English

The year 2008 marked a turning point in global historical settlement patterns; for the first time in human history the majority of people now live in urban areas. By 2030, two-thirds of the world’s population will be urban. This course explores three interrelated policy and business trends associated with urbanism: Smart Cities, Liveable or Healthy Cities, and efforts to retrofit suburbia. Each of these trends has importance for enhancing our quality of life and addressing climate change. Each also creates unique business opportunities and policy challenges. The course critically examines these trends and their unique relevance internationally and for Ireland. Among other pressing contemporary topics, the course examines housing affordability and the effects spurred by the Covid pandemic, most notably the shifts towards working at home and shopping online, and how these concerns may impact for the future of cities.

This course teaches students how money and finance, and processes of global political economy more broadly, enable, shape, and condition development, environment, and conservation processes. It draws on economic geography, but also social, financial, and cultural geography, anthropology, development studies, and work on society and environment relations. The course includes examples of financialization, conservation, and eco-system services from the UK, Africa, and Asia. 

The course focuses on two major themes, namely media and social development in Mainland China since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. Using key concepts and theories from the political economy of media and developmental communication studies, it introduces students to different periods of media reform and social change from the era of Chairman Mao to the period of "harmonious society". Emphasis is attached to post-1989 media regulatory systems, media industrialization, and their influence on the meeting of such developmental goals as poverty alleviation, democratization, and communication empowerment. The course examines Mainland China's key media sectors including the printing press (newspapers and magazines), film and broadcasting media (radio and TV), and new networked communication tools (Internet and mobile phone) as well as alternative social formations through Internet activism, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and transnational developmental projects. The course identifies and discusses several ongoing debates, and the ensuing actions, held by different stakeholders, including governmental officials, media producers, educators, activists, international agencies, and the general audiences. Wider implications to public policy are identified. The course includes discussions of current affairs related to media and social development in the country. It describes the key characteristics of contemporary Mainland Chinese media and their roles in facilitating or obstructing development towards the ideals of a "new China".

This course examines how the collection, cultivation and consumption of food shapes human society and culture.

This course examines how to make the world more sustainable by building skills in critical thinking, enhancing self-care (building personal resilience, coping skills and a sense of community) and appreciating diversity and empowerment. It covers how to embrace a range of perspectives and approaches to sustainability topics, including holistic Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives that connect Caring for Country and collective human wellbeing. It also looks at the importance of a trans-disciplinary understanding in tackling barriers to change (for example, how to navigate the technological transition to a more sustainable future while also considering the social, economic and policy implications). Finally, it explores the potential of transformation. 

This course examines the intersection of artificial intelligence, social media, and democratic processes, focusing on their impact on public discourse, political engagement, and policymaking. It explores topics such as algorithmic influence on opinion formation, misinformation and disinformation dynamics, digital activism, and the ethical implications of AI in shaping democratic participation. Through case studies, critical analysis, and practical projects, the course equips students with the tools to critically assess the evolving role of AI-driven platforms in the digital public sphere and their implications for democracy. Special attention is given to Scandinavian and European contexts, providing a regional perspective on global challenges

This course investigates how language shapes communication, organizes interaction, and builds community in online game cultures, with particular attention to two popular Korean games: MapleStory (MMORPG) and League of Legends (MOBA).  

Please note that students are expected to demonstrate a clear interest in acquiring gameplay proficiency in these games and must be willing to participate in structured, designated group play sessions. This course is not recommended for students without prior gaming experience. 

The first half of the semester focuses on MapleStory alongside individual assignments and a midterm, while the second half pivots to structured League of Legends team play and group-based projects.  

Through lectures, assigned readings, fieldwork in PC bangs, and collaboration with Gen.G’s GGX facility, students analyze how game genres, platforms, and play spaces structure linguistic practices, social norms, and player identities.  

By the end of the course, students are able to: analyze how language functions in online games (commands, politeness, toxicity, role talk, jargon) using basic tools from pragmatics and discourse analysis; compare MapleStory and League of Legends as distinct “linguistic ecologies,” showing how genre and tempo shape communication; conduct small-scale empirical studies of game-related communication (in-game chat, voice, Discord, PC-bang interaction, esports events); reflect critically on PC-bang and esports spaces, connecting them to broader debates about youth, stigma, and digital culture in Korea; and work collaboratively in teams to gather, interpret, and present language data from League of Legends. 

In Autumn 1720 the South Sea Bubble burst. Generally regarded as one of the first great stock-market crashes, this was a seismic moment in the early history of global financial capitalism. Drawing on a wide range of primary sources including private correspondence, pamphlets, poems, prints and other printed ephemera, this course traces the fortunes of the South Sea Company, its slave trading activities, and its investors over the course of a dramatic year which featured economic chaos, speculative fever and fears about plague across Northern Europe. Students learn how and why investors chose to invest in the South Sea Company and the many other bubble companies that followed in its wake. It explores the cultural impact of the crash and the anxieties it generated in contemporary Britain and Ireland looking at the commentary of Jonathan Swift, George Berkeley, and William Hogarth amongst others. It also discusses the post-bubble blame-game, the role of xenophobia, the treatment of female investors and the political fallout of the crisis.

This course explores a range of contemporary Irish writing and film in the context of recent Irish culture, history and society. The course discusses a range of work in various genres (fiction, poetry, drama and/or film) from the 1960s to the present. On successful completion of this course, students are able to: Read and analyze a selection of Irish works - novels, poetry, plays and/or films from the 1960s on; Discuss the shifting social and cultural conditions which these works both reflect and help to shape; Apply a range of key critical concepts to the works studied; Write critical essays at an advanced undergraduate level in response to set questions on the course material.

This course examines ways of solving the (usually partial) differential equations that arise in physical, biological, and engineering applications. Many of the methods covered, such as Fourier Transforms, also have applications beyond the solution of differential equations.