English

The course introduces students to the main theoretical perspectives in a deliberate chronological order of their ‘appearance’ within the discipline. It begins with the structural functionalism of, for example, Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons, followed by the rediscovery in the early 1970s of Marxism, Weber and Critical Theory and the emergence of feminist critiques. Lastly, it introduces the various ideas associated with postmodernism and poststructuralism and education. The course builds on this introduction to explore a range of contemporary social issues, such as gender, socio-ethnic linguistics, ethnicity, inclusion and social disadvantage, as they relate to schooling and education.

Drawing on interdisciplinary resources, this course uses philosophy to investigate how money is related to themes like religion, politics, morality, nature, and care. Focusing on key concepts such as debt, gift, trust, power, and commodity, the course discusses classical philosophical texts by Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Spinoza, Locke, Smith, Marx, and Nietzsche, relating them to present-day issues concerning student-debt, care-economy and eco-capitalism.

In the modern world, most of us make investments in expectation of the future, which means we must consider time span, growth potential, availability of investible money, and the future value of money in relation to both upside and downside risks. 

This course builds an understanding of what we invest in and what must be considered, which can produce better investment decisions and management. Starting from fixed income, we navigate through the money market, which is essential for investment funding, to equity, paying increasing attention to mean estimations and variations of the estimations.  

We extend these estimations and variations to investment portfolios and then to a portfolio optimization scheme. After introducing the concept of the market, we study the Capital Asset Pricing Model and then incorporate this model into the above portfolio optimization scheme.  

We also touch on the concept of tail risk through Value at Risk. When time allows, the course introduces the world of hedge fund-style investments and private equity investments. Since topics addressing investment and financial instruments cover a very broad scope, the course contents are modified and adjusted according to class participants’ progress. 

Political leaders use architecture to convey power, to express political ideas, and to influence how people think and act. In twentieth-century Europe, political ideologies including fascism, communism, colonialism, and democracy influenced the creation of new buildings and cities. This course explores those ideologies through the spaces that they produced, and a selection of examples spanning between Hitler’s plans to transform Berlin to public swimming pools in post-war Britain. Under the banner of democracy, it also explores how forces within Irish politics impacted the Dublin cityscape. This is a history of modern Europe told through the mark left by political actors upon architecture and cities. This same course exists as a 5-credit option - UCEAP Course 133A.

This course takes a close look at a number of important ‘long poems’ and poetic sequences from the later decades of the twentieth century to the present. Considering nine representative poets from the United States, Great Britain, and Ireland, it discusses the formal and thematic decisions made by poets in the creation of their works. The course looks to define the length of a ‘long poem’ and examines the relationship between the long poem and the poetic sequence. It considers whether all ‘long poems’ or poetic sequences function as ‘epics’, and explores the relationship between the long poem and the lyric. It also addresses the concept of the ‘novel in verse’. Following Berryman’s Dream Song 354, the course engages with the idea of ‘The Care & Feeding of Long Poems’, focusing on influence and the role of sources in the critical engagement with longer poetic works. It examines how such works are maintained and sustained through reading and interpretation, and considers the cultural effects of long poems and poetry more broadly, including their potential harm or benefit to culture.

This course considers the most prestigious literary award in the world: the Nobel Prize in Literature. Starting with an overview of the award’s history and the way in which it has been administered, the course then examines the contemporary cultural contexts of Great Britain, Ireland, the United States, Russia and Czechia. The Nobel Prize in Literature, first awarded in 1901, has been intended for ‘the person who shall have produced…the most outstanding work of an ideal tendency’. Engaging with the literary scenes of the five countries under review, the course discusses the work and legacy of some of these ‘persons’ – including W. B. Yeats (who received the Prize in 1923), Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1970), William Golding (1983), Jaroslav Seifert (1984), Toni Morrison (1993), and others. It considers these outstanding literary artists’ most significant works, evaluating their contribution to the world of letters, and to humankind. The course concludes with an informed discussion about the relationship between literature and society, and the role of literature in our contemporary world.

Earth’s surface is constantly changing. Understanding how and why these changes occur is a key skill for those across the Earth Sciences, from physical and human geographers to geo- and environmental scientists. This course focuses on the role of water in the evolution of Earth’s landscape. Through investigating water-driven processes and sediment transport, students gain first-hand experience in constructing simple models to help them estimate the rate and magnitude of surface processes. Students also practice sediment classification, quantitative problem solving, and map making.

This course examines how the basic physical and cognitive principles (ergonomics, heuristics, human-centredness) are incorporated in successful designs across a wide variety of different sectors.

This course begins with an understanding of the concept of distance in mathematics, and introduces the fundamental concepts and various properties of topological structures. It provides a theoretical foundation for topics previously used in calculus, including the real number system, limits, continuous functions, the extreme value theorem, the mean value theorem, the existence of definite integrals, the fundamental theorem of calculus, and the intermediate value theorem. In addition, the course explores the geometric properties of topological concepts. Topics include Set Theory and Logic, Topological Spaces and Continuous Functions, Connectedness and Compactness, Countability and Separation Axioms, The Tychonoff Theorem, Metrization Theorems and Paracompactness, and Complete Metric Spaces and Function Spaces.

This course focuses on the politics of the contemporary Arab world in its three regional dimensions: the Maghreb, the Mashreq, and the Persian Gulf. Emphasis is placed on describing the main political and ideological trends and the power dynamics in inter-Arab relations.