Brandeis Midyears on the Arcadia London Midyear Program

Course Information

All students enroll in a minimum of five courses, which is equivalent to a full semester of Brandeis credit. One of these is a required core course and one can be at either City University or Queen Mary, University of London, if appropriate qualifications are met. Students will have the option of selecting the remainder of their courses from a wide variety on offer. Students must earn a C- or better for the credit to transfer to Brandeis University.

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Course Options

• Arcadia University London Now 
• City University
• Queen Mary, University of London 
• Brandeis Equivalents

Examples of course selections for the course registration form:
4 Arcadia London Now courses + the Brandeis Core course
OR
3 Arcadia London Now courses + 1 City or Queen Mary course + the Brandeis Core course

Access the Course Registration Form through Arcadia Passport.

Core Course
(2 credits)

This course is designed to work in tandem with a variety of the orientation activities and online reflections throughout the semester. The course will meet formally during orientation and will have a series of weekly online assignments throughout the term.  The course focuses on the student’s experiences abroad in the context of their personal reflections on living in another country, their shifting perspectives on the world and their role in it, the ways their interactions abroad have had an impact on their global citizenship.

Arcadia University London Now

Arcadia courses focus on London, and cover topics ranging from art and architecture to law, politics and history.

• LONS ANRS 199 Enchanted City: Religious Experience in Secular London
  • This 4-credit course explores London, a city that we tend to think of as an exemplary site of Western philosophical and political traditions of secularism. These traditions have insisted on the separation between state and religion and the allocation of spiritual experience and practice in the private domain. In reality, however, life in London entails, for many of its citizens, a constant – and sometimes tense – public negotiation of secular citizenship with deeply embedded and heavily invested religious affiliations. Through an overview of religious experience in London, this course interrogates the ways in which spiritual experience impacts the urban landscape, conversations on policy, the evolving life of communities and understandings of identity. Besides engaging with World Religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and so on) the course offers the opportunity for a wider exploration of spirituality, including involvement in magical cults. The course will be structured around seminar discussions focused on key readings and visual material but it will also include a fieldwork component.
• LONS AREC 180 Environment, Communities and the Arts in Britain
  • This 4-credit course explores the environment and green issues, which are rising in public importance. But in Britain the environment is also thought of as a resource for personal and community creativity. This course will look at the way in which artists and groups have found inspiration in the varied rural and urban landscapes of Britain and are using natural resources to comment on the fragile nature of a world threatened by pollution and climate change. Field trips are an an integral part of the course to explore environmental art in its setting.
• LONS ARDP 190 Contemporary Photography Practice
  • This 4-credit course aims to give students a basic introduction to photography practice and theory, particularly those practices and theories developed in an age of digital photography. They will learn how they can use their own equipment to its full potential by exploring photographic culture, camera technique, post production and creative application. Gallery visits, seminars, walkabouts, one to one tuition and sketchbook work will also be used to help students contextualise their own experiences of London through the medium of (digital) photography.
• LONS ARUK 110 Introduction to British Art
  • This 4-credit course introduces the student to various genres such as portraiture, landscape and narrative painting. It involves an examination of how artists were affected and influenced by industrialization and technological developments which transformed the social, political and economic conditions of 19th Century Britain. The course takes account of British historical and literary influences as well as parallel developments on the Continent. In architecture, it traces the introduction of classical principles and the revival of the Gothic style in the context of public and domestic architecture. The links between architecture and painting are seen in visits to various major country houses which are not only architecturally significant, but also contain important works of art. 
    
    Topics for consideration are chosen from this list: Romanticism, Constable, Turner, Neo-Classicism, the Gothic Revival, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Victorian Narrative Painting, William Morris, the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Aesthetic Movement, Symbolism, and Impressionism in Britain, the Camden Town Group, the Vorticist Movement, and the Bloomsbury Group.
• LONS DTPC 181 Play Critique
  • The 4-credit Play Critique course is centered on going to the theatre, which makes it different from other academic courses you may have taken. Theatre is a live art form: to experience its richness and diversity, as provided by this course, is a once-in-a-lifetime luxury. By the end of the course, you will know all about the artistic, financial and professional structures that shape the theatre in Britain, as well as have an understanding of British society and culture in general. Throughout the semester, you will attend ten or eleven theatre productions covering as wide a range of the London theatres as possible.
    
    Complementing these visits will be a series of lectures that combine historical and cultural backgrounds with information about the practical aspects of theater, such as direction and stage design. Whenever possible, guest speakers are invited. You will also participate in a weekly seminar discussion about each of the theater productions attended. This will teach you to consider your role as a member of the audience, to help you to develop a constructive critical approach and give you the opportunity to test out your ideas in debate. There is a supplemental fee of $250 for this course for the cost of theatre tickets.
• LONS DTSH 180 Introduction to Shakespeare in Text and Modern Performance

  • This 4-credit course provides students with a means of approaching Shakespeare focusing on the themes and ideas which permeated his dramatic art. Shakespeare's artistic development is explored with special emphasis placed on the dynamic relationship of the plays to 20th century society and the individual. Although this is an introductory course, it is not a survey course. It is a detailed study of six representative texts which are placed in both a modern and Elizabethan social and theatrical context.
    
    Wide use is made of available recordings, films and stage productions. A combination of lectures, tutorials and seminars enables students to approach the material in a variety of ways. Lectures cover background and social and theatrical material as well as Shakespeare's biography. In general, the tutorials emphasize close textual study and the discussion of the relevance of these plays to the 20th century. (Fee includes theater tickets.)

• LONS ECON 109 Introduction to Microeconomics in Great Britain and Europe
  • This course seeks to provide a foundation in microeconomic analysis for students who have not had much previous exposure to economics. Emphasis will be placed on applied issues in economics and public policy, particularly as they relate to Great Britain and Europe more generally. Weekly lectures and seminars will focus on how microeconomic theory is often at the heart of both policy decisions and everyday life—from questions over the National Health Service (NHS) or European tax proposals to consumer behaviour and the public good. By using the basic techniques of microeconomics, students will be able to follow current policy debates intelligibly and understand the relevant issues and complications from an analytical standpoint.
• LONS EEWL 107 Writing
  • Let the best writers about London, past and present, help you with your own essay writing. You will even get to meet some of them! In this course students learn about the capital through the essays and journalism of a variety of exciting authors, as well as fine-tuning their own writing in a friendly and productive workshop environment. Students will produce short non-fiction pieces each week, receiving close attention and feedback on the technical and stylistic aspects of their work. This course will benefit students from all majors to perfect their written communication, providing valuable development of the skills necessary for both successful academic writing and their future careers.
• LONS ENCW 210 Creative Writing - The Art of Fiction
  • Students will be encouraged to develop their own creative writing within the context of contemporary British fiction. We will analyze the approaches taken by various British novelists and short story writers. Our focus will be decidedly practical as we learn to read as writers, gleaning tips on the craft of constructing prose fiction. The course will invite students to consider the issues raised in the process of writing, aiming to uncover various methods of confronting potential problems. Our textual analysis will provide a springboard for our own writing. Students will develop their own imagination, self-criticism and craft through a combination of structured creative writing exercises and independent assignments.
    By the end of the course, each class member will have collected a portfolio of work. The program will end with a literary event, at which each student will have the opportunity to read a selection of his/her work.
• LONS HIUK 130 History of Modern Britain since 1850
  • The History of Modern Britain is a 4-credit course which examines major historical changes that have transformed Britain from the Victorian era onwards. Its aim is to enable students to participate in a course that stimulates both intellect and imagination to provide context and background to the experience of Britain, at the same time as stirring (encouraging) an excitement in history. The focus is on key issues: (1) industrial and imperial power - from dominance to second rank; (2) the impact of the world wars on British society (3) making a better society - the drive to relieve poverty and create a welfare state; (4) the changing position of women; (5) the Irish and Britain.
    
    While we will debate and analyse the issues in their historical and cultural context, many of them point the way to contemporary problems and the ways in which they are tackled. A central role in the course is played by London's historical resources: its buildings, museums and libraries, ranging from the Guildhall - where the largest collection of London's primary documentary sources are held - to the Imperial War Museum with its impressive collections from the two world wars. Seminar discussions are built round artefacts, original written material and film, as well as books and articles.
    
    The wider areas of concern to historians are raised throughout our sessions, cause and effect, the short-run and the long-run, the role of the individual, continuity and discontinuity together with the question of turning points. Students are helped to form a coherent general analysis of the period and to undertake assisted independent research in their chosen special study areas, drawn from topics that have included, for example, Victorian monarchy, the Suffragettes, the unemployed and new jobs in the 1930s, and the London Blitz of 1940. Pre-course reading: we consider that some of the novels of the period give the best introduction.
    
    We recommend such works as Hard Times by Dickens; Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson; King Solomon's Mines, Rider Haggard; Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers; Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell; and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe.
    
    The set text is State and Society: British Political and Social History 1870-1997 by Martin Pugh (The Arnold History of Britain, 2000).
• LONS MSFC 210 Filming the City
  • Film studies has become increasingly attentive to the role of the city in film. New York, Paris, Berlin and London: of contemporary urban British cinema, with an emphasis on filming the city. Urban cinema is an interdisciplinary archetypal cinematic cities each with complex and multifarious meanings. In this course we'll explore key themes subject linking film studies with sociology, cultural studies, geography and urban studies. The course explores films that look at urban housing, employment, race, class, gender and immigration; examining their responses to urban successes and failures. Many writers have drawn attention to the correlation between the mobility and visual and aural sensations of the city and the cinema; the striking ability of cinema to capture and express the spatial complexity, diversity, and social dynamism of the city through mise-en-scene, location filming, lighting, cinematography and editing (Mark Shiel). The course pays attention to a range of texts both as aesthetic objects but also as responses to economic, political and social pressures exerted on the film industry since the 1990s. The unit is broken into three blocks: the first looks at representations of London in the 1990s; the second takes a detour to explore urban spaces across England, thus emphasizing the range of urban societies; finally we return 'home' to explore the London of the late 1990s up to the present day.
• LONS MSHP 142 Introduction to British Media: History, Culture, and Public Policy
  • This course introduces students to the study of British media with an emphasis on learning how to reflect on and analyse a variety of media texts, from print and television news to feature-length documentaries. The course offers a historical survey of key moments in the development of British media (covering print, radio, television, new media, etc) as well as an introduction to a range of scholarly writings that take up various debates on the topic.
• LONS PSUK 251 Britain and the EU
  • Lecture topics for this 4-credit course include: World War II and British Politics; Conservatism 1951-64 and 1970-74; Labor Governments 1945-51, in the 1960's and 1974-79; Thatcherism and the Conservative ascendancy since 1979; Foreign Policy; the Post- War Consensus, contemporary issues. Seminar topics include: the British Constitution; the role of Cabinet and the Prime Minister; the Civil Service; the House of Commons; the House of Lords and the Monarchy; parties and party organization; the electoral system; voting behaviors; interest groups; Britain and the European political system. Pre-course reading: The British Polity, P. Norton; Ruling Performance: British Government from Attlee to Thatcher, P. Hennessy; Bill Jones, Politics UK or David Childs, Britain since 1939.
• LONS SOSC 143 Introduction to Sociology
  • This course provides a survey of major ‘classical’ and ‘contemporary’ sociological paradigms, theories and thinkers. As such this course will cover a time span from the 1830s to the present. Sociology is a field of study that explains social, political, and economic phenomena in terms of social structures, social forces, and group relations. It introduces you to the field by focusing on several important sociological topics, including class, religion, conflict, bureaucracy, socialisation, culture, the social construction of knowledge, inequality, race and gender relations. To the extent possible, we will place thinkers and their contributions to the field in their historical and intellectual contexts and focus on the analytical assumptions and implications of each individual theoretical approach. Sociological theories are an effort to make the social world around us understandable and, as such, they also have empirical implications. We will explore both how to grasp the internal logic of the theories and how that theory applies to real social processes, both in the past and in the present. While the lectures will provide an overview of the most important aspects relating to the study of society, seminars will give students the opportunity to investigate specific issues in more depth and give them the possibility to apply what they have learned from the reading and the lecture in class discussions.
• LONS SOSP 237 Twentieth-century Art in Contemporary London Collections
  • This course explores London's shifting cultural, political and socioeconomic identity through an in-depth study of the city's galleries and museums. The London public's deep investment in the images of the city and of Britain's culture that its galleries have presented is clear: from the politicized displays of the Royal Academy exhibitions right through to the national debates provoked by the controversial Turner Prize. Exploring the busy walls of Somerset House in the late eighteenth-century to the 'white cube' spaces of the 1970s, we will consider the impact of British politics on London's cultural landscape, the ways in which the curatorial layout and architectural character of these spaces have shaped the metropolitan public's viewing experience, and how the recent cuts to arts funding by the coalition government will impact museum culture in London as the city prepares to host a 'cultural Olympiad' in 2012. With London's extensive art collections as our primary resource, the course will combine academic texts and film screenings with specialized tours and discussions with curators at Tate Modern, Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Sir John Soane's Museum, among others.

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City University

City University London was founded in 1894 as the Northampton Institute on its present site and awarded full university status in 1966.  It has special links with the City of London and plays an active role in the business and professional life of the capital. The following courses are available to Study Abroad students:

Selected City University Courses

• IP1011 Theories of Global Politics 1
  • (4 credits)
    This module sets up the key theoretical debate, between a state-centric, power-based, Realist approach and a multi-actor, issue-based Pluralist approach to the study of International Politics. The module raises the main theoretical questions that underlie understanding and analysis of most aspects of International Politics. The lectures and classes will present a broad menu of information and concepts for understanding the nature of global political systems. The two competing theoretical approaches to the study of global politics -- Realism, focusing on states competing for power, and a Pluralist approach, focusing on a diverse range of actors mobilizing support on issues, will each be introduced. The assumptions on which they are based will be compared and contrasted. As a result, students will gain the ability to analyze contemporary issues, including economic and social issues, in global politics.
• IP 1003 Global Political Issues - 20th Century

  • (4 credits)
    This module introduces students to the recent historical context for understanding contemporary global politics. The three main policy domains for the period from the end of the Second World War until the 1990s, namely the Cold War, decolonization and Israeli-Palestinian relations, are covered. The lectures and classes will present basic information on the patterns of change in the major policy domains that have dominated recent history and influenced contemporary decision makers. The three topics will not be taught with a chronological approach to historical events, but as examples of the problems of understanding and analyzing global political structures and processes of change.

• IP 1013 Actors in Global Politics 1: State-Based Actors
  • (4 credits)
    This module introduces students to the structure of the United Nations, the key intergovernmental organisation in global politics. Knowledge of its structure and procedures provides an important context for all the other modules in International Politics. One policy domain of global politics that is uniquely focused on the UN, conflict resolution and peace-keeping, is also covered, to illustrate how the UN system operates.
• PS 1003 Cognitive Approaches to Mind and Behavior
  • (4 credits)
    To introduce students to Cognitive Psychology. Students will learn about the nature of perception, information processing, phenomena and theories of memory and thinking and language.
• BS 1102 Introduction to Management
  • (4 credits)
    This course sets the scene on what business studies and management is about. It looks at the environment in which business is conducted and the challenges for managers tasked with running organizations to achieve desired objectives. The course looks at the functions that business people and managers need to discharge effectively and the processes that are involved in doing so. It then looks at the context in which these people operate and interact and the issues getting things done raises both for the present and for the future.

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Science Courses at Queen Mary, University of London

Students will have the option to enroll in select science courses at Queen Mary. 

• SEF003 Introductory Chemistry 
• SEF031 Form & Function in Biology 
• SEF005 Physics - Mechanics & Materials 

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Brandeis Equivalents

Students at Brandeis are required to complete a one-semester course in each of the four schools: Creative Arts, Humanities, Science and Social Science. They must also complete an undergraduate writing seminar. Fulfillment of these requirements can begin at any time.

Below is a list of the approved courses and their equivalent at Brandeis.  If you have any further questions about this, please contact Allyson Goose in the Brandeis University Office of Study Abroad.

• School of Creative Arts (CA)
  • LONS AREC 180 Environment, Communities and the Arts in Britain
    LONS ARDP 190 Contemporary Photographic Practice
    LONS ARUK 110 Introduction to British Art 
    LONS DTBT 277 20th Century British Theatre: From the Angry Young Men to the Frantically Drunk
    LONS DTPC 181 Play Critique
    LONS DTSH 180 Introduction to Shakespeare in Text and Modern Performance
    LONS SOSP 237 Twentieth Century Art in Contemporary London Collections
• School of Humanities (HUM)
  • LONS ANRS 199 Enchanted City: Religious Experience in Secular London
    LONS ENCW 210 Creative Writing
• School of Science (SN)
  • PS 1003  Cognitive Approaches to Mind and Behavior
    SEF003 Introductory Chemistry 
    SEF031 Form & Function in Biology 
    SEF005 Physics - Mechanics & Materials
• School of Social Sciences (SS)
  • LONS ECON 109 Introduction to Microeconomics in Great Britain and Europe
    LONS HIUK 130 Introduction to the History of Modern Britain
    LONS HIUK 262 Special Topics in Modern British History
    LONS MSFC 210 Filming the City
    LONS MSHP 142 Introduction to British Media: History, Culture, and Public Policy
    LONS PSUK 251 Political Change in 20th and 21st Century Britain
    LONS SOHR 260 Human Rights in an Era of Terrorism
    LONS SOSC 141 Introduction to Sociology
    LONS SOSP 220 London: Space, Place and Culture in the 20th Century Metropolis
    IP1011 Theories of Global Politics 1
    IP 1003 Global Political Issues - 20th Century
    IP 1013 Actors in Global Politics 1: State-Based Actors
    BS 1102 Introduction to Management
• Undergraduate Writing Seminar
  • LONS EEWL 107 Writing London

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