Open units are units which are outside of a student's subject discipline(s) that are available in many undergraduate programmes (subject to space and timetabling constraints). Typically these units are interdisciplinary and do not have any pre- or co-requisites. Single honours undergraduate students are normally able to choose up to 20 credit points of open units.
The University has developed a number of thematic, interdisciplinary "Bristol Futures" open units which deal with issues and themes of current importance. Details of these units are available here including video trailers for some of the units. Specific details about each unit is available below. The Bristol Futures optional units are:
City Futures: Migration, Citizenship, and Planetary Change
Creative Futures: Tools for Changing the World
Decolonise the Future!
Science of Happiness
Sustainable Development
Understanding global problems using data: inequality, climate change and the economy
The open units scheme also includes the University Wide Language Programme units. Details of these are available here as well as specific information about each unit below.
It is possible that open units appearing on this list will be unavailable if capacity has been taken up by students taking it as an optional unit.
What do the teaching blocks (TB) mean?
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| American Art: Art and Identity (Lecture Response Unit) | HART30026 | 20 |
| Art and Memory (Level H Lecture Response Unit) | HART30041 | 20 |
| Art in Russia and the Soviet Union (Lecture Response Unit) | HART30025 | 20 |
| Atheism | THRS30050 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Communist Worlds | HIST30019 | 20 |
| Computational Bioinformatics | COMS30003 | 10 |
| Contemporary British Cinema | MODL30007 | 20 |
| Contemporary British Theatre | DRAM30053 | 20 |
| Contemporary Hollywood Cinema | DRAM33127 | 20 |
| Criminology | SPOL30010 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Death, Doctors and Disease (Level H Lecture Response Unit) | HIST30025 | 20 |
| Dostoevsky | RUSS30063 | 20 |
| Drugs and Society | SPOL30011 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Education and Society | SPOL30028 | 20 |
| European Crime Fiction | MODL30014 | 20 |
| European Foreign Policy | SPAI30022 | 20 |
| Exiles and Migrants in German Literature | GERM30058 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Film Criticism | DRAM33128 | 20 |
| Food: a Global History (Level H Lecture Response Unit) | HIST30027 | 20 |
| French for Business | FREN30095 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Gender based Violence | SPOL30029 | 20 |
| Genocide in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (Level H Lecture Response Unit) | HIST30028 | 20 |
| Global Cinemas / Local Stories | DRAM33131 | 20 |
| Global Cities (Level H Lecture Response Unit) | HIST30034 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Hard Labour? The History of Work (Level H Lecture Response Unit) | HIST30030 | 20 |
| Health Policy in a Global Context | SPOL30055 | 20 |
| Holocaust Landscapes (Level H Lecture Response) | HIST39009 | 20 |
| Human Rights in History (Level H Lecture Response Unit) | HIST30035 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Intermediate Mandarin Chinese | LANG31047 | 20 |
| Introduction to Sanskrit 1 | THRS30171 | 20 |
| Introduction to Sanskrit 2 | THRS30172 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Japanese for General Purposes Intermediate | LANG31046 | 20 |
| Jesus in an Age of Colonialism | THRS30068 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Mahayana Buddhist Literature | THRS30075 | 20 |
| Markets, Government and Public Policy | SPOL30021 | 20 |
| Migration Policy in the UK and European Union | SPOL30030 | 20 |
| Modern Latin American Revolutions (Level H Lecture Response) | HIST39011 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Personal Welfare Services | SPOL30053 | 20 |
| Pirates (Level H Lecture Response Unit) | HIST30032 | 20 |
| Precursors of Modernism: Heine, Buchner, Kleist | GERM30057 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Realism (Level H Lecture Response Unit) | HART30044 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Self Portraiture | HART30037 | 20 |
| Sex, Marriage, and Deviance in the Medieval and Early Modern Eras | THRS30077 | 20 |
| Social Policy and The Lifecourse | SPOL32026 | 20 |
| Social Policy and the European Union | SPOL30051 | 20 |
| Spanish and Business Studies | HISP30039 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Technocracy (Level H Lecture Response Unit) | HIST30039 | 20 |
| The Development of the Modern Mass Media: Disciplining Democracy (Level H Lecture Response Unit) | HIST30012 | 20 |
| The Italian City: Medieval and Early Modern Cultures | ITAL30051 | 20 |
| The Origins of the Old Regime, 1550-1750 (Level H Lecture Response Unit) | HIST30037 | 20 |
| The True, the Good, and the Beautiful: Neoplatonism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam | THRS30078 | 20 |
| Theorising Social Welfare 1 | SPOL31001 | 20 |
| Theravada Buddhist Practice in Asia | THRS30019 | 20 |
| A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other Top | ||
| Understanding Urban Society | SPOL30023 | 20 |
