Psychosocial Studies (MA / Graduate Certificate) - 2013/2014 entry

This programme aims to enhance understanding of this new critical field of interdisciplinary study. In order to understand the complexities of this interrelationship, it combines understandings of the social and political domain drawn from disciplines such as psychoanalysis, sociology, political studies, anthropology, cultural studies, philosophy, feminism, post-colonial studies and queer theory.

It aims to connect discussions of our precarious and increasingly interconnected collective fates with our most intimate personal and psychic life. In doing so, the programme aims to better understand a range of concerns including: violence, aggression and war; racial hatred, xenophobia and intolerance; trauma, loss and memory; affect and embodiment; intimacies, communities and care; parenting, friendship and love; sexuality, gender and desire; ethics, agency and human rights; resistance, transformation and change.

You may be interested in pursuing an academic career in psychosocial studies, social and cultural theory, or in the social sciences or humanities more generally. You may wish to enhance your current career in health and social care, mental health, education, social research, international development, conflict resolution and mediation, arts and cultural industries, or a range of other work settings by studying the psychosocial at Master's level. Or you may wish simply to deepen your understanding of the contemporary world through a psychosocial lens.

Our staff members are trained counsellors, psychologists and psychotherapists, as well as social and cultural theorists, empirical researchers and political activists. We are delighted that students will also have the opportunity to benefit from the regular visits of Professor Judith Butler (University of California, Berkeley).

For more information, read our programme handbooks for the MA and Graduate Certificate.

• Designed for graduates looking to develop an in-depth understanding of the relation between individual subjectivities and identities, and historical and contemporary social and political formations.
• Department of Psychosocial Studies staff are internationally recognised figures at the forefront of this important new field of studies

Graduate Certificate

The programme consists of two 30-credit modules:

• Introduction to Psychoanalysis: 10-week module introducing key concepts of psychoanalysis, spread across Freudian, Kleinian and Lacanian approaches.
• Social Theory and Sociology: 10-week module introducing critical approaches in sociology, including feminist and postcolonial perspectives.

MA

The core modules introduce you to the main theories, epistemologies and methodologies used in psychosocial thinking and investigation:

• Theories and Sites of the Psychosocial
• Texts and Interpretation
• Independent Research Module.

Option modules may include more specialist courses on key concepts in psychoanalysis, inter-subjectivity and recognition, gender and sexuality, queer theory, human rights, as well as courses on substantive topics such as intimacy or violence. These may include:

• Culture, Community, Identity
• Fantasmatic Formations
• Sexing the Body: Psychoanalytic and Other Framings
• Visual Culture: Power and the Image
• In addition, you can choose an option module from a range of programmes across the College.

Students have access to both the Birkbeck Library and Senate House Library. All postgraduates at Birkbeck benefit from a wide range of advantages related to the central location of the College, its varied and rich postgraduate life and the diversity of overlapping Master's programmes. There are also at least three College research institutes of relevance to students on this degree: Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and Birkbeck Institute of Gender and Sexuality. Each organises regular talks and masterclasses, which our students can attend.

The Graduate Certificate prepares students for postgraduate study on other programmes run by the Department of Psychosocial Studies, specifically the MA Psychosocial Studies, MA Psychoanalysis, History and Culture, and MA Culture, Diaspora and Ethnicity.

If you are interested in further research after completing the MA, we offer a PhD/MPhil in Psychosocial Studies, which can then lead into a career in academia or in social research.

Graduates may wish to pursue a research career. The programme can also enhance already established careers in development studies, third sector organisations such as charities and NGOs, social policy, health and social care, mental health, teaching and related areas.

MA programme content

Other option modules available from across the College include:

• The Confusion of Tongues: Illness, Language, Writing
• Language Matters
• Reading Time in the Twentieth Century
• Cultural Memory
• Masculinities/Femininities
• Queer Theories
• Queer Histories, Queer Cultures
• Gender in Modern Britain
• Why War: Psychoanalytic Thought, History and Political Life c.1900–1945
• Degeneration: Science, Culture and Social Prophecy 1850–1945
• Mind, Body and Self in Nineteenth-Century Britain
• Fascism and Psychoanalysis
• The Affect of Illness
• Disciplining Sex: Sexuality, Society and Nineteenth-Century Literary Culture.

The definitive list of options will be confirmed at the beginning of each academic year.

• Applications are accepted throughout the year, but early application (prior to April for course commencement in October) is encouraged.