Short courses

Unfortunately this year's short course programme has been suspended.

Details of our previous short course, 'Understanding British Suburbia', are given below.

Understanding British Suburbia: A Critical Exploration from HG Wells to Bluewater and Beyond

This new short course took place in 2006, and was led by Dr Nick Hubble, Centre for Suburban Studies.

• Four two-hour evening sessions from 6.30-8.30pm
• Thursdays 8, 15, 22, 29 June 2006
• Location: Penrhyn Road Campus, Kingston University
• Cost: £80

About the course

Have you ever wondered why modern life is like it is or asked yourself, 'What is society coming to?', but been unsatisfied with the answers available? This course provides a rigorous intellectual framework for bringing historical, political and cultural analyses into focus on these very questions.

Drawing on the path-breaking interdisciplinary approach of Kingston University's nationally-acclaimed Centre for Suburban Studies, you will be guided over four weeks in an investigation of how the relentless rise and sprawl of suburbia (now home to 86% of all Britons according to official DETR figures) has shaped our society and culture.

The historical, political and social themes will be supported with illuminating examples from film, literature and popular culture, in this interactive course which includes opportunity for group discussion and questions. There will be a detailed week-by-week guide containing concise summaries of themes, relevant extracts from original sources and annotated suggestions for further reading and viewing.

Entry requirements

The course has no special requirements other than an enquiring mind and a strong interest in history, politics and culture. The aim is to stretch the mind and increase understanding rather than to obscure issues with theoretical jargon.

Course programme

Week One: Introductory Session

1. The what, where and why of suburbia.
2. Historical, social and economic origins of modern suburbia in the second half of the 19th century.
3. An investigation of how, from the time of HG Wells onwards, suburbia has been figured as the dream of the future containing utopian and dystopian traces.

Week Two: 1919-1945 The Age of Suburban Modernity

1. The rise and sprawl of interwar suburbia (history and social background).
2. How Stanley Baldwin established Conservative hegemony by promoting a series of suburban pastoral values.
3. How suburbia was seen in films and books and by social commentators of the period such as JB Priestley, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf and others.
4. The suburban front in the Second World War.

Week Three: 1945-1979 Whatever Happened to Suburban Modernity?

1. The effect of the Welfare State and postwar housing programmes on suburbia.
2. Suburban resentment as expressed by the angry young men, British New Wave cinema (e.g. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning) and the disaster school of English science fiction (e.g. Wyndham, Christopher).
3. The transition of the television situation comedy from a working-class genre to a suburban genre as seen in the transition from The Likely Lads to Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads.
4. Punk: the suburbs in revolt!

Week Four: 1979+ The Re-emergence of a Suburban Englishness and the Shape of Suburbs to Come

1. How the suburbs prospered under three very different Prime Ministers: Thatcher, Major and Blair.
2. Overview of the current environmental and planning debates with respect to the suburbs and an assessment of 'sustainable suburbia' as the model for a post-scarcity future.
3. Future suburbs in the social and cultural imagination.
4. Recap on our understanding of suburbia.