English

This course familiarizes students with the theory and methodology of planning for urban quality of life. The course activities include theory lectures and a practical group assignment. The theory lectures focus on selected aspects of quality of life relevant to urban and regional planning. The group assignment focuses on analyzing and designing the regional spatial organization and building spatial scenarios for the future spatial development of a region. The assignment and related instruction lectures familiarize students with methods for prospective and projective scenario study. The methods and techniques are applied in the context of an urban region in the Netherlands. The overall planning task for the assignment is to develop an integrated spatial vision, scenarios, and strategies for the region for the long term (30 years) that can support the discussion about the future development of the region.  The assignment addresses some selected topics, while each group can choose its own focal issues. The main emphasis is on practicing methods and techniques for analyzing and designing spatial organization and building scenarios. The concepts for analyzing and designing the spatial organization of the area are provided in theory and instruction lectures. A study trip helps students to understand the context of the issues at hand.

While the pursuit of happiness is an ideal present in many Western cultures, for the French, happiness takes various forms: a certain joie de vivre, an appreciation of life’s simple pleasures, and an affinity for companionship. Why is it, then, that France is consistently ranked as one of the least happy countries in Europe according to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE)? The French may be known as contentious grumblers who are prone to flights of melancholy and often embroil themselves in gloomy philosophical reflection. And yet, the deeply-ingrained cultural desire to live a full life and find happiness is undeniably a major concern for the French. This course explores representations of happiness in French cultural production, with an emphasis on the city of Paris. Through the study of socio-cultural and historical events as well as critical, literary, and cinematic texts, students explore how the concept of happiness manifests itself in unique ways throughout recent history and in diverse social worlds. From the nineteenth century to the present, happiness has taken many forms: material seduction, consumer delight, everyday bliss, personal independence. The course explores how authors and filmmakers encourage us to reflect on a deceptively simple question: What is happiness and where can we find it? Is happiness to be found in the people and things that surround us, or are we to find it within ourselves?

This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary research field of Transitional Justice which may include both judicial and non-non-judicial mechanisms, with different levels of international involvement and individual prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking, institutional reform, vetting, and dismissals. The course explores the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, the aftermath of colonialism in Africa and Indonesia, the aftermath of communism, truth and reconciliation in South Africa, and different types of retributive justice in dealing with the Rwandan genocide. This course looks at the effectiveness of the Transitional Justice mechanisms, its measure of effectiveness on a state level, and statistical outcomes.

This course examines the social function of popular culture in Australia with particular emphasis on the period from the 1960s to the present. It explores how popular culture is produced and consumed and asks how specific forms and practices (such as cinema, music, sport, and food) contribute to concepts of individual and national identity. The course does not attempt to define a uniquely Australian form of popular culture. Rather, students examine the distinctive ways in which cultural activity and practice, whether originating in Australia or overseas, have been produced and consumed in Australia.

This course examines Japanese painting, calligraphy and craftwork from from the ancient through the early modern periods, with a focus on the Edo period (1615-1868), especially the Rimpa school associated with Ogata Korin. Students consider Japanese artistic products in light of various concepts, including “classicism,” “revival,” “school,” “decoration,” and “design.”

Mental experience is not always anchored to the present moment; instead, when the constraints of cognitive control are released, the mind is free to transition from one mental state to the next. Spontaneous thought encompasses a range of mental phenomena that are an intrinsic part of the human experience. These include mind-wandering, daydreams, vivid fantasy, inner speech, creative insights and the nightly manifestations of dreaming. There are also negative ramifications of an excessively wandering mind including distractibility in disorders of attention, obsessive thoughts in OCD, uncontrolled ruminations in depression, and disinhibited traumatic imagery in PTSD. This course asks, what are these various unconstrained modes of thought? How are they generated and instantiated in the brain? Why does the mind and brain devote time and energy to generating these spontaneous mental states? Moreover, this course considers how we can guard against unwarranted mind-wandering by reflecting on techniques such as meditation, mindfulness and their philosophical origins, and how altered states of consciousness can shed light on the content and dynamics of spontaneous thought.

This seminar critically overviews the intellectual genealogies of what are now called popular music studies, popular musicology, etc., and attempts to contemplate the dialectical relationship between the socio-culture dimensions of music and the musical dimensions of society and culture. This seminar consists of the three major parts. Part one deals with key concepts and definitions surrounding the very notion of popular music and with the interdisciplinary origins and intellectual trajectories of the study of popular music. Part II and Part III are both concerned with diverse theoretical positions regarding the inter-relatedness between musical text and soocio-cultural context, with an analytical and critical stress on studying popular music in/as/through culture and society and on studying culture and society in/as/through popular music respectively.