Postgraduate Prospectus

www.essex.ac.uk/philosophy | Philosophy
Why study philosophy
at Essex?
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A diverse, international
postgraduate community, with
a strong sense of identity – in
2010 we achieved 100 per cent
in the National Student Survey
for student satisfaction
Unique orientation, combining the
best of continental and analytic
philosophy into a European profile
Strong UK centre for Kantian
philosophy, German idealism,
and Critical Theory, and offering
excellence in Nietzsche, Heidegger,
Foucault and recent French thought
Particular research strengths in
moral and political philosophy,
Kierkegaard, and philosophy
and medicine
Seminars, conferences, and
mini-courses with distinguished
visiting lecturers to keep you in
touch with the latest developments
in philosophical thinking
Career prospects
Many of our MA students go
on to doctoral research, and
a good proportion of these have
then pursued academic careers.
Philosophers with a PhD from
Essex now teach at many UK
universities, including Bolton,
Manchester Metropolitan, Keele,
Reading, Sussex and Oxford,
and also at numerous institutions
abroad.
Our other philosophy graduates
have gone into careers in law, the
media, local administration, HM
Revenue and Customs, and top
jobs in the Civil Service.
About our School
Philosophy is a part of our School
of Philosophy and Art History. We are
committed to fostering a wide variety
of philosophical approaches and to
developing links between philosophy
and other disciplines. We pride ourselves
on our intensive teaching and supervision;
in the most recent Research Assessment
Exercise (RAE, December 2008), we were
ranked in the top ten for philosophy in the
UK, and first for continental philosophy.
Our acknowledged research strengths
mean we are home to the journal Inquiry,
and also to the Essex Autonomy Project,
a major interdisciplinary project funded by
the Arts and Humanities Research Council
(AHRC), which aims to investigate the role
of autonomous judgment in many aspects
of human life.
We welcome students whose
intellectual outlook and interests cut
across conventional academic boundaries.
Our aim is to provide a supportive and
stimulating intellectual environment for
our postgraduates, which helps you to
meet the various challenges involved in
philosophical studies.
We also have opportunities for you to
spend time abroad on the ERASMUS
programme at our partner institutions in
Germany (Tübingen) and France (Catholic
University of Paris).
Taught courses
Our Masters courses can be taken
either full-time for one year, part-time
over two years or on a modular basis
(three to six years). Assessment is normally
on the basis of coursework and your
supervised dissertation.
MA Continental Philosophy•
This course provides you with a thorough
grounding in the continental philosophical
tradition, from Kant and Hegel to the
present. You choose from modules
on thinkers and topics such as Kant,
Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Freud and
psychoanalysis, aesthetics and art theory.
The central recommended module is our
Seminar in Continental Philosophy, which
offers the chance to explore major works
of the continental tradition in detail, and
to study a range of approaches such
as phenomenology, hermeneutics,
deconstruction and Critical Theory. You
must take four out of six modules in
philosophy and your dissertation must
be on an area of continental philosophy.
MA Continental Philosophy will develop
your capacities for independent thought
and critical reflection. You will also build
research skills appropriate to the advanced
study of continental philosophy, thus
providing you with the basis for further
progression on to a PhD.
MA Ethics, Politics and Public Policy•
This course covers the ethical dimensions
of public policy and corporate action in
fields such as health policy, the
environment, international relations,
business investment and planning,
employment relations and the financing
of public policy. If your background is in
politics, law, sociology or related disciplines,
you can extend your interests in a moral
and philosophical direction. Equally, if
you have a philosophical background,
you can apply your understanding to
issues of public policy.
Given the increasing sensitivity
of governments, public bodies, and
corporations to the moral dimension of
what they do, our MA Ethics, Politics and
Public Policy can naturally lead to work in
a variety of fields like government, the civil
service, think tanks, the health service,
corporations and non-governmental
organisations.
MA Philosophy and Health Care Ethics•
This course provides you with the theoretical
tools to understand the existential meaning
of illness and care in a philosophically
grounded way. Drawing from health and
human sciences, and from the writings of
various philosophers (in particular,
twentieth-century phenomenologists such
as Heidegger and Lévinas), our modules
Postgraduate Prospectus 2012 | 171