English

The course explores the social, political, and economic factors of the water crisis and other environmental issues, along with the challenges and potentials of sustainable development in the country. This course uses Jordan's geopolitical position in the region and the current debates over water management, its nuclear program, its agricultural sector, access to petroleum products, growing urbanism, and exploding population as a lens for exploring local and regional issues of diplomacy and development vis-à-vis environmental issues and policy. While doing so, the course also addresses the politics of the region since Jordan and most of the MENA countries share many resources, especially water, where across borders cooperation and/or conflict play a major role in managing these limited resources. It examines different environmental NGOs and initiatives in an attempt to understand their role in environmental management, protection, advocacy, and awareness. Students also develop a better understanding of the dynamics of environmental activism in Jordan.

The purpose of this practical, discussion-oriented (PBL) course is to investigate the important role that culture plays in international business scenarios and hone students' overall English proficiency levels. After learning some basic cross-cultural communication theories, principles and concepts, the course discusses different ways of increasing intercultural-communicative competence and global English-language proficiency skills.

Working in groups, students present on various topics related to their home culture; the "multimodal" role they play in their own communities, and how to use the course contents to improve their understanding of engagement in international business situations. In doing so, we will discuss issues of cultural business etiquette; stereotypes; inclusion, and SDG-sustainability in today's global marketplace.

Modern day Israel and Palestine, the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, covers an area that is six times smaller than the state of Pennsylvania, but has about the same population size (about 12.7 million people). In addition to the high density of population, this land is the heart of a religious, ethnic, national, and political conflict. This context makes spatial planning an immense challenge and is often used as a tool for achieving various political agendas. After presenting some brief background on the geography and the history of the land, this course focuses on topics including national and regional planning; the New Towns scheme; water planning issues; transportation planning; Jerusalem's geopolitical question; tourism development in historic cities such as Nazareth, Acre, and Bethlehem; the fence of separation, and affordable housing plans.

The dominant theory of conflict that underpins Western approaches to conflict resolution is that conflict is produced by differences in identity: variously defined as cultural, religious, racial, ethnic, and national. The British/Irish "peace process" culminating in the Good Friday Agreement is the strategic example of such an approach. This course looks at some of the shortcomings of this approach. Firstly, that it obscures alternative theories that root conflict not in difference/identity but in the inequality and structural violence generated by capitalism in its colonial and postcolonial phases, and in the political institutions such as the nation state that act as a container for these inequalities. Secondly, that it doesn’t resolve conflict so much as freeze it, and consequently cannot deal with the traumatic legacy of violence. Given the limitations of conflict resolution we will conclude by considering some of the existential and political dilemmas posed by violent conflict and what if any role, social science might play.

The course covers the most important developments in the history of the media concerning how historical studies are conducted today in theory and practice. Special emphasis is placed on how digital tools and digital sources influence the conditions for historical inquiries. The course introduces methods and tools for digital history, e.g. text analysis and data visualization.

This course gives a broad overview of neural engineering concepts and principles for recording outgoing and generating ingoing neural signals. The course gives insights into existing and future neural interfaces, neural prostheses, and neurorobotics.  It covers principles and technologies of neuroengineering applications, including basic human neuroanatomy and physiology, brain stimulator, spinal cord stimulation, functional electrical stimulation (FES), neural-machine interface for motor prosthesis control, artificial vision, and auditory devices for augmented sensory perception.