• Offered for Year: 2026/27

• Module Leader(s): Dr Stephen Overy
• Co-Module Leader: Dr Adam Potts

• Owning School: School X
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

• Capacity limit: 20 student places

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

The aims of this philosophy fieldwork module centred around exploring place and context are multifaceted, aiming to provide students with an advanced and well-rounded learning experience that encourages independent critical thinking, sustained engagement with current academic debate, and a deeper understanding of philosophical concepts in real-world settings, at a level appropriate to the final year of an undergraduate degree.
Contextual Understanding: The primary aim is to foster an advanced comprehension of philosophy within the context of real-world situations and the specific sites in which philosophical conversations have unfolded. Because students are investigating a place directly rather than studying it at second hand, their findings are not guaranteed in advance: part of the work is establishing whether and how the site still supports or complicates the philosophical theory associated with it, which necessarily exposes them to the uncertainty and limits of existing knowledge in the field. Engagement with Contemporary Scholarship: Building on the foundation laid at level five, the module develops students’ ability to identify, evaluate, and critically engage with contemporary scholars and sources writing on the philosophical traditions, figures, and places under study, so that students learn to position their own interpretations within live academic debate rather than relying solely on primary or historical material. Exploration of Philosophical Ideas: The module seeks to encourage students to explore and engage with various philosophical ideas and theories in different places and contexts, independently locating and assessing the secondary literature that frames current debate around them.
Critical Thinking: Another essential aim is to enhance independent critical thinking skills at an advanced level. By immersing themselves in real-world situations that have not been fully resolved by existing scholarship, students will learn to evaluate philosophical concepts and competing scholarly interpretations, question assumptions, and analyse the complexities of ethical, metaphysical, and epistemological issues within specific contexts, including where the field evidence sits awkwardly with the theory.
Interdisciplinary Perspective: Students will learn to appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of philosophy by critically engaging with how scholars in fields such as sociology, psychology, politics, and science have written about these places, figures and contexts.
Independent Research and Self-Management: The module aims to develop students’ ability to manage their own learning with a high degree of autonomy. During the fieldwork itself, students exercise personal responsibility and initiative in deciding, often within a team, which sites to prioritise, which lines of enquiry to pursue, and how to use their unstructured time in the field productively, mirroring the decision-making expected of a final-year graduate operating in complex and unpredictable circumstances.
Cultural Sensitivity: Through a holistic exposure to different places and contexts, and the scholarly communities that study them, students will develop cultural sensitivity and an appreciation for diverse worldviews. They will learn to engage in meaningful dialogues with people from various backgrounds, fostering mutual understanding and respect.
Practical Research Skills: The module aims to equip students with advanced practical research skills, including independent literature searching, observation, data collection, and analysis, enabling them to conduct meaningful philosophical inquiries that are well-situated within current academic literature.
Global Perspective: By exploring philosophy in different places and the scholarship produced about them, students will gain a more comprehensive global perspective, understanding how philosophical ideas and values vary across cultures and regions, and how these perspectives influence societies and individuals.

Outline Of Syllabus

Examples of module outlines and the concepts and contexts that might be investigated include:
- Eco-Philosophy in Context (Trier / Mosel Region) — Exploration of environmental philosophy, philosophies of value, aesthetics, and material culture through engagement with artisanal food production, landscape, and ecological practice. Attention to the relationship between craft, sustainability, and philosophical accounts of beauty and value.
- Protest and Revolution (Paris) — Philosophical and historical study of revolution and political transformation, including engagement with Marx, Deleuze, and theories of revolutionary change. Consideration of Louis Bonaparte, the revolutions of 1848 and 1851, and the legacy of 1968, including Nanterre and student protest movements. Attention to the city as a site of political meaning and contestation.
- Cities, Culture, and Cosmopolitanism (Brussels) — Engagement with theories of urban meaning, symbolism, space, and cultural production through the work of Baudrillard, Benjamin, Jameson, and Deleuze. Focus on cosmopolitanism, global modernity, and the city as a philosophical object.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The teaching prepares students for the fieldwork trip, then supports them in interpreting it. Structured sessions introduce key places, concepts, and the contemporary scholarship surrounding them. Because students investigate these sites directly, the format puts them at the edge of existing knowledge: whether a location still supports its associated theory is genuinely open. Unstructured time in the field requires students, often working in teams, to decide for themselves what to prioritise and pursue, building the independent judgement expected at this level. Workshops after the trip help students digest the fieldwork in light of current scholarship and prepare for assessment.
Group work is permitted during the fieldwork and preparatory stages, reflecting the collaborative way philosophical enquiry often unfolds in practice.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Formative Assessments

Formative Assessment is an assessment which develops your skills in being assessed, allows for you to receive feedback, and prepares you for being assessed. However, it does not count to your final mark.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Students write a 4,000 word essay, the standard unit of assessment in Philosophy, integrating in-discipline and interdisciplinary learning. At level 6, it requires critical engagement with contemporary scholarship and independent judgement in using fieldwork evidence to support a position, including where that evidence sits awkwardly with the theory. Essays are marked against the standard Philosophy mark scheme.
Students may instead submit an alternative format (e.g. video essay or podcast), proportional in size and effort to the essay, agreed in advance with the module leader. This lets students integrate fieldwork material and demonstrate presentation skills valued by employers. As format varies by submission, this route uses a bespoke scheme with three headline criteria (use of medium, philosophical understanding, application of philosophy to context), weighted to keep philosophical understanding central.
Where students have worked in groups, the alternative format may also be submitted as a group assessment, with marks awarded to the group as a whole. The overall size of a group submission scales proportionally with the number of students in the group (e.g. a group of three submits a piece equivalent to three times the individual 4,000 word benchmark).

Reading Lists

• PHI3117's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• PHI3117's Timetable