English

This course explores the Holocaust from different perspectives: the various stages of the Nazi persecution and extermination of Jews; Jewish voices, experiences and agency; and the attitude of the surrounding non-Jewish population towards the Holocaust. Thus, the course introduces what the historian Saul Freidländer called an “integrated history of the Holocaust”, taking into account perpetrators, Jewish victims and the surrounding societies. The geographical focus is on Eastern Europe, where almost all of the Holocaust killings had taken place. The course explores different types of sources and historiographical approaches: every-day life, cultural history, gender history, micro-history. The last sessions of the course explore how different societies coped with the memory of the Holocaust and the difficult past, examining Poland, France, and Israel.

This course examines the kinds of fiction that are usually described as "genre" or "popular" works. It provides a practice-led exploration and analysis of a range of significant genre texts and techniques. The emphasis is on the genre novel, but also considers the theory of genre fiction, and how genres operate in the literary marketplace.

Our contemporary world continues to be shaped by many different kinds of empire: from the nation states that assert political and military control over mineral resources in foreign lands to the global corporations that control public access to medicines, food, and telecommunications; from attempts to unify new territories and populations by force to attempts to expand global markets under the banner of freedom and liberation. This course asks, how are we to understand Empires today. How might we approach Empires as cultural projects of power and control? How might we approach Empires from the perspective of those without them? What does it mean to consider contemporary Empires in the light of colonialism? And how might the study of past Empires help us to reflect on the limits to globalizing ambition?
 

This course focuses on the theory and practice of concurrent programming, in order to familiarize students with a range of modern concurrent programming models, and with the challenges of correct concurrent programming. It is divided into two parts: a largely practical part that gives an overview of shared memory concurrency in modern programming languages, and a more theoretical part that treats shared memory concurrency from the ground up, covering low-level topics such as hardware memory models, primitives for shared-memory concurrency, building up towards higher-level synchronization techniques such as locks, mutexes and transactional memory. Throughout the course, a main objective is to reinforce correct concurrent programming through the use of tools, formal specification and verification techniques.

This course deals with the application of statistical methods to test hypotheses and draw inferences from data, using maximum likelihood methods. The course starts by developing general-purpose maximum likelihood methods, with interval estimation by means of the information matrix and the bootstrap. It goes on to develop generalized linear models, linear models and analysis of variance models as special cases of maximum likelihood methods. It covers diagnostic methods, including methods for selecting between models, checking assumptions and testing goodness-of-fit. It has an applied focus, with extensive use of R to give students practice in doing inference with real datasets, from problem formulation through to final conclusions.

This course explores the changing nature of work and expertise in various financial professions, paying particular attention to cutting edge research in this area. As King's Business School graduates will end up in a range of different financial fields, it is important that they are exposed to the realities of career pathways in those different fields as well as understanding financial careers from a deeper social science perspective. 

This course, covering financial accounting, management accounting, and investment appraisal topics, enables students to understand and apply the basic techniques of accounting and investment appraisal that would serve them well in decision-making roles in their careers ahead. The first part (Financial Accounting) provides an introduction to the preparation and analysis of financial statements and evaluation of the financial well-being of a business. The second part (Management Accounting and Investment Appraisal) provides an introduction to the production and uses of financial information for the internal management of a business. Students learn how to apply and comment on a range of techniques for product costing and investment appraisal.

Machine learning is a fast-growing field and plays a central role in the era of AI and big data with many applications in prediction and data analysis. In particular, optimization formulations and algorithms are key to analysis and design of efficient methods in machine learning problems. This course focuses on the optimization models arising from various machine learning problems and introduce efficient algorithms for solving these models. The course covers basic convex analysis, model formulation, and fundamental (stochastic) first-order methods, supplemented with recent developments in the related literature.

This course introduces contemporary issues in democratic theory and philosophy and public policy. It draws on political and moral philosophy as well as philosophy of law in order to examine the philosophical underpinnings of contemporary political debates over civil rights and liberties, democratic institutions and procedures, inequality and disadvantage and human rights. It combines the study of contemporary philosophy with analysis of particular cases, through a mixture of academic articles, newspaper articles, public policy reports and recently published works by distinguished academics.

The prime purpose of the Advanced GIS course is to widen your knowledge and skills in the practical – foremost analytical – application of Geographical Information Systems using raster models and spatial network models. As a consequence, a substantial part of the course consists of practical assignments in which participants train their skills in GIS analysis. At the same time, start your own analytical GIS project on planning a new road in Friesland. The practical assignments are partly integrated with the project. Work together with one or two fellow students, directly applying your new skills in the project. The project is concluded with two reports on progress and outcomes (maps, charts, etc.).