War And Humanitarianism

Overview

War and humanitarianism are deeply embedded in the modern experience. Be it in the nineteenth-century calls for civilising war or the contemporary attempts at saving distant strangers, the conduct of organised violence and the defence of human rights cannot be separated out.

This new War And Humanitarianism programme at Birkbeck, University of London  analyses the complex interaction between war and humanitarianism from multiple historical, geographical, political and cultural perspectives. It approaches war as a social totality that encompasses all manner of human processes and structures, and considers humanitarianism as an increasingly pervasive ideology, informing all sorts of collective social and political activity across the world.

Highlights

• Our location in central London puts us at the heart of the UK’s political life and at the centre of academic London. You can walk down to Parliament and Whitehall, while Bloomsbury contains some of the world’s most famous libraries and centres of research.

• You can take advantage of the rich research collections within walking distance, including Senate House Library, the British Library, and the British Library of Political and Economic Science at the London School of Economics.

• Our Department of Politics is a world-renowned centre of original, influential research. In the Research Excellence Framework (REF), Politics at Birkbeck was ranked 17th in the UK.

• The Department organises a lively programme of seminars and conferences and is home to affiliated research centres, such as the Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life, which run seminars, conferences and other events where some of the world's best scholars present their latest research.

• Our academic staff are international authorities in their fields, publishing and delivering stimulating teaching in a wide range of topicsincluding civil society and the state, public policy, development, gender, international security and terrorism, and social and political theory.

• Birkbeck Library has a large politics collection, including the major specialist journals, and gives you access to an extensive range of online materials.

Careers and Employability

Graduates could pursue careers in local government, policy making, journalism, campaigning or work in NGOs or charities. Possible future roles could include social researcher, government research officer or teacher. This degree is also useful for applications to international organisations or to be a Civil Service fast streamer.