English

The course tackles philosophical questions about legal systems and criminal justice. The first half of the course typically discusses big picture questions about the purpose of law and what, if anything, the criminal justice system achieves. For example, students might consider the moral obligation to obey the law, the viability of political anarchism, the justification of punishment, dispute-resolution without the state, and the moral status of civil or violent disobedience. The second half of the course usually takes a closer, critical look at how criminal justice works in practice. For example, students might discuss questions like: What is the fairest way to evaluate allegations of sexual criminality? Should we use algorithms to make decisions about parole or punishment severity? Should we defer to juries or instead use professional judges? Does it make sense to treat a corporation as morally responsible? What alternatives are there to prisons?

This course covers the fundamental algorithms for statistical computations and R packages that implement some of these algorithms or are useful for developing novel implementations. It develops the ability to implement, test, debug, benchmark, profile and optimize statistical software; select appropriate numerical algorithms for statistical computations; and evaluate implementations in terms of correctness, robustness, accuracy and memory, and speed efficiency. Topics include: maximum-likelihood and numerical optimization; the EM-algorithm; Stochastic optimization algorithms; simulation algorithms and Monte Carlo methods; nonparametric density estimation; bivariate smoothing; numerical linear algebra in statistics, sparse and structured matrices; practical implementation of statistical computations and algorithms; R/C++ and RStudio statistical software development. 

This course provides an overview of the psychology of love in the Egypt context. It explores psychological theories of love, attraction, attachment, and others. Topics include the relationship life cycle in Egypt, including courtship and marriage. A psychological lens is used to examine conflict and divorce within the Egyptian context, as well as interventions aimed at promoting healthy relationships.

This course develops skills needed to address pressing environmental issues. First, review how to make a thorough analysis of environmental policies: a systematic assessment of what a policy looks like and how it works. Second, learn how to evaluate policies, that is, giving a motivated judgement of how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ a policy is according to certain criteria. Third, learn how the lessons from an analysis and evaluation can be used to design policies, that is, to propose improvements. Read sources that introduce various methods for policy analysis, evaluation, and design. Three writing assignments are required: one for policy analysis, one for evaluation, and one with a major focus on design. The topics of these assignments include the landing obligation in EU fisheries policy, the EU Birds and Habitats Directive (Natura 2000), and flood risk governance in Poland. Sources to be used in the writing assignments include literature, as well as films and video interviews in which practitioners and policy-makers give their views on policies. All sources are made available through Blackboard. Lectures are meant to explain and illustrate the methods to be used in the assignments. Tutorials help you understand the literature and help you in writing the assignments. This course includes an Honors component. Basic knowledge on (environmental) policy and research methods is required.

This course introduces key concepts for understanding the nature policy instruments, how they are selected and combined. Cases used illustrate the utility of the concepts and to engage in critical reflection on their application to actual policy situations. This enables students to explain and make sense of policy instruments and design in different national and sectoral settings. It deepens their knowledge of policy making and develops competencies to design public policies for sustainable transition.  

The course provides students with an introduction to the history of Latin America from the late 19th century to the present day. Its focus is predominantly on Latin Americans and what happened within the region. However, the course also explores Latin Americans’ interaction with the wider world, including their pivotal and expanding relationship with the United States during the 20th century. Major themes covered on the course include identity, citizenship and nationalism; neo-colonialism and anti-imperialism; state-building and concepts of “development”; revolution and resistance; dictatorship and violence; democratization; and the struggle for social justice. In addressing these themes, students are paying particular attention to histories of race, class, and gender with students encouraged to consider how different Latin Americans experienced and influenced the course of history in the region.

This course offers an in-depth exploration of the history of U.S. foreign relations, tracing the nation’s trajectory from its emergence as an imperial power in the late 19th century to its contemporary role on the global stage. Beginning with the concept of the "end of the Frontier" and the ideology of American Exceptionalism, the course examines the evolving role of the United States in the world, analyzing how it has shaped—and been shaped by—key political, geopolitical, cultural and economic transformations of the 20th and 21st centuries. Key themes include the increasing projection of American hard and soft power, the interplay between domestic politics and foreign policy, and the ideological and discursive practices underpinning U.S. global engagement. Special attention is given to how internal political changes, from evolving partisan dynamics to shifting public opinion and economic priorities, have influenced America’s global strategies. The course critically investigates pivotal moments such as the two World Wars, the Cold War, and the post-9/11 "War on Terror," providing a nuanced understanding of how a former colony transitioned from a regional actor to a superpower—and, for some, a global hegemon. Through lectures, discussions, and primary source analysis, students gain a comprehensive understanding of the forces that have shaped U.S. foreign relations and their implications for the broader international order.

This course covers the basic tools for polymer synthesis and characterization as well as applications of polymers in various fields. Topics include: Introduction to polymers; Step growth polymerization: linear and non-linear; Chain growth polymerization: (controlled/free) radical and ionic;  Polymer solutions/mixing/separation; Physical properties/characterization (GPC, NMR, MALDI-TOF MS, thermal and mechanical properties); Applications of polymers in drug delivery and regenerative medicine; Recycling of polymers and designing polymers for recycling; Practical work on polymer synthesis and characterization.  There are 5 pillars of this course are: 1) polymer synthesis; 2) polymer characterization; 3) polymer behavior; 4) applications; 5) recycling and end-of life management of polymers. These pillars provide the tools to understand and design polymers for specific applications, taking into account the desired properties and the end-of-life management of the materials. The course is supplemented by a practical experiment to expose the students to real-case examples. Students are divided into groups, and each group is tasked to polymerize a specific monomer using a specific technique. The second part of the experiment is focused on characterization of the synthesized polymer. The aim of the practical is to further learn through experiment the kinetics of polymerization reactions and the characterization methods. Knowledge on elementary organic chemistry, elementary thermodynamics, elementary physics, elementary reaction kinetics is recommended. 

This course explores the relationship between workers and firms. It begins by examining the issue of worker motivation from a traditional perspective. Assuming a rational, self-interested, forward-looking, utility-maximizing agent, the course studies the best way to structure that worker’s monetary incentives. It then moves beyond purely financial motives, considering the role of psychological motives like social preferences, self-control issues, loss aversion, belief biases, as well as team dynamics and information frictions. Finally, the course shifts to the firm’s perspective, focusing on worker recruitment and the design of compensation structures within a firm. Throughout the course, students engage with insights from labor economics, personnel economics, and behavioral economics and delve into the empirical methods used to address research questions in these fields, including microeconometric techniques, as well as lab and field experiments.

This course examines the intricate relationship between religion and revolution, exploring how religion can simultaneously serve as a radical, messianic force for social transformation and as a guardian of the existing political order. It engages with foundational anthropological and philosophical texts that examine the intricate relation between revolution, religion and ethics — including works by Evans Pritchard, Marcel Mauss, Walter Benjamin, Victor Turner, Georges Bataille and Talal Asad — as well as writings on more recent revolutionary events, particularly in the Arab world, by authors such as Sami Zubaida, Asef Bayat, Walter Armburst and Alice Wilson (among others). The course addresses the following set of questions: how can anthropology enable us to understand the social (and political) transformations that take place over the course of revolutionary
events and their aftermaths? How have ethnographies examined the effects of revolutionary events on the level of the everyday life of communities that are experiencing them? How do ethnographers as witnesses or observers of revolutionary events (and sometimes as active participants in them) consider their own positionality in their respective field sites and in relation to the communities they wish to study? What kinds of moral and political stakes are involved in such positioning? What can ethnography tell us about our moral and political commitments (and disappointments)?