English

The course explores the role of social sciences in primary education, focusing on critical thinking, citizenship education, and global competencies. Students examine teaching resources, digital tools, inquiry-based strategies, interdisciplinary approaches, sustainability, inclusion, and assessment methods for effective social science instruction.

This course explores the reconstruction efforts in coastal Fukushima following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Accident. It emphasizes the roles of local communities and emerging industries. Through field visits to Futaba Town in Fukushima, the class analyzes the impacts of the disaster; understands reconstruction challenges, and develops multidisciplinary problem-solving skills. The course foster empathy, equipping international and domestic students to learn together and addressing town-building challenges from a global perspective.

This seminar examines how social relationships shape individual behavior and collective outcomes, integrating perspectives from sociology and economics. It explores how networks, norms, and institutions influence decisions in areas such as marriage markets, immigration, and employment, with attention to public goods and strategic interaction using game-theoretic frameworks. By combining theory with empirical examples, the course shows how social structure and interdependence jointly shape opportunity, cooperation, and inequality.

This course is an introduction to the ethical problems raised by artificial intelligence (AI) research and technology, including algorithmic bias, automation and employment, autonomous vehicles, autonomous weapons, engineering moral machines, existential risk, human–robot interaction, interpretability, machine consciousness, manipulation of behaviour, and more.

This course covers key topics in intercultural communication, including cultural differences, language and culture, verbal and non-verbal communication, concepts of time and space, and intercultural cognition and adaptation. Centered on reading, it offers in-depth exploration supported by Q&A, discussions, debates, case studies, storytelling, role-plays, and intercultural practice and reflection. Supplemented with diverse cultural materials and real-world cases, the course aims to enhance students’ ability to communicate and collaborate effectively in multicultural contexts.

This course offers a comprehensive overview of Blues and Jazz as a musical and artistic phenomenon. It distinguishes the main parameters of a Blues and Jazz piece in an audition. This course also discusses the different eras that have shaped Blues and Jazz, from their origins to the present day.  

This course moves thematically and chronologically from the Pax Romana established by Augustus to the rise of imperial cities in Africa under Septimius Severus. Themes of peace, triumph and conflict will be viewed through a series of core-and-periphery test cases. Themes will include Augustan Peace, The Wars in Judaea, The Spoils of Territorial Expansion under Trajan (looking at Dacia and Parthia), Territorial Consolidation under Hadrian (exploring Rome and Britain) and the Art of Ruling in Absentia (as exemplified by Marcus Aurelius’ reign on the Danube). Students will analyze the Roman conceptualization of events taking place on the fringe of empire and the nature of their portrayal at the administrative core in terms of Roman imperial expansion and later contraction and collapse. Imperial propaganda will be investigated through a reading of the most famous imperial architectural designs in Rome and tested against archaeological evidence for daily life in the related provinces. 

This course provides a foundational introduction to the basics of actuarial science, focusing on the theory of interest and life contingencies and their application to lifecycle planning. It explores key actuarial models to analyze essential financial concepts, including economic balance sheets, personal net worth, human capital, assets, liabilities, and the fundamentals of retirement planning. In light of rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, this course emphasizes the practical integration of these technologies. Students will learn to harness the power of large language models (LLMs) to assist in and elevate the actuarial analysis of financial scenarios. 

This course provides the spatial perspective required to address environmental and social challenges through hands-on training in core geospatial analysis methods. The first half of the course covers foundational concepts and technical skills of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), while the second half engages the class in a group project where they conduct planning, data collection, analysis, and a final presentation of their findings.