Australia

This course examines patterns of behavior that violate standard rationality assumptions, including behavioral aspects of individual decision making, such as temptation and present-biased preferences, prospect theory, reference-dependent preferences, and over-confidence. It also examines happiness research and behavioral public economics.

This course examines the mathematical techniques most commonly used in business and economics. Topics include the mathematics of finance, matrix algebra, calculus and (unconstrained and constrained) optimization. Special emphasis is put on the illustration of the covered concepts and techniques with applications to typical problems in business and economics.

This course examines the contemporary theoretical and empirical work from the fields of media and social semiotics to explore new media practices across social media platforms. A central focus is understanding the new forms of sociality that are emerging in relation to these new technologies. It looks at how identities are performed and communities are formed through close analysis of the communicative patterns observable in both small and large sets of social media texts. Of particular interest is how opinion and sentiment are construed in these texts.

This course examines the philosophical underpinnings and practical application of nonviolence as a means for effecting social change. It covers the relationship between violence and nonviolence in particular historical contexts, as well as examining debates over the ethics and efficacy of resistance. By focusing on nonviolence, as well as its ostensible opposite, students gain insight into the character of social relations and the distinct forms of violence and nonviolence which mark the everyday lived experiences of people across the world. Such insights allow students to think anew about the nature of contemporary conflicts and resistance movements, including, for example, consideration of the role of new technologies and social media in the pursuit of social change.

This course examines the nature of social order and how need for order brings an inevitable consequence that deviance and non-conformity will result. Classical and contemporary sociological and criminological theories are explored that help explain the nature of social order and crime and deviance. Topics covered in the course include suicide, industrial disasters, religious cults, sexual assault, racism, terrorism and the witchcraze of the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe.

Environmental issues pose increasingly difficult challenges to our societies. What is the nature of these challenges? Where have they come from? How have political institutions adapted to them, at the national and international levels? What further changes might be necessary to better meet them? How might these changes come about? What effects might they have on the future of politics? This course will engage these kinds of questions as an introduction to some theoretical and practical dimensions of environmental politics.

This course analyzes coastal zone management. Lectures cover waves in the ocean and calculation of properties such as wavelength from the parameters of wave period and water depth; surf zone processes and coastal groundwater: wave setup, wave run up, rip currents, and long shore currents; how the processes of saltwater intrusion into agricultural areas are generated and managed; sea level rise, the Bruun rule, and coastal sediment budgets; constitutional and legislative frameworks looking at the State of the Marine Environment Report; and evolution of integrated coastal zone management in Australia. Case studies are used to examine specific issues in Australia. The Barrier Island case study looks at geomorphic and ecological characteristics and processes, land use and development history, and contrasting approaches to management. The Venice case study examines environmental history, coastal structures, catchment impacts and management, resource exploitation, coastal subsidence, storm surge, ecological and engineering solutions, and sustainability. Students also participate in field trips to the Gold Coast and the Port of Brisbane.