During the two-year course, you will analyze how various text types from a variety of cultures and time periods engage with Global Issues. Your tutor will help you to think about the ways in which these issues are present in your Book List and how different authors and texts represent, reflect and/or explore them through their choice of literary form, structure, language use or literary devices. The Global Issues you select will shape your focus for the Individual Oral Assessment (IO).
A Global Issue incorporates the following three properties:
🌍 Has significance on a wide or large scale
🌍 Is transnational
🌍 Its impact is felt in everyday, local contexts
The following list contains some broad areas or "fields of inquiry" where you might develop a Global Issue connected to works on your Book List
| Culture, identity and community |
|
This study could focus on the way in which works explore aspects of family, community, class, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, and nationality and the way that these impact individuals and societies. You could, for example, examine issues concerning migration, multiculturalism, colonialism, and nationalism. One Global Issue that could be examined here relates to the way that identities are constructed and the role of the community in shaping or suppressing identity. |
| Beliefs, values and education |
|
You could focus on the way in which works explore the beliefs and values nurtured in particular societies and the ways they contribute to the shaping of individuals and communities. You could investigate the tensions that arise when there are conflicts and the value and effects of education. One Global Issue in this field of inquiry that you could examine is how different individuals and communities respond to change and whether their system of beliefs resists or accepts change. |
| Politics, power and justice |
|
The ways in which works explore aspects of rights and responsibilities could be looked at, along with the workings and structures of governments, the hierarchies of power, the sharing of wealth and resources, equality and inequality, the limits of justice, and the law, peace, and conflict. One Global Issue which could be explored here is how the relationships of power are represented in the works and whether there is any individual or group which is deprived of power and silenced or marginalized. |
| Art, creativity and the imagination |
|
The study could focus on the ways in which works explore aspects of aesthetic inspiration, creation, craft, and beauty, the shaping and challenging of perceptions through art, and the function, value, and effects of art in society. One Global Issue that could be explored within this field of inquiry is the role of the artist in the world of the work. If any of the characters in the work is an artist, it could be interesting to consider what view of the role of the artist and of art is expressed through this character. |
| Science, technology and the environment |
|
The study could examine the ways in which works explore the relationship between humans and the natural environment, the implications of technology and media for society, and the consequences of scientific development and progress. One Global Issue you could explore here would be the extent to which science is presented in the work as realizing the potential of human beings or threatening and limiting it. |