenced and directed by the arts and humanities. This module shows you how this field can be a powerful tool for change.

This module is worth 10 credits.

Discover how our world is experienced through language.

We live in a global society, where different languages build our perceptions, ideas and values. In this module, we respect that difference and participate in it.

You will:

• Use multilingualism as a tool to challenge our own thinking and to comprehend the lives of others in society
• Work through etymologies and translations from a wide range of languages, including Russian, Spanish, French and German
• Learn how understanding languages - not just speaking and reading them - can be vital in contributing to our community, enriching your experience, and participating in a global society

No knowledge of any language is needed, as we focus on understanding what it means to live in our multi-lingual world.

This module is worth 10 credits.

Explore how Nottingham creates ideas, identities, culture and products, alongside how you as a student are also ‘Made in Nottingham’.

This module will help you begin shaping your skills for the career you want, drawing upon the way arts and humanities work has transformed the city.

From the entrepreneurs who have set up businesses or those who have created and enriched charities and social projects, to the writers, artists, musicians and teachers who have all been created in Nottingham. We use their experience, their understanding and their skills to help you define your own path for after university.

You will be able to build your profile through this module, develop your own career narrative to use in your future work as well as engage in the variety of opportunities that are open to you as an arts graduate.

Through this module, we’ll address what it means to be ‘Made in Nottingham’.

This module is worth 10 credits.