English

Starting from the assumption that gendered differences are at the basis of an unequal gendered system, to which are added other forms of domination, such as race and class, and that this inequality results from a social construction based on prejudices and stereotypes, this course explores how these mechanisms of gender assignment are reflected, constructed but also challenged in literature. It reflects upon the processes of construction and deconstruction of gender in a corpus of Anglophone and Francophone literary texts, and also in the back-and-forth movement between languages and cultures, insofar as geographical displacement very often induces a displacement of gendered and textual issues: how is gender inscribed in literature and how is it translated? The course considers the literary space as a symbolic space where gendered models can be transgressed and undermined. To do this, it alternates theoretical readings and textual analysis of literary texts in English and French. These texts are systematically contextualized and historicized in order to show how literary writing and translation are determined by ideology. Finally, the course tries to define what “feminist” literary translation is and investigates how queer theory has transformed literary and translation studies.

This course introduces students to the history and culture of Rome under the emperors. It focuses both on the city of Rome and its vast empire, from the Antonine Wall to the Euphrates. The course covers the political and social history of Rome from the death of Augustus to the late 3rd century AD, together with the material culture, monuments, art, literature and thought of the Romans during this period. Lectures cover topics such the expansion of the empire, the Roman army, Roman religion, monuments of the city of Rome, Roman villas, and Roman poetry and drama, as well as the various imperial dynasties. 

This course examines the development of contemporary physical and human geography, its disciplinary roots, substantive focus, analytical methods and practical applications. 

This course examines how international security is challenged by the risk of systemic disruptions that not only spread within a single system but may also spill over into other systems. Particular attention will be paid to the trinity of international security, risk, and uncertainty. Identifying, assessing, and mitigating risk are essential capabilities for achieving international security. 

This course provides an introduction to the fundamental approaches of cognitive psychology, biological psychology and the intersection of the two fields. It covers concepts relevant to phenomena such as attention, perception, language, memory, vision, emotion, and the neurophysiological processes involved in these. The course covers concepts relevant to brain functioning from chemistry, biology, cognitive science, and neuroscience, to explore how biological and cognitive explanations are complementary.

 This course introduces AI ethics, focusing on fundamental philosophical questions about the nature and implications of artificial intelligence. It is structured around twelve topics, such as: What is the nature of artificial intelligence? Can AI systems be moral agents? Can AI systems have minds, consciousness, or knowledge? How can we collaborate with AI systems while maintaining trust and avoiding discrimination? Can AI systems speak meaningfully and refer to the world? Do AI systems pose an existential threat to humanity? The course discusses some of the most pressing concerns in contemporary AI ethics, including trustworthiness, explainability, discrimination, alignment with human values, and the potential risks posed by advanced AI systems. At the end of this course, students should: understand central issues in the ethics of AI, understand relevant relations between these issues, clearly and concisely expound these issues in their own words, critically discuss questions and assess arguments, offer well-founded views on these issues.

This course supplements existing teaching on Romantic-period literature, allowing students the opportunity to study works by and about women written between 1789 and 1820. It complements two other courses at St Andrews: EN3162 and EN3163, but students are not required to take these classes. The focus of this course is the richly varied and often exciting fiction, poetry and non-fictional prose emanating from the "revolution in female manners" which sprang out of the momentous changes of post-1789 European society. Students explore how arguments about women’s education, marriage, inheritance, and status in society connect with the more general political and ideological ferment of the 1790s and beyond.

This course covers a range of contemporary topics in economics from both a theoretical and practical perspective. Students learn the theoretical arguments behind each topic covered but also study a whole range of empirical methodologies employed by economists to test these theories. 

This course explores a wide range of contemporary British drama from the 1950s to the present day, examining its existence on both page and stage. Students read a broad spectrum of work, including plays by John Osborne, Samuel Beckett, Sarah Kane, Brian Friel, Tim Crouch, Caryl Churchill, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Liz Lochhead, Ella Hickson, debbie tucker green, Mojisola Adebayo and Travis Alabanza. They also consider the evolution of specific trends, movements and forms across 20th- and 21st-century drama, including in-yer-face theatre, participatory performance and state-of-the-nation drama. The course engages with critical and theoretical perspectives on these playtexts and performances.

 

At least since the 1980s, risk and its forms of calculation and management have been gaining ground as a relevant topic in the social sciences, which crosses different empirical approaches that include, for example, disasters and natural catastrophes, services and financial markets, to security policies and technologies. This course introduces the sociology of risk and offer a brief overview of the consolidation of this field of study and its main theoretical references, as well as exploring the issues, concepts and methodologies raised by the literature. The course is divided into three parts. First, it starts with a brief review of the two classic approaches of sociology and anthropology, namely, respectively, the theory of risk society (Beck, 1992 [1986]) and the theory of cultural risk perception (Douglas and Widalvsky, 1983). Next, it discusses some of the main contributions of governmentality studies to the development of research on risk governance technologies (Burchell, Gordon and Miller, 1991; O'Malley, 2009). While these three currents are more focused on ways of controlling and reducing dangers, threats and risks, in the third part, the course discusses studies that show the positivity of risk and uncertainty in the liberal tradition and the growing demand for “assuming” and “taking risks” in contemporary financial capitalism (Baker and Simon, 2010). Throughout the course, students are encouraged to use the concepts learned as analytical tools for building a sociological understanding of contemporary empirical facts.