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Outreach, School of Creative Arts

History and Humanities sessions

Date / Time

2 September 2024 - 31 July 2025, 8am - 5pm

In school / on campus sessions – History and Humanities

Date / time: Please get in touch with dates and times best for you – email [email protected]. Session length is 1 hour.

Location: In school / college / as part of a Taster Day at Francis Close Hall.

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Suitable for Year 11/12/13 (or equivalent)

Open to Year 11, 12 and 13 students and available from September 2024 to July 2025 – the taster sessions below can be delivered in school / college, online, or as part of a Taster Day on campus to provide insight into the benefits of studying History or a Humanities subject.

Interpreting the past: Fake History

Can we class Netflix’s The Crown as fiction? Why would Henry VIII add his third wife into official paintings during his marriage to his sixth wife?

Throughout history, many writers, painters, photographers and playwrights have changed or distorted history… but why? Students will analyse and discuss the reasons why sources may have been edited and how they could still be useful to us as historians.

This session is best suited for Year 11 and above to help students to delve deeper into source analysis and question how sources can help us build a picture of a period or person – even if the source is not telling us the full story!

Why study Humanities? or Why Study History?

This session will provide insight into the reasons why students may decide to study a humanities or history subject. We will explore the different degrees available to students, the skills gained and look at current employability statistics in these areas.

This session is best suited for Year 11 and above.

African Americans in the Gilded Age

This session examines the various experiences of Africans Americans after the failures of Reconstruction.

This session is best suited for Year 11 and above.

African Americans in the 1930s

This session examines the different ways in which African Americans attempted to tackle the effects of the Great Depression and Jim Crow segregation.

This session is best suited for Year 11 and above.

Climate Crisis and Ethics      

The Climate crisis is one of the most urgent issues facing humanity. What are the moral and political questions raised by climate change? Do we as individuals have obligations to change our behaviour? What do we owe future generations or nature, if anything? Is it better that humans should go extinct in order for life to go on, or can it only be via human existence that solutions to suffering and more moral universe is possible?

Can the human capacity for solidarity and empathy be the prime driver for global change or do economic beliefs and values towards individualism and self-interest mean global cooperation is doomed? Finally, can there even be a sustainable form of capitalism? Are some things more important than ‘money’ and the ‘economy’?”

This session is best suited for Year 11 and above.

AI and Ethics

We will be exploring the ways in which Artificial Intelligence (AI) is shaping our lives and raising complex philosophical, ethical, social and political questions.

Philosophically, we can ask what is intelligence and whether a simulation of intelligence is identical with human intelligence? What are the limitations with basing AI technology on a model of a brain as computer, when we do not understand what consciousness is? Can we ever objectively understand what consciousness is if our only experience of it is subjective?

Ethically we might want to consider the status of ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent’ devices – for if their intelligence is identical with sentience, do we have a duty of care towards them like we do with all living beings? More practically, what about when AI devices have to make moral decisions e.g., driverless cars – how is morality ‘programmed’ and ultimately who or what is responsible?

This session is best suited for Year 11 and above.

Buddhism and the Three Jewels: An Exploration of Protection, Amulets and Tattoos in Contemporary Buddhism

Challenge your understanding of Buddhism so far and consider Buddhist traditions that include the use of amulets and tattoo as a means of making sense of the existential experience. Students will enhance their understanding of the three jewels as they explore a world of spiritual protection, reincarnated Buddhist Tattoo masters and the experience of trance and possessions among ordinary Buddhists in contemporary Bangkok.

This session is best suited for Year 11 and above.

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If you would be interested in arranging a session, please email [email protected].