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Birkbeck, University of London: Culture, Diaspora, Ethnicity

Institution Birkbeck, University of London View institution profile
Department School of Social Sciences
Web http://www.bbk.ac.uk/
Telephone 0203 907 0700
Study type Taught

Summary

Birkbeck is a global centre for research and teaching on ‘race’ and racism. We are home to multidisciplinary communities of scholars and students, academic programmes and research centres committed to the study of this subject area.

This innovative interdisciplinary course stretches across the arts and humanities and social sciences. It offers the opportunity to explore:

  • histories and cartographies of ‘race’ and racism; multiculture and postcoloniality; empire and the formation of modern Britain and contemporary, transnational political communities, social identities and urban cultures

  • connections between histories of colonisation and contemporary social formations and inequalities

  • how local debates on ‘race’ and racism are shaped by the global geopolitics of the twenty-first century.

The course examines connections between intertwined colonial histories and our ordinary, local everyday life. We focus on a broad range of subjects such as modern colonial statecraft, forms of colonial labour, racial typology and other systems of categorisation; colonial cultures and nationalisms; histories of anticolonial, antifascist and antiracist resistance, criminalisation and policing; theorising culture, community and postcolonial belonging; contemporary racial nationalisms and religious authoritarian movements and race, gender and sexuality.

We offer this course as a Master’s, Postgraduate Diploma and Postgraduate Certificate. You take four modules and complete a dissertation for the Master’s. You take four modules for the Diploma and two modules for the Certificate. You do not complete a dissertation for the Diploma or the Certificate.

The Postgraduate Certificate allows you to progress to and complete the Postgraduate Diploma or MA if you wish. The Postgraduate Diploma enables you to progress to and complete the MA.

Highlights

  • This interdisciplinary postgraduate course will introduce you to important historical and political debates and theoretical frameworks in the broad area of 'race' and racism, multiculture and postcoloniality. MA students can undertake an empirical or theoretical dissertation or a practice-based dissertation such as a film or an exhibition.

  • Through our formal link with the University of São Paulo, Brazil, you can undertake an option module at the university as part of your study at Birkbeck.

  • You will become part of a vibrant, stimulating and diverse intellectual environment. Birkbeck is the first higher education institution in London to receive the title University of Sanctuary. You will have access to the Race Forum at Birkbeck, research centres including the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and Centre for Law and the Humanities and there are specialist student reading groups that focus on particular subject areas such as medicine, ‘race’ and empire and psychoanalysis and colonialism.

  • This course consistently achieves high levels of satisfaction from Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey respondents. In 2019 and 2020, the student satisfaction rate was 100%; in 2021 the rate was 95%; in 2022 it was 85%; and in 2023 it was 100%.

Careers and employability

Graduates have pursued careers as:

  • filmmakers, journalists, teachers, curators, architects, novelists, poets, musicians and activists

  • lecturers and researchers in the subject areas of history, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, urban studies, psychosocial studies and sociology

  • psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and psychiatrists; barristers and solicitors.

Graduates can also pursue career paths in organisations and charities concerned with:

  • criminalisation and policing

  • domestic violence

  • refugees and asylum

  • human rights

  • homelessness

  • imprisonment

  • addiction

  • youth and community work.

MA

Postgraduate Certificate - PgCert

Postgraduate Diploma - PgDip

Birkbeck, part of the University of London, offers nearly 300 taught and research postgraduate programmes across arts and humanities, business and economics, law, science and social science. As an evening teaching specialist, Birkbeck offers its taught postgraduate courses between 6-9pm, with some courses available through distance learning. As with undergraduate courses, postgraduates can study full-time or part-time.

Home to 44 research and specialist institutes, Birkbeck is the sixth largest provider of taught postgrad courses for UK and EU students - some 44% of its 11,000-plus students are on postgrad programmes. Around 90% of its academics are active in research, and …

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