Postgraduate Modules

This module will equip you with the tools to analyse and interpret key global challenges. How the world responds to international division and the rise of new powers, national and global security threats, the crisis of democracy, and global ethical dilemmas, will be at the forefront of your learning. By focusing on these real-world issues you'll gain a deep and comprehensive grounding in the core empirical, conceptual and theoretical debates in International Relations, as well as developing your skills in a range of research methods.

This module provides an exciting opportunity to engage deeply with a historical topic that interests you through the preparation and execution of your own independent research project. This module has been designed to support you in the planning, research and writing of a dissertation on a topic that you choose yourself. This will also build on the specialist themes that you have studied during the first part of our MA in History and informed by feedback from your supervisor.

This module is the second part of the MA in Music. You will explore three main study areas of current interest to musicology (music and politics; notations and performances; musical relationships) prior to examining a number of case-study research projects. Topics covered include: the role of music in Nazi Germany, reception history; the protest song; the role of music in communities; early keyboard music; contemporary composition, notation, and performance; composer autographs; opera and gender; and music and social media. The module concludes with the writing of a dissertation, which may be presented digitally.

This module is the first part of the MA in Music, which is taught and assessed entirely online. It introduces a wide range of music research skills in the context of the ‘digital humanities’ (the use of computers and the internet for research and study). Several topics and themes are included in the programme that will help you think in new ways about written documents about music, musical criticism, musical performances, and ethnographical approaches to music. Music databases contained in The Open University’s online library (one of the largest in the world) are central to this module. This module has a wide cultural and thematic breadth: all students engage with a range of western, non-western and popular music. The module is accessible and relevant to those who have a vocational or leisure interest in music.

The new geographies of prosperity, poverty and inequality are creating complex challenges for development activists, practitioners and academics around the world. Meeting these challenges requires advanced understanding, innovative ideas and critical thinking. If you want to build these capacities, then this module is for you.

This module enables you to more effectively understand and respond to development challenges, in whatever context you are working. You’ll be able to reflect critically on dominant approaches to development and explore development alternatives, enhancing your capacities to negotiate development effectively and work towards more socially and environmentally sustainable futures.

The module will complete your study for the MA in Philosophy. You'll study: the emotions, Nietzsche, Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt, and ‘the problem of dirty hands’. Your tutor will help you build on your capacity for independent research, and you will have ample opportunity to liaise with fellow-students online. The tutorial strategy, which involves both tutors and module team authors, will encourage independent thought using the huge range of online books and articles available via the OU Library. Finally, you will be able to complete a dissertation on a topic of your choice, provided it is linked to at least one of the topics studied on the MA.

You'll be introduced to criminological approaches used for critically thinking about crime, harm and justice. Through an examination of diverse constructions of crime, global harms and examples of resistance, it provides a framework for understanding the conception, interrogation and reception of criminological knowledge. Building on Principles of social and psychological inquiry (DD801), it enhances students' skills in critically reading the social world, understanding, analyzing and questioning national, transnational and global policies and in deconstructing media representations of crime and justice. The module will allow you to review, evaluate and assess criminological evidence and develop skills highly desirable in professional contexts within local and global organisations.

This module examines how cognitive, social, counselling and forensic psychology research fosters understanding and helps to solve real-world problems in three domains - the home, workplace and society. In this module, you'll focus on socially-relevant topics that showcase the research and methodological expertise of the School of Psychology. You'll become equipped to evaluate psychological knowledge claims, theories, research (studies and methods) and applications, creating educated consumers/commissioners of psychological research. You'll also have the opportunity to engage in an independent project. By the end of the module, you'll have gained the confidence to use advanced psychological knowledge to participate in public debate and policy development.

This module follows several criminal cases to explore forensic psychology and its application to understanding, preventing, and detecting crime. Topics include investigative decision making, witness memory, profiling, lie detection, terrorism, violent crime, sexual offences and cybercrime. You'll explore how psychological research is conducted and applied, critically evaluate its contribution to practice, and learn to communicate this to lay audiences. This module suits students who work in related areas, want to extend their knowledge in forensic psychology, and are not pursuing BPS accreditation in forensic psychology. While advantageous, you do not have to have a psychology degree to study this module.