English

In this course, students examine a selection of six notable North American novels: OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck; ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST by Ken Kesey; IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote; Julie Otsuka's WHEN THE EMPEROR WAS DIVINE, THE BLUEST EYE by Toni Morrison; and Octavia E. Butler’s KINDRED. Students explore the relationship between social history and the aesthetic and generic development of North American writing with an emphasis on the way in which these novels reflect key cultural concerns including madness, murder, incarceration, isolation, The American Dream, identity, prejudice, and resilience.

This course explores poems of 17th-century England, concentrating on the works of John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, and John Milton. Based on these poems, the course covers Metaphysical Poets, Cavalier Poets and Religious Poets. 

This course reviews the interdisciplinary view on happiness which includes different theoretical perspectives (e.g., on micro-, meso- or macro-level factors) as well as different methodological approaches to understanding well-being of individuals and societies. Broad views on complex societal issues are adopted and how to evaluate scientific evidence from various domains is learned. This interdisciplinary course, with contributions from psychology, public administration, and interdisciplinary social science, focuses on happiness in its broadest sense. Key questions are: What factors influence individuals' subjective well-being, why are some societies happier than others (and why are some individuals within these societies affected more by these factors than others?) What can we do to foster happiness in our future generations? There are four specific themes of interest: health, education, finance, and sustainability.

The course gives an introduction to numerical analysis for differential equations. This includes the construction, analysis, implementation and application of numerical methods for initial value problems, boundary value problems and different types of partial differential equations.

This course explores genre fiction, often defined as formulaic popular fiction such as mystery, detective stories, horror, romance, Western, science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction. It examines the thematic and stylistic conventions of gothic fiction and those of detective fiction. The course looks at how genres are divided into subgenres and how they are combined into cross genres as well as the establishment of new genres. The primary goal of this course is to learn about gothic fiction—its history, its generic characteristics, and its significance in English literature—while also improving close reading skills and independent interpretation of literary texts seen in their socio-historical context.