Pitt in London Semester

The Learning through Internships program is a unique and innovative opportunity for students to combine their internship placement (and living abroad) experience with a weekly in-class educational and mentoring experience (session), which aims to develop students' personal and professional skills while earning academic credit. The Focus Seminars and Regional Identities lectures and activities which make up an important part of the program are designed to provide theory and practice around societal themes which inform and enrich the internship experience. Students enrolling in ARTSC 1903 will earn 3 semester credits and intern 15-20 hours per week.

This course addresses the principal ethical issues facing print and broadcast journalism that arise almost daily in media coverage of matters of public controversy, such as crime, war, and privacy. Problems of regulation and codes of practice are also examined alongside London's global importance as a media hub and the distinctive media culture of the UK.

The 1990s and 2000s saw the British film industry undergo a number of dramatic changes. From an all-time low at the end of 1980s, during the early 1990s British cinema entered a period of confidence and success that was mirrored by a major structural and financial reorganization. The course will chart the development of British film during the period 1994-2010 through the critical study of key films, and will examine the way that these films both emerge from and transform the earlier British cinema tradition. Readings will focus on the critical reception of the films and the manner in which they have been absorbed into the canon. There will also be particular focus on the political and social context of the films.

For a portrayal of the variety and depth of human emotions, Shakespeare has never been equaled. In this course, a selection of plays will be studied in depth, with equal focus on the genres of comedy, history and tragedy. Through visits to Shakespearean plays in performance, to the Globe theatre workshop, and through guest speakers, the plays will be examined not only textually but also as living plays that tell us as much about modern identity as the development of the early modern identity. Students will examine the notion of Shakespeare as 'timeless' to understand how vitally he moves from the concerns of his day to ours. This course requires an addition $70 fee to cover the cost of theatre tickets while in London.  You will pay this via credit card upon arrival.

This course addresses the development of the modern detective novel, British and American, from the late 19th century into the 21st.  Detective and crime fiction is one of the most popular forms of narrative, appealing to writers and readers with widely diverse interests and ideologies.  It can offer intense action, intellectual challenge, access to criminal underworlds, political and social critique, and exploration of the psyche.  The focus in this version of the course will be on cities (London and Los Angeles) as sites of criminal imagination, and on detectives as explorers of the city’s hidden connections.  Whether or not they bring about “justice” will be an open question.  Our approach will be broadly historical, from the British amateur sleuths of Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, through the American “hard-boiled” private eye, to the contemporary “police procedural” in television and film as well as fiction. 

This course will look at some key theories of popular culture, and include case studies of selected examples from the British Isles since 1945. Popular culture versus subcultures will be examined. The main aim will be to enable students to think independently about this topic. The course will include study visits to galleries, museums and other sites as an important learning experience. This course aims to draw in the students' previous educational and life experiences of culture and history, including oral cultures, popular and ethnic cultures and social and religious movements. It will compare British and American experiences of popular culture, the differences, similarities and cross-influences.

The course is designed to introduce students both to canonical literary texts from Johnson to Conan Doyle and to contemporary representations of multi-cultural London.  In the first half of the course we visit the places where famous literary projects were first conceived.  In the second half of the course the class will be visited by an author or director working in contemporary London.
This course takes its students on a historical tour of the capital with great writers and film-makers as our guides.  We start with a boat trip from Westminster to Tower Bridge: a view of the city from the river on which it was built.  Our first stop back on land is Samuel Johnson and the world of eighteenth century literary London.  We look at some of the variety of Johnson’s writing and also visit the house in which he wrote his dictionary and the pub (The Cheshire Cheese) where he entertained his friends.  We then move onto the Romantic poets and read poems about London by Blake, Wordsworth and Keats before visiting the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum.  We then pass into the nineteenth century world of detective fiction and some of the stories of Sherlock Holmes.  The second half of the course focuses on contemporary London and questions of class, race and culture. We read Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia and Zadie Smith’s NW and watch a series of films which show the changing face of London over the last fifty years. 

This course will introduce creative writing in relation to the city and the particular challenges of writing about place. Students will examine how various subjects such as the river, urban spaces, solitude, ethnicity, particular boroughs, and characters (both fictional and real) function in London narratives; develop an understanding of the role of memory and experience in literary psycho-geographical accounts of the metropolis; utilize their observations of London to practice creative writing; and investigate the potential of place within the narrative of various genres.

This course will enable students to engage directly with London as a specific landscape in which feminism is embedded, examining the historical and ongoing legacy of feminism in the city: how feminists have shaped and continue to influence the fabric of London, not only its physical infrastructure, but also its identity, reputation, and character. Topics include women’s writing, sexuality, consumerism, class dynamics, campaigns for political rights and representation, fashion and style, imperialism and its legacies, feminism and popular culture, Black & Asian feminisms, and the impact of social media upon feminist activism and discourse. This course taps into the zeitgeist surrounding women’s activism and utilizes the London cityscape enabling students to apply classroom learning to their field studies and their own experiences.

This course examines modern works of art from the late nineteenth century through to the present. The course begins by analyzing the ways in which the seeds of Modern Art were sown at the end of the nineteenth century, before moving on to work made during the twentieth century - particularly art produced in response to the First and Second World Wars; and culminates with reference to contemporary practice.

This course will focus on the ways in which the Creative industries are structured, and how arts administrators successfully share creativity with the public and leverage the commercial opportunities of creative production. Key topics to be explored will include the arts as a business; managing financial imperatives and the artistic process; promoting and presenting cultural products. Case studies will be drawn from a variety of fields such as film, digital media, gaming, theatre, museums, and publishing, and students will have the opportunity to engage directly with practitioners successfully working in various fields of arts and culture and those managing the interface between creativity and business in London.

This course surveys how Britain has responded to political, social, and cultural forces during the twentieth century. Topics include: changing perceptions about the role of the state; the decline of empire; the effect of two world wars; economic strategies; the development of multiculturalism; and the role of women with an emphasis on how the lives of ordinary British people have changed during the last century.

Where and what is Europe? Who are the Europeans? What is Europe's future? "Europe" has been a cultural idea that European elites have struggled to impose on the chaotic diversity of their continent. How has the concept "European" been defined historically, and in relation to whom? This interdisciplinary course addresses these fundamental questions of politics, geography and identity by tracing the history of "Europe" as a political concept and the cultural, political and economic factors that have shaped modern European countries. Such issues have been brought into close focus by the implications of European integration, destabilising assumptions about the territorial extent of Europe and the scales at which government, sovereignty and citizenship should operate. This course outlines the contemporary structures of the European Union and also investigates the various processes that have made Europe such a distinctive, dynamic and highly varied region. It also examines the historical roots of current tensions between - and within - the nation-states of Europe, such as ethnic nationalism, the legacy of imperialism and the politics of remembrance, and demonstrates how they continue to shape European politics today.

This course investigates the aims and principles of developmental psychology as a scientific discipline, and describes the methods used to obtain knowledge about children and their development. Issues such as children's early attachments, the development of the self, the emergence of consciousness, and the role of play are examined, with an emphasis on the role of education and child care practices and policies in the UK in shaping children's development.

This course examines how multiethnic diversity shapes and defines our understanding of modern Britain, through a specific focus on Muslim communities in London and the nature of their interactions with wider society. Students analyze the ways in which imperialism and its legacy, as well as Britain's global relationships, have influenced political policies and social attitudes toward multiculturalism and Muslim groups in particular.

One of the most effective ways of understanding a nation is by examining the images, values, symbols, and individuals by which a nation represents itself. This multi-disciplinary course explores a variety of forms of national representations, ideals and icons to investigate the ways in which modern Britain and British identities have been imagined, constructed, and experienced at home and internationally.

This interdisciplinary course focuses on the modern development of one of the world's most significant global cities in comparative context. It examines London's changing identity as a world city, with a particular emphasis on comparing the city's imperial, postcolonial, and transatlantic connections and the ways in which past and present, local and global intertwine in the capital.