 Hello, everyone, and greetings to everyone from SOAS, from London. I'm Bhavna Dave. I'm the postgraduate tutor in the politics department. And I teach in the department. My area of specialization is politics of Central Asia and the Caucasus. And I teach two postgraduate modules, geopolitics of the region and state and society in the region. And also work on China, Central Asia, Russia relations, geopolitics and issues of migration. I'm happy to talk about politics department and especially how we teach and what our approach is to the discipline and also talk about what is it that makes SOAS a very distinct place. What is our niche? After I have given a brief introduction to the master's program, I will, I will introduce my two colleagues here who will be giving you a taste of what it is like to study at SOAS. So they will be talking on this theme about politics during the pandemic. Let me just introduce them. Felix Berenskirter. Felix, I guess people can see you, who is the head of the department and he works on his specialization is in theory of world politics international relations with focus on issues of identity, security, power, the concepts of friendship and strangeness. And he has written about friendship and estrangement in IR in transatlantic relations. Then we have a Hagar Kotiff who teaches political theory, political thought with focus on feminist theory, gender studies, post-colonial theory, liberalism and its critics and its critics. And her empirical work has centered on Israel-Palestine on issues of mobility, immobility in the history of political thought. Let me just begin talk in the next minutes about what is so distinctive about studying at SOAS. There are lots of places you can go to study politics and international relations. So what is our niche? Two things. First, our focus is global. So we look at the world specifically through the lens of Asia and Africa, but at the same time we don't lose sight of global issues and we put the regions in the broad context of global politics. So by no means is the focus only on Asia and Africa. Second, we look at politics through non-Western lens. So we teach bearing in mind that much of the existing knowledge theories concepts have originated in the West. We teach about how these ideas, ideologies, institutions, practices, which emanated in Europe, but they spread across the world, how they are being challenged, how they are being critiqued, how they are being interrogated, and what are the new forms of knowledge and new forms of thinking about these issues that are being produced. So in that sense, the approach at SOAS is critical, which means questioning the existing concepts, theories, knowledge and not taking anything for granted or anything as given or anything as this is how it should be. Next slide, yeah. All the members in the Department of Politics and International Studies display a unique mix of disciplinary grounding, regional knowledge and the relevant linguistic skills, field based, field work based research, which is also fused with disciplinary knowledge is something that's our specialization. So everyone that who is teaching here has had years of experience learning the language culture of a particular region and talking from the perspective of that region and even the colleagues who don't specialize in a particular region, they are also who specialize in concepts and theories, they are also able to talk and apply these to specific regions. The modules that we teach in this sense are a unique mix of our own personal insights from immersive field research as well as disciplinary grounding and knowledge of the region. You can browse the website and look at the whole broad range of modules we teach and many of these modules are the ones which have a specific kind of SOAS identity on it so you won't be able to study in the similar way with the similar approach elsewhere. I would just talk about very briefly the different MSC programs that we have MSC international politics, you see the list here, so MSC international politics. It again reflects a distinctive SOAS approach to study of international politics to hold range of questions such as why do wars happen, is global peace possible, how is power exercised in international politics, what are the conditions for cooperation among states, how does migration challenge and change the international political order. We also look at these theories and debate them by also incorporating issues, questions about colonialism, imperialism, race, gender and class. And the focus tends to be global and at the same time it also sheds light on it also eliminates areas which are considered very marginal and remote. The second is the MSC program in politics of conflict rights and justice, which focuses on politics of human rights on humanitarianism international and transition transitional justice, especially in in post in conflict and post conflict areas. There are members of staff who are not only specializing in terms of research but who are also actively engaged in in these conflict areas and and are also contributing to policy making to peace building and various other works and engage with a variety of non academic actors non state actors NGOs and others. So this particular specialization is highly relevant to anyone who is intending to work in international NGO international organizations think tanks advocacy groups in areas of rights and humanitarian assistance transitional justice. Next is MSC in political thought, which is not just the study of political theory but it's also from a distinctive perspective. It's also linked to this how to study theory by linking it to practices of global domination resistance. And using that also also using the framework of imperialism colonialism capitalism, racial capitalism to it. Again, a distinctive approach here is on understanding how many of these concepts travel across the across the world, how knowledge and concepts and theories travel, how they intersect with distinctive local practices and how these are articulated differently in different times and spaces. The politics of the Middle East. Sorry, we need to go back. Politics of the Middle East is again, it's a, the modules here they balance historical and theoretical works and rigor, and they also cover provide many up to the minute analysis of regional and global developments given the very complex history of the region. You need to get the very strong grounding in the history in order to shed light in order to understand ongoing events. So these modules combine all these various tasks and challenges and many of the modules that are taught here they cover some of the very contemporary themes, providing a historical grounding also themes such as politics of resistance, politics of religion, politics of solidarity, urban politics, infrastructure migration, artificial intelligence and human security. Then we have MSC politics of Africa, where again, as in the politics of Middle East, you learn about historical, historical debates, the, the history of the region, how many of these ideas I have, have been applied to Africa. Also, learn about the contemporary institutions, evolution in the post colonial context, and the various debates, which are underway in the region, and how these are informed by many of the key concepts in politics. So, so again, the focus is on, like in Middle East, studying Africa from the perspective of many disciplinary concepts as well as focusing on the context on the regional context and and the highlighting the regional specificities. And the final one, MSC politics of Asia, which is a new offering from, from this year. And the focus is on close analysis on politics of Asia. We have two streams here, South Asia and East Asia. We have a range of modules options which are available which cover Southeast Asia, Central Asia, other parts of Asia. And these modules also focus on questions such as how do globalization, nationalism, arms race, nuclear rivalry, urban development affect political life. And also, how do we understand the specific characteristics of politics, formal as well as informal in different parts, different parts of Asia. So as I said, it's organized along two pathways, South Asia and East Asia. And you also study regions, different regions of Asia from different disciplinary perspective. This degree is, is also very popular with people who are interested in working with international organizations and NGOs and also those who would like to pursue further research oriented work. So now, having given you this overview of our theory, let me hand over to Felix, we're in scooter to talk about to, to give you a taste of his approach and how international relations theories and concepts can illuminate our understanding of the current state of politics connected with the pandemic. Let me hand over to you, Felix. Thanks, Bavna. Hi everyone. My name is Felix beyond scooter and I'm the head of department of politics international studies I also am an academic who, if I'm not a head of department I also teach international relations have been doing this for 10 years now. So as, like my many of my colleagues, I don't actually come from Britain, I come from somewhere else in my case I'm from Germany originally I studied in the US. And I think one of the things you will find in our department is that we are an incredibly diverse bunch of colleagues, just as diverse as our students. So what I want to do is just very briefly give you a taster of what I might teach you if you would come to source me or some of my colleagues. And I took as a theme here the politics of security or insecurity because the politics of the pandemic really are in some sense preoccupied by thinking of the virus as a security threat. And this is really important for us to kind of understand and not just take for granted. Why is that. How is, how is a virus becoming a issue of security or insecurity now to get there I think what we need to understand is that threats and the question of security have always been contested. So there is no taken for granted understanding of what is what it means to be secure or insecure, even if we think that you know there are some obvious dominant threats out there that we just know about. Look at these images here you know we see a nuclear explosion of a nuclear weapon, you know the famous mushroom cloud we see, you know the attacks on the Twin Towers in Manhattan in 2001. We see, you know the picture of a hacker so the idea of a cybersecurity threat. We see a virus. We see a boat full of people coming across the ocean. You might think, well these are just people on a boat ride but usually these these sort of pictures suggest that they are refugees, and in some, and in many cases, refugees are actually considered to be threatening because they for some reason seem to be different from us. So often migration and refugee streams are cast in language of security or insecurity, then you see a protest movement. And you might think well why is a protest movement considered to be or talked about in terms of security well it might well be, because it endangers the stability of a regime and it challenges conventional ideas. And of course we know what global warming we know the poor iceberg on the on the on the cap there that is just a symbol for climate change. So we have all these security discourses all these images of threats around us and I think we need to understand that they are not natural they're just not given. Most obviously in the lower part. Why why is migration often talked about in terms of security or insecurity why I migrant sometimes considered to be threatening to a society, why is protest, sometimes considered to be a danger, and in what sense is climate change a threat to us and to whom exactly. And so you need to unpack these questions you need to need to ask, who is actually telling us what the door this means to be secure and insecure. Now if we go to this phenomenon of the pandemic that all of us have been living with now for about a year. We see these discourses. And these are more from the from the beginning of the pandemic but you saw this about a year ago when when it's, you know when it when it took hold in much of the world. A lot of leaders started to talk about the virus as an enemy that we are at war with. Yeah, and this is not something we should take for granted we should ask why is this. Why is covert 19 understood to be a security problem. We know it's a health problem. And we also know that it affects the economy so it has definitely and you know and economic dimension. You know, people cannot go to work. It is difficult to earn money it costs the state a lot of money to compensate for close businesses and so forth so we know the health dimension. We know the economic dimension, but why is it talked about as if we are at war. And this is not something that you hear once or twice. Yeah. Many leaders have talked about this notion you know Trump talked about you know him being a wartime president. Boris Johnson in the UK said we must act like a wartime government. Emmanuel Macron talked about said we had war, and we see the military being involved in testing. We see the idea that those on the front line the nurses and so forth I treated like heroes or frontline workers. And, and even those scientists, you know, who who kind of was researching for a vaccine or what we're calling informing the public about the dangers of the virus, where I'm talked about in terms of, you know doing a service. And what I'm self sacrificing themselves for the greater good and so forth. Now why does that matter. What it matters because it puts us in a situation in which government can claim to have a special and extraordinary situation at its hand, where it has to redirect resources to fight this enemy, and where criticism or alternative issues don't really have much of a space to be heard. So the problem here is that you can create an environment in which a health issue or an economic issue is turned into a security issue that closes down debate that gives governments the power to act in certain ways because they consider it necessary and direct a lot of attention resources to this particular undertaking. So what we need to do when we hear politicians, the media talking about something like a tiny virus like an enemy and thinking like we are at war and something that must be defeated which is of course not possible we cannot defeat the virus we need to live with the virus right and so we need to ask these critical questions and and as a student of politics a student of international politics, you would ask these questions not only in a particular context, but you would ask these questions. From a global perspective, and you would ask, why is COVID-19 defined as a security threat? A threat to whom and who defines it as such? And is there variation? Is the response in the United States the same as it is in China? What about the different European responses? What about the perspective from India? How does it affect countries and societies in sub-Saharan Africa? What are the consequences of framing the response as fighting a war for political debate for decision making for behavior for identities? What does it mean now that we have vaccine passports probably coming towards us? Does it mean that some people are safer than others? Is there going to be discrimination in terms of age, gender, occupations? How does the virus reframe the way we see each other as being in danger to society? And I think in the end we need to ask, what are alternatives, ways of framing and acting? If you look at the previous slide, all of these are men. Is there something, is the agenda dimension to the fact how we talk about this virus? How the responses are being framed? Is it possible that female leaders of states have a different approach? Talk about this differently and maybe are more successful in tackling the pandemic. So this is just a very brief window into some critical questions that you would have to ask about even something seemingly obvious, such as how we deal with a pandemic. So and with that, I'll hand over and I think quite nicely, link up with my colleague Hargar. Thank you, Felix. Hi everyone. It's really weird to talk without seeing your faces onto an empty screen. I want to kind of follow Felix's lead and open another window in order to think about the pandemic, but maybe I'll say a few general words before that. So I teach political theory at SOAS, which means I will be your course convener should you decide to take the MSC in political thought, but also our models are open to you if you take other degrees as well. They're all ready a question about this which we're going to address in the Q&A, and I'm taking this opportunity to invite you yet again to post any question you have in the Q&A function. As Bhavna said, like many other subjects when we teach political theory at SOAS, we do it somewhat differently. And we do it somewhat differently both by opening up to texts that go beyond the regular westernized or western canon. Also in terms of being very committed to thinking about the world we inhabit and share. So whereas in many other places, political theory would be the intellectual space where we engage in abstract thinking in abstract ideas. At SOAS, we try to tie these ideas very concretely to political histories, and specifically to histories of colonialism and imperialism, and to the real world politic today and of course the two are very tightly related. In my tester today, as you can already see in the slide, I want to do this, even if very briefly, by thinking with you through Foucault on COVID, but I want to begin with marking much more generally what it means to think concretely about abstract ideas. So the point from which we start the study of political theory at SOAS is that we can never talk in abstract about ideas such as say equality or democracy. Silor James argued that it was the wealth generated in the sugar plantations of the Caribbean's that allowed Europe and the US to start playing experimenting with democratic ideas. When we read in our classes, many of the constitutive texts of democracy in the 17th and 18th century were being told repeatedly by their authors that self-full requires time, that if people are to engage in the practices of democracy, they need some leisure. Without leisure there would be no knowledge of the world and without knowledge of the world there would be no proper decision making processes. But time is a function of wealth, or at least of some material stability. Time arrives with the possibilities to suspend labor. And this possibility was given to a groin British class precisely through the plantation economy, the sugar and the tobacco and the related slave trade. This is just to say very quickly that we cannot think about liberalism without thinking about the economy of sugar and slavery. Or to take a very quick another example. Some of you may have heard about Habermas in your A-levels or GCSEs. The theme essential to democracy is the idea of the public sphere, as far as debate, as far that is often imagined in intellectual communities as a space in which people have the time to debate, have coffee, smoke, cigarettes and engage in public affair. But where does the tobacco come from? Where is the coffee coming from? There is no political thought, I guess this is what I want to say. There is no political thought without post-colonial thought, and this is what we try to engage in in so as. But as we said in the time I have, I do want to try to talk not about post-colonialism for a moment, but about COVID and Foucault and to stay within the British context. So Foucault very basically told us that we are thinking of power in the wrong terms, or rather according to a wrong image, and this is the image of sovereignty that you have at the top of this triangular. And what he tried to do is to develop two new ways of thinking about powers, two new ways of understanding powers to argue that there are two other modalities according to which power operates, which is biopower and disciplinary power. I cannot elaborate much about any of those, you have the slide here, but I want to try to get into your common sense through thinking about context. So Foucault tells us that disciplinary power emerges in the 17th century with a black plague, and with the effort to manage the black plague. And I hope you can understand it almost intuitively because when it emerges, it emerges basically as a form of a lockdown. Each family was confined to its house. There was a strict ban on household mixing, even though they did not call it this way. There were practices of self-isolation, although they did not call it this way too. So it was very management of how people get their shoppings, et cetera, et cetera. So it was very much like what we experienced. And Foucault describes it as a power that operates not through an ancient, through a person who oppresses you, or making you do something, but through the very organization of space, and that is in very defined allocated points in the space. And we can talk about it more if you'd like to engage as part of the Q&A also in an intellectual conversation. But if we look at the UK, we see that not all elements of the pandemic were treated in the same way. That is not elements were treated through a rigid control of individual bodies, through controlling mixing by making sure each one knows where their proper space is. I think of the idea of bubbles as precisely such mode of organization, social bubbles. There are elements of life, there still are elements of life, which have been continuing to operate along an almost opposite logic. A logic of circulation, of allowing the free movement of people and goods, leaving the airport open throughout most of the pandemic until very recently and to some extent also now is probably the clearest example of all. Now, my time here is very limited and I'm not sure how much time more I have. So I'll just say the one thing that I think is important and much Felix rather than trying to answer the question, I will ask the question as a way of showing you what kind of questions we're asking. So a way of thinking critically about the government's approach may begin with mapping better what was being halted, according to a disciplinary technology of confinement. And what was subjected to a different logic, the logic to which Foucault calls bio power, the one you see at the bio power, the one you see at the, at the right bottom of the triangular there. Who and what, in other words, were allowed to move freely and where to, which movements were secured facilitated even and which was war halted. And I think once we engage in this mapping we can start thinking more accurately and more critically on the pandemic. Do I have like one more minute you think. Okay. One, I'll use half. So, so, I'm not going to try to answer this but I want to give you a hint of how to start approaching this question. Foucault tells us that bio power is the main technology of new liberalism. It's the logic of governance that unlike disciplinary power, or unlike the idea of the lockdown, if you will, does not believe that we can bring everything under control. That does not believe that we can completely eradicate negative effect. We rather need to minimize damages and maximize benefits. I think about the idea of flattening the curve right it's not about stopping the disease it's about flattening the curve, or the idea of herd immunity that we had at the beginning is a perfect example of this. Why is it, because the important thing here is to maximize circulation and above all the circulation of capital. The circulation of capital is the one thing that must not be hunted, halted. We reach together one day in one of the classes in this exercise of mapping. I think we can think critically about what is being promoted, but also the prices and what is being lost in this understanding of what's more important and what's less important, and I'll conclude with that, and move to Bavna to conclude our discussion. Thank you, Sagar and also thanks Felix earlier. I'm not going to be making any presentation but just offer some of my thoughts on what my colleagues have talked about and on the concepts and debates that they have introduced the questions that they have asked. So, I will just talk about how I address some of these themes in the module that I teach, and this is one of the postgraduate modules that I teach is geopolitics and security in Central Asia and, and the caucuses caucuses. So broadly speaking, it's the region of Eurasia, China, Russia, Central Asia, there's also coverage of Iran and Middle East. So even the concept of Eurasia as a very broad kind of an idea. So a number of themes here focus on China's Belt and Road Initiative, which is China initiated globalization globalizing China, and the also China presenting articulating this vision of a different kind of vision which is not a liberal vision. But it's a, it's a, it's a vision that emphasizes infrastructural development people to people connectivity investments in transport technology and trade and ties between the people. Again, it's what is interesting here to look at is and linking that with the previous debate about politics, how the politics has changed during the pandemic. How do we look at the current state of geopolitics now in the COVID stage from, from last year when, when COVID became the global phenomenon. And then what we find when we talk about the lockdowns and when we talk about this kind of the state imposing these various restrictions and close closing of boundaries and restrictions on movements and other things and and also the, the stagnation in production capacity. We look at this initiative of China and and say what does that mean how do countries how does a major rising power such as China with its globalizing vision address these issues and and also we what we remember that are originated from China. So all this border closer and everything initially affected China. So, so we look at this paradox between these visions of connectivity, the increasing trade, promoting trade and transport and infrastructure changes and the new forms of closure, which have an immobilities, which have come into place and we don't know how long lasting these are. To what extent these might some of these may also become fairly entrenched in the system. So that's one of the things that we we talk about and and reflect on the effects of this across the globe as well. And then we look at the geopolitical politics of the COVID-19. I focus on the region of Eurasia, but there are implications for many other parts of the world. And many other questions have come to the fore. So the as the crit some of the traditional geopolitical issues of the traditional notions of security and boundaries and state sovereignty. Concepts also need to be defined somewhat differently, because in many ways the addressing COVID requires a new way of cooperation coordination between the various regional powers countries in the various regions and also global ties it also requires looking at the north south issues from a new perspective. So there is also an obligation for instance about redistribution of vaccine, making vaccine available at an affordable pace to various countries in the world. And here also we find that the countries in the region are engaged in both in a sense promoting countries which have vaccines to sell the West, the US. Sorry, but I mean the US the UK, number of other countries and also Russia and China have their own vaccines and many of these are also being now produced in Russia, sorry, in India. So the distribution of these vaccines and and the related to that is not just the power dynamics the competition. Also the soft power dynamics where countries are posing as helping other countries China, the belt and road initiative. Very quickly China started labeling that as the Central Asia component the Silk Road initiative Silk Road economic belt, China began calling it as also the health Silk Road. So we are seeing anyway these ongoing adaptations and emergence of new new patterns. I think in the interest of time I will stop because I know you will have questions about the program about my colleagues have said. So, so please type up your questions. And as people are typing questions let me just read a couple of questions I've answered a couple of questions which were raised. Let me just read out one question by area Lopez. What are international politics and emissive political thought. It seems there's quite a bit of overlap between them, between what studied and career directions so could you please clarify the difference. So maybe hug or Felix, do you want to say something. I'll take the second question about the difference between the main international studies diplomacy and emissive international politics. Hagar I think typing or do you want to answer. I can answer. I was beginning to type but maybe. Okay, then go ahead. So generally, maybe it's better to answer this way because it applies to other programs we have. Generally, we try to maximize options for students and to allow as much flexibility that does not then damage your the course of your study, which ends up in sometimes have been overlaps because we want to open and every model we can open to as many of you as possible. But if you look at the structure and the core demands you'd see quite a lot of a difference between emissive international politics and emissive political thought. So international politics and maybe Felix would add to this later is in a way a widest degree program. It offers the widest scope in thinking about questions of international politics whereas emissive political thought focuses on political theory, even though it is not just to also include regional expertise if you'd like one. So so to allow you to do this and and to allow you to think also beyond or or in combination with theory. So, so the structure is different, the different the core options are different, but in terms of choice, we try to have as much overlap as possible, just to make sure that you can all enjoy whatever interests you the most. And to follow up from that so the one question on what's the difference between the emissive in in international politics and the international studies and diplomacy which is offered through our center for international studies and diplomacy that the simple answer is that the emissive international politics is the more conceptual or theoretical like academic oriented. So this doesn't mean that we don't engage practical issues, of course we do. But the the MSDMA international studies and diplomacy and deliberately K does want towards those who want to and maybe come from a practitioner's perspective and a practitioner's career. Who want to work in international NGOs, or who come from that sort of work and are interested in diplomacy negotiation diplomatic practice. And, you know, it has a study to attached to the program where, well, not this year because of the pandemic but usually West students go to Geneva or maybe to the United Nations in in New York. So that's the MA international studies and diplomacy is slightly more expensive. But you get something else for it. I would say that the the MSC international politics I mean you have both programs on the website you look at the structures you look at the modules you see which ones interest you more. I'm pretty sure that you know you would be happy with either of them. So I think it is, it is more a question of whether you're keen to to engage a bit more with a theoretical conceptual conversations and debates and international relations and the discipline. Or whether you're more keen to think about the applied angle, you know, to engage in and learn about negotiation skills, diplomatic practice and so forth. So I would say that is roughly the main distinction between those two degrees. Yeah. Thanks, Felix. The question again about the difference between MSC rather than MAs. It's simply that the degree politics is part of the social sciences stream. Whereas MA would be master of arts. So if you're doing languages, arts, languages and cultures you would get an MA but in politics international relations is MSC. It's also the question by few rules on the thesis requirement for MSC and international politics and what kind of research right what the research and writing process is like so I will say a little bit to this and if my colleagues want to add you can add to it. You, the dissertation is also that counts as one a separate module. So you select the dissertation topic. You finalize it in consultation with people who you're been working on so you have plenty of choice you'll be guided once you start your masters you'll be guided through that process and then sometime by end of February. You settle you decide what is the topic that you want to work on an abstract and again we will guide you through that a lot of times students decide a topic that they want to slightly change it. That is all fine. You will have a supervisor in who will again guide you through that process. So you have number of sessions number of hours of supervision with them and you are also free to approach other colleagues in the department to talk about how to clarify this topic, but the supervisor is the main person in charge in the term term three that is also component where you do we, you do a literature review and there are some other set of readings which are relevant to preparing for the research and then you have to submit a 25% I think of the mark which is based on the people that does literature review, and you will have a number of people in the department giving lectures on this and again, talking about the methodology on how to do literature review how to conduct research how to refine your question. And then after in this in the rest of the summer, you work on your dissertation you do the research, you have meetings with your supervisor. And the dissertation is submitted in mid September. And that's basically, yeah, is what the process is like. So just to follow up from that. Taking on the, the next question by anonymous. What are the future prospects after doing their main international politics or international studies. Is that placement system in what areas are alumni of these programs working in. There are two, there are two points here I think the first is that you do a degree. A master's degree that that puts you on a very broad level of in terms of skills. So when you when you study international relations you not only learn about, you know, conceptual methodological theoretical angles that make you see the world in particular how to analyze how to critically engage with with literature with political discourse, you know, you learn how to write a dissertation, you learn how to present. I mean all these things you also learn another master's degree so this is not just unique to so as these broad skills and capacities that you bring attractive to a whole range of employees. All alumni is really go to, you know, from NGOs, so non governmental organization into government into media into, you know, even some go into business, others go into finance others, other may end up being a photographer. There is really no, you know, fixed job description that comes out of a degree in either international politics or in any of our regional degrees, you know, Middle East studies of course are also of great interest to let's say companies that look for risk analysts who want to understand, you know, what is what, you know, what is the current political social situation in particular parts of the world, can we go and invest there. How can we implement our programs our peace building programs mainly you know for the United Nations or the, the World Trade organizations. So basically I think you need to see all these degrees as not only attractive in terms of general skills but the actual expertise that a source degree gives you makes you particularly attractive, because source has a very good reputation. We also know when they hire source graduate that they know, you know, when, when they, when they talk about a particular region of the world they know what they're talking about because our academics do we do, we give you that sort of knowledge. We don't just read about Africa, you know, our colleagues have, have lived there they study there they speak the language and they know the culture. So this is something about giving you an edge I would say over someone who does it at the LSE, or Kings College, if you take another London competitor, but I would also mention by the way that the London location is a huge advantage because you know it's not. I mean, source doesn't have a placement system in the sense that we kind of give you an option options to work in, or we'll have direct links. I mean some of us as academics do have direct links to employees. But really, I think the key is that London is a market is so incredibly rich in terms of job opportunities that it is very difficult to, to kind of ignore that, you know, if you do your PhD, sorry, if you do your master's degree in a small town, you just don't have everything at your door steps, you don't have all these connections all these events where you can network where you can meet people, and where you can get a foot in the door. So that's a long answer to I think a very important question, because the degrees are quite short they're only one year. And in the end, you, you know, by, by May, June, you already want to know well what am I doing afterwards, and you apply for job so that is an important we have a careers office as well by the way they help you thinking about that they help you with the CB to help you. You know if you have a job talk and so forth so we prepare you for that. I need to continue from that and addressing two questions I thought I answered in the Q&A box but I actually pressed the wrong button and it did not type my question. One of them asked about people who arrived to us after actually taking a time off studies and having a career and coming to do an MSc. I have quite a few people like that some of them have long careers in journalism in NGOs in diplomacy and then they come to us and do MSc. I don't have the numbers. I just have an impression from what's going on in my own classrooms. Maybe Felix would have the numbers, but these also give you an advantage because you share spaces with people who have real hand experience, not just us, but also your fellow students. And another question was about languages. So, I think in all, but at least in most of our degree programs you have the opportunity of taking language. And again this gives you an edge if you want to go and work in some region, you will have a source language qualification. Thanks. I think there's a question on the CRG the conflict rights and justice program and the center. The answer is yes you can attend the center organizes various seminars which are open to public so some of so you are free to attend any of these lectures. There are also depending on which particular program you're doing you. There are also modules in the conflict rights and justice which may be available for the program that you're doing. So the center isn't really a physical place where which has boundaries and very, you know, in only certain people are now allowed it's an open forum that for different talks and ideas. And many activities are available to all members of so as and and also people from outside. Yeah, I think actually that's a good, like in general the fact that our programs are, you know, not only hosting the same department but many of the modules actually are also hosting other departments. So, when you when you come to so as sources not a big university is a quite small university but it is big enough to give you a whole variety of options and choices so you can actually take modules from other departments from other disciplines. So, you know, taking one particular degree or signing up for one particular degree doesn't mean that you're restricted only to that theme. You really have a look at the program structures that we offer at the different options that that are available to students because again not just in the politics department, but also across you know to law to economics to languages so to anthropology to the arts. Often we you can take modules in other departments as well. And I see a final question about the politics of Asia. There's a question of which path students usually take. I wouldn't say that there's a path that students usually take the politics of Asia degree has two parts as my colleague, I've not pointed out an East Asia and a South Asia path but I think the important point here is that, you know, if you're interested in South Asia. That's what you should focus on if you're interested in East Asia. That's what you should focus on you shouldn't think about which one gets gives me a better job opportunity because if you do well and if you, if you're interested in and if you convey a deep understanding of that region, you will get a job. You know whether you're an expert on South Asia, India, or whether it is China, East Asia, Japan, I mean, you know, these are all driving powers emerging powers important places. And yeah, so I wouldn't think too much about which one gets your better job I think you should do what you're interested in. Okay. Thank you I think we are going to be disconnected very soon automatically right because of there is another meeting starting. I think we have two more minutes. Okay. Yes, the person a question or if you have a degree in business or technology. What are the additional requirements. For working prefer for a politics degree you, we see there are cases where you can do what is known as a certificate course in order to then be able to apply but maybe you should write to me and I'll be able to explain this to you in greater detail than what I can right now under this, but depending on. Yeah, on your background. Yeah, I think I would say, look if you're interested in a particular program, right to the program conveners. Yeah, right to those who run the programs who are also responsible for admissions, because they will tell you whether your profile is suitable or not we're quite open in terms of profiles you do not have to have a social science undergraduate degree. You have to demonstrate some knowledge in the in the area but you know I mean we have, we had professional musicians doing a master's degree in international politics so it is not impossible for you to have an unconventional background. I would suggest if you're interested in a degree in a degree program contact our colleagues that the information is on the website. And they'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Okay, thanks very much and any questions just email us and we'll be happy to answer these. Thank you for your for coming here and Have a good night, morning, afternoon wherever you are. Yes.