I often fall back on the skills and knowledge I acquired in those two years in the Department.
Angela Saini
01 September 2021
Angela Saini
MA Science and Security, part-time 2006-2008 | Science Journalist and Author
I studied for my Masters in the Department of War Studies while working full-time at the BBC. The two weren’t easy to juggle, but seminars were the highlights of my week, a chance for me to dive into something intellectually different from my day job as a local news reporter. One day I’d be covering crime, the next day I’d be writing an essay on biological weapons.
I had studied Engineering as an undergraduate, so the interdisciplinary nature of the Science & Security course was a revelation, opening up my horizons to science and technology from a completely different perspective – through a feminist lens, for instance, or from the point of view of another global power. That became vital later when I wrote my books, Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong, and Superior: The Return of Race Science, which explore prejudice in our understanding of human difference. I’m deeply indebted to Wyn Bowen, Susan Martin and Anatol Lieven, and I’m still close friends with one of my classmates in the second year, Cynthia Park.
Today as a science journalist and author I often fall back on the skills and knowledge I acquired in those two years in the War Studies Department, particularly in helping me understand the role of relative power in shaping human interactions. I’m working on a new book, looking at the origins of patriarchy, and those lessons could not be more relevant.