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• Humanities and Social Sciences, Penryn (Cornwall)

Humanities and Social Sciences, Cornwall

We are the home of interdisciplinary degree programmes. Our degrees are built on collaboration and offer students our Department's research and teaching excellence as well as expertise from across the University.

Watcha recording of our St Piran Celebration 2023 - Cornish Identity and Heritage - 3 March 2023 - Penryn Campus

Click to learn more about our new BA in Environmental Humanities, the first in the UK

Click to find out more about our ground-breaking Law with Business LLB

Click to find out more about our Politics and International Relations programmes as well as combined honour programmes with Business, Geography and History.

Click to find out more about our History programmes as well as combined honour programmes with Business, Geography, International Relations and Politics.

Languages are an important part of what we do as a Department. All our programmes can be taken with proficiencies in Chinese, French and Spanish.

Societies, Culture and Justice in the Past, Present and Future

About us

Humanities and Social Sciences, Cornwall is an exciting new interdisciplinary endeavour that fruitfully interweaves insights from the disciplines of History, Law, Politics, Modern Languages and Literature. Our work examines societies, cultures and justice in the past, present and future. We work broadly across humanities and social sciences, and with other disciplines, to help make the world a better place for all. We are home to the Institute of Cornish Studies.

Our research and teaching interests are diverse and overlapping. We offer a unique educational and research environment for our students and staff. We cover the core curricula of our respective disciplines, but also work creatively across our disciplines in the following areas:

• Inclusive pedagogies: we provide and write about curricula and educational activities welcoming and inclusive to all.
• Environmental justice: we think through environmental solutions that put justice for people, organisms and eco-systems at their centre.
• Democracy and conflict resolution: we evaluate ways to allow the broadest array of citizen voices to be heard and to help them reach peaceful and effective compromises.
• The making and remaking of knowledge: we understand that people come to know things in a variety of valid ways. We use this understanding to inform our approaches to both disciplinary and cross-disciplinary work.
• Identity, narrative and memory: we appreciate and illustrate the ways in which narratives of the past and present shape our identities and societies.
• Understanding and redressing violence and coloniality: we are sensitive to the inequities of imperialism and think through solutions to these and other forms of violence.

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Education

We are the home of inter-disciplinary degree programmes that combine our research with our core subject expertise and teaching excellence. As a department we examine issues relating to society, justice, and culture in the past, present, and future. As part of our mission we deliver unique and engaging programmes that prepare our graduates to make a positive impact in the world when they leave us.  Our education programmes are the product of collaborations within our Department’s core disciplines of Humanities, Law, and Politics as well as with our colleagues in the Department of Sustainable Futures, Exeter Business School and the Department of Earth and Environmental Science.   

Our priority is to design and deliver an excellent learning experience that is sustainable for our students, staff and the environment. We work to encourage and support active and inquiry-led learning, from the first day our students’ join us here at the University of Exeter in Cornwall through to the day that we proudly watch them graduate.  We are passionate and engaged educators who are proud of the diverse, supportive learning community we are working to build here, in collaboration with our students.    

Our undergraduate programmes

Languages are an important part of what we do as a Department. All our programmes can be taken with proficiences in Chinese, Cornish, French and Spanish. 

All programmes in Cornwall can also be taken with proficiencies in Law and Environmental Law pathways by passing 60 credits across your degree.

Research and Impact

HaSS Cornwall brings together diverse perspectives to research issues relating to society, justice, and culture in the past, present and future. We are an interdisciplinary department built on the identity and core strengths of our staff’s home disciplines and specialisms.

As a research collective spanning English Literature, History, Law, and Political Science, we are guided by the following four principles – EPIC – in the work we undertake:

• Education and knowledge for and by all: our research is the lifeblood of our teaching. We seek to reflect and write about the ways curricula and research activities can be welcoming and inclusive to all. This includes approaching our disciplinary and interdisciplinary work with the understanding that people come to know things in a variety of ways.
• Place: we are committed to positionality and recognise that the research themes we explore manifest differently in different contexts. 
• Interdisciplinarity: we are experts in our individual disciplines with the confidence and experience to work at interdisciplinary interfaces.
• Creative practice: we believe in the transformative potential of arts and culture to bring people together and create new ideas and outcomes.

These principles are embedded in our research across four emerging themes:

1. Environmental Justice: we support an understanding of environmental change over time that puts justice for people, organisms, and eco-systems at its centre.
2. Memory, Identity, and Heritage: we appreciate, explore, and critique the ways in which narratives of the past and present are shaped by memory and heritage, and the impact that has on societies and identities.
3. Power, Violence, and Colonialism: we are sensitive to the inequities of power produced through violence and imperialism across time and space and seek to explore their origins and legacies, and how they are experienced and understood.
4. Voice, Participation, and Governance: we evaluate the different ways that citizen voices are heard and silenced through participation, protest, and oppression in different political systems and processes of governance.

Our Research Institutes and Networks:

• Institute of Cornish Studies
• Societies and Cultures Institute
• Centre for Environmental Arts and Humanities
• People and Mining Network
• Foreign Languages Centre
• Fashion Justice Network
• Justice and Violence Studies Network
• Exeter Centre for Environmental Law (ExCEL)
• Global Authoritarianism Network
• We also work closely with the Environment and Sustainability Institute

Our Leadership Team‌

Professor Clare Saunders

Head of Department

Professor Nicola Whyte

Senior Academic Lead - History

Mark Plummer

Department Manager

Dr Caroline Keenan

Director of Education and Student Experience

Professor Catriona Pennell

Director of Research and Impact

Professor Clare Saunders

Head of Department

Clare Saunders is Professor of Environmental Politics and Head of Humanities and Social Sciences, Cornwall. She conducts interdisciplinary environmental social science research as a member of the Environment and Sustainability Institute. Her core areas of expertise are environmental politics, political participation and the ways they intersect.

Email: C.Saunders@exeter.ac.uk

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Professor Nicola Whyte

Senior Academic Lead - History

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Mark Plummer

Department Manager

Mark works closely with the Head of Department, Department Leadership Team, and the Faculty and Cornwall Executives to support strategy and operations, linking academic staff with professional services colleagues.

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Dr Caroline Keenan

Director of Education and Student Experience

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Professor Catriona Pennell

Director of Research and Impact

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Our academic staff