English

This course examines innovation and sustainability of pacific peoples in the pacific and within the pacific communities of Aotearoa. It explores the adaptability and innovation of pacific peoples to create sustainable communities that embody both traditional cultural values and identities, and are also focused on future development, opportunity, mobility, and communal success.

Through multimedia and practical classes, this course guides students to travel across the history of fashion editorials through the lenses of photography and film, learning to create in any media format, from print to digital. Students are encouraged to express their creativity in any desired industry, whether it is connected to fashion, food, art or any other idea brought by experiencing Paris. Special visits and exhibitions throughout the city provide an inspiring backdrop for students to produce artful projects. By the end of the course students have a deep knowledge of the main image creators, as well as the ability to develop their first still and moving images with accessible everyday tools. From designing a mood board to producing digital content, students accurately achieve innovative storytelling. This course requires no prior experience in media, fashion, or branding—just an interest in media and the creative world of editorials.

This course examines fundamental dance techniques and their use in the creation of choreography. The course develops an insight into the roles of dancer and choreographer and the use of physical language as a means of expression through the exploration of dance techniques, approaches to dance-making, choreographic tools, rehearsal techniques, and dance performance.

This online course (in real time format) examines the essential characters and stories of Greek mythology. 

This course examines key theoretical concepts around gender and sexuality from an interdisciplinary lens with a focus on the Pacific. It explores the intersections of race, sex, biology, ableism, colonialism, nationality, politics and social movements in our constructions/understanding of gender in a Pacific and global context.

This course examines misinformation and propaganda in a networked society, with a focus on communication, journalism, and media studies. It covers how to deal with technologies like automation, algorithms, and advances in AI and how they have changed the scale of misinformation and propaganda. Topics include: health misinformation; climate misinformation; how social media platforms short-circuit the connection between reality and fiction.

The seminar begins with discussing the challenges academic research – even if mostly historically oriented – faces when investigating clandestine phenomena such as criminal networks. It then introduces core concepts of illicit markets including trafficking corridors, and the political economy of criminal violence. The seminar goes on to explore the historical origins (starting in the 1970s and 1980s) of drug trafficking in both regions using, among others, historical, journalistic and criminological accounts. From then on it proceeds chronologically until the 2010s with an outlook on the current situation. For both regions, the class examines and reviews the historical interface/interlinkages between state secret services and criminals (e.g. the use of criminals by the UDBA to eliminate Yugoslav dissidents in the West, or the use of Mexican drug trafficking networks to support clandestine aid to anti-Sandinista Contras). The final part uses the comparative material to formulate a historically grounded puzzle: Why did the two corridors follow such different trajectories of organized violence? The seminar concludes by mapping the divergence of historical pathways of violence and discussing tentative explanations suggested in the literature.

This course develops a critical and diverse reading of cities by using theoretical and practical resources and studying them from multiple angles (historical, social, political, cultural). It focuses on urban forms and their meanings, considers the main actors in developing the city, and thinks of how to transform the structures of inequality to create more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable cities. This course explores the complexity and diversity that define a city and urban development in Spain and also discusses the urban landscapes of power and capital, urban conflicts, and citizen response to the neoliberal city. It examines how public space, art, and community are approached as an opportunity for change, and it looks at alternative governance and political innovation. 

The course examines the relationships among peace, justice, and security in an increasingly interconnected world. Students explore theories of conflict, violence, global justice, human rights, and peacebuilding. The course analyzes contemporary security challenges, including armed conflict, terrorism, migration, environmental change, and inequality, while examining the role of international organizations, legal institutions, and global governance in promoting peace and stability.

As an introduction to cultural and literary studies, this course examines an array of modes of expression to understand how texts of various kinds accomplish their acts of meaning making and persuade their readers. Attention is given to the impact of a text’s form and context in shaping its message, as well as its content. In trying to understand the rhetorical effects of any given text, the course examines examples from across a variety of genres that use words, images, and even sound to engage their audience or readers, within a variety of historical and political contexts. Objects of study include texts that use sound as well as words (such as contemporary ballads, performance poetry and hip hop, or contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays), visual images (such as posters in a protest action, photographs that document war and suffering, and historical maps that retraced the shape the world), and words collated and presented in particular ways on the page (such as the archived documents from the apartheid censors, the published journal of a fugitive slave, the extended prose of a stream-of-consciousness novel). By drawing on key theoretical insights into the politics of representation, the course develops the critical skills needed to become savvy readers of contemporary culture and politics. DP requirements: All written work to be handed in and at least 75% attendance at tutorials. Assessment: Continuous assessment (coursework essays, projects, tasks etc.) counts 60%; end-of semester examination counts 40%.