Online subject tasters: Arts and Humanities

Jane Eyre is best remembered as a great love story between its heroine – the “poor, obscure, plain and little” governess, Jane – and her rich and powerful employer, Mr Rochester. 

This is how the book is marketed to readers and how it’s sold to audiences across a range of stage and screen adaptations. But love is a complicated thing, and we’ll spend time in this session putting pressure on Brontë’s great love story. 

We’ll pay close attention to the violence, domination and self-sacrifice that accompany expressions of love and desire in the novel, and we’ll think about different varieties of love beyond heteronormative romance.

• 5pm - Welcome and introduction to the School of English
• 5.15pm - Taster lecture
• 5.50pm - Q&A about the lecture and life at Sheffield with current undergraduate students and academic staff

Please note all timings are approximate, but the session will be no longer than 90 minutes.

Jane Austen's much-loved novels are very frequently adapted. However, this lecture focuses on the ways that adaptations can aim to critique rather than uphold the worldview a source text would seem to represent. 

The session will begin by setting adaptations of Austen's fiction in historical context and as part of a normally conservative heritage industry. 

We will then turn to focus, by contrast, on two bold re-readings: first, Patricia Rozema's 1999 film Mansfield Park, which offers a feminist, post-colonial critique of Austen's novel; second, a 2018 reinterpretation of Pride and Prejudice by German theatre collective Thermoboy FK, a dreamlike reimagining of Austen performed by an all-male cast. 

Through these examples, the lecture investigates adaptation's ability to reveal gaps and silences in its source material and find new ways to reach a contemporary audience.

• 5pm - Welcome and introduction to the School of English
• 5.15pm - Taster lecture
• 5.50pm - Q&A about the lecture and life at Sheffield with current undergraduate students and academic staff

Please note all timings are approximate, but the session will be no longer than 90 minutes.

This lecture explores British society and culture in the 1960s, when the nation moved from an era of austerity and rationing to one of unprecedented affluence. 

This was a period of intellectual ferment when traditions and authorities were challenged, personal morality was re-evaluated, and new freedoms were claimed. 

Key topics to be covered include the impact of affluence and consumerism on class and gender relationships; the emergence of a national youth culture based around music and fashion; and the increasingly heated debates about immigration and race.

• 5pm - Welcome and introduction to the School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
• 5.15pm - Lecture
• 5.50pm - Q&A about the lecture and life at Sheffield with a current undergraduate student and academic staff. 

Please note all timings are approximate, but the session will be no longer than 90 minutes.

In early 2025, Americans took to the streets under the banner “No Kings”, protesting what they saw as Donald Trump’s royal ambitions. 

From the moment it broke away from George III, the United States defined itself against monarchy, and as the marchers show, the prospect that the White House might turn into a palace still sparks outrage. But look more closely, and American history tells a more complicated story. Beneath the republican surface, royalist dreams as well as fears have always been there. 

Drawing on our teaching about Trumpism's historical roots and our current research into an alleged plot to crown an emperor in Washington after the Civil War, this talk explores how kingship - supposedly the most “un-American” of ideas - has shaped the United States from the era of Alexander Hamilton through to influential contemporary monarchists like Curtis Yarvin.

• 5pm - Welcome and introduction to the School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
• 5.15pm - Lecture
• 5.50pm - Q&A about the lecture and life at Sheffield with a current undergraduate student and academic staff. 

Please note all timings are approximate, but the session will be no longer than 90 minutes.

In this short lecture, we’ll look at the cultural manifestations and growing popularity of the ‘game survival narrative’ in East Asian cinema and television. 

Starting with the renowned Japanese film ‘Battle Royale’ (2000), and moving towards the present day South Korean hit ‘Squid Game’ (2021), we’ll consider how we might use examples from this unique dystopian genre to better understand the social and political landscapes of contemporary East Asian societies.

• 5pm - Welcome and introduction to the School of Languages, Arts and Societies
• 5.15pm - Taster lecture
• 5.50pm - Q&A about the lecture and life at Sheffield with current undergraduate students and academic staff

Please note all timings are approximate, but the session will be no longer than 90 minutes.

The psychologist Sigmund Freud was one of the greatest German-language thinkers of the twentieth century. Many of his ideas and concepts have become part of our everyday language; for example, when we say things like "I did it unconsciously". 

This talk takes a closer look at Freud's ideas on the workings of the mind. It asks how his theory of the unconscious can help us better understand today's society as well as our own personal behaviour. 

Not least, it addresses the question: why is it important to read Freud in the original German?

• 5pm - Welcome and introduction to the School of Languages, Arts and Societies
• 5.10pm - Taster lecture
• 5.45pm - Q&A about the lecture and life at Sheffield with current undergraduate students and academic staff

Please note all timings are approximate, but the session will be no longer than 90 minutes.

Mozart's final work, the Requiem, was left incomplete at his death in 1791. 

The facts about the Requiem are relatively straightforward and well known, but fiction and legends remain pervasive, especially around the work's genesis, and are fascinating as a record of what is important to us collectively about the work. 

Legends, for example, have inspired performers, critics and writers of fiction in the nineteenth century and beyond.

• 5pm - Welcome and introduction to the School of Languages, Arts and Societies
• 5.15pm - Taster lecture
• 5.45pm - Q&A about the lecture and life at Sheffield with a current undergraduate student and academic staff

Please note all timings are approximate, but the session will be no longer than 90 minutes.

This talk will show how modern philosophy can use empirical science to tackle real-world issues. 

We'll delve into social psychology and new research on the "manosphere" to understand how prejudice and misogyny show up in online spaces and their discourses of toxic masculinity. 

The discussion will also draw on ideas from feminist religious studies, offering a multi-faceted look at this complex issue.

• 5pm - Welcome and introduction to the School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
• 5.15pm - Lecture
• 5.50pm - Q&A about the lecture and life at Sheffield with a current undergraduate student and academic staff

Please note all timings are approximate, but the session will be no longer than 90 minutes

Are We Morally Obliged to be Poor? 

Almost everyone agrees that there are some occasions where we morally ought to help others, even if doing so comes at a high cost to us. Peter Singer argues that we have much stronger moral duties to people than we recognise, and that we ought to be giving most of our money to charity. 

We will consider his arguments for this claim, and try to work out if we really should make ourselves poor to help others.

• 5pm - Welcome and introduction to the School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
• 5.15pm - Lecture
• 5.50pm - Q&A about the lecture and life at Sheffield with a current undergraduate student and academic staff

Please note all timings are approximate, but the session will be no longer than 90 minutes