English

This course introduces media law and relevant issues and largely focuses on the assumptions and normative values about communication and media upon which media law is based, rather than focusing on technical issues of law. This course examines the ways in which media law affects daily lives. Topics include Freedom of Expression and Its Limitations, Free Press and Defamation, Privacy, Obscenity and Image-Based Sexual Abuse, Remedies for Media-Related Harm, Copyright, AI Creation and Copyright, Regulation of Broadcasting and Telecommunications, Digital Platform Regulation, Advertising Regulation, and AI Policy and Governance. 

This course examines major theories of the aesthetic and aesthetic value. Commonly defined as a philosophy of Art and the way in which we judge and appreciate artistic productions, the discourse of aesthetics raises a set of compelling questions about the fraught relationship between beauty, pleasure, judgment, and value. Students will explore a range of theories on the aesthetic and aesthetic judgment, and think more broadly about the purpose of the literary in broader society. Writers considered may include Plato on Mimesis; Aristotle on Catharsis; Burke on the sublime; Kant on Hedonism; Marx on art and value; as well as more recent debates on aesthetic affects coming out of contemporary queer theory.

This course examines how global supply chains are impacted by international political factors and how companies can adjust their strategies to respond to both international and domestic political pressures. The focus is on how firms can manage these influences on their operations and assess their strengths and weaknesses to make the best adjustments. In addition to providing a political analysis framework for understanding global supply chains, the course uses case studies to help students comprehend strategic and behavioral options companies have in responding to domestic and international political pressures. Through real-case analysis, the course provides insights into empirical applications of these strategies and behaviors. 

This course introduces students to the world of magic in the Islamic world. Dismissed as anti-rational by European colonialism and Islamic reformism, magic and other occult pursuits often played an important role in the religious, political, and intellectual lives of Muslims. Making extensive use of both literary and visual sources, this course examines how past and present scholars have attempted to define the occult and esoteric. It outlines several themes such as the role of sorcery in everyday life, politics, and the investigation of science. Surveyed topics include astrology, geomancy, treasure hunting, demonology, alchemy, and necromancy.

This course will guide students toward an understanding of the intellectual challenges and debates of gender in the discipline of philosophy. It will seek to explore how the assumptions of gender have shaped philosophical discourse, and how feminist thought has destabilised and reconfigured the parameters of debates in epistemology, ethics, and social and political philosophy.

In this course students develop writing skills through a series of focused writing exercises that are critiqued in class. Students are introduced to some of the major theories of story design, and are taught how to develop their work draft by draft. Weekly classes cover (among other issues) the classic three act structure, beginnings and endings, the importance of genre, universal themes and their audience relevance, and dialogue. 

In this course, students tackle some of the most fascinating questions about emotions, such as: What are emotions, and why do we experience them? How can we measure emotions in real-life situations and in the lab? How many emotions are there, and are they the same for everyone? Are emotions something we’re born with, or do we learn them through experience and culture? How do emotions connect with our bodies—such as facial expressions, voices, and movements? What role does thinking play in feeling, and how do emotions influence the way we think? The course also explores how emotional experiences can change in challenging circumstances, such as when mental health is affected or when the brain or body is injured. Throughout the course, students connect scientific research with major theories of emotion to help them understand how researchers investigate these big questions. By studying these topics, students gain a clearer picture of how emotions shape our everyday lives and how this knowledge can help improve emotional well-being. 

Prompted by decolonization, postcolonialism, globalization, and the globalized contemporary art world of the present day, many have suggested that narratives of modern art focused on Western cities such as Paris and New York are now provincial or inadequate. This course examines the rise of early- to mid-20th century "modern" art in a range of countries not usually considered in Western survey courses. With the 1900-1960 date range setting its boundaries, the course involves both close examinations of individual works by key figures, and broad comparative examination of movements and styles across times and places. As well as introducing students to some of the figures and movements that have been taken to show the distinctive nature of modernisms around the world, it asks broader theoretical questions about the status of art history and the study of modernism.

For businesses operating in the UK or the EU, three factors are important: environmental, social, and governance, commonly referred to as ESG. This course addresses the benefits and risks of technologic progress as possible solution for greener friendly solutions for infrastructure. The course discusses the use of social entrepreneurship, and the implementation of technology solutions as part of different generation of new smart infrastructures in the context of UN agenda for sustainability.

This course explores advanced mathematical problems and theoretical approaches in deep learning with a strong emphasis on privacy-related challenges. Key topics include: Differential privacy, with a focus on its application in federated learning and mechanisms to ensure robust privacy guarantees in distributed settings; Privacy in generative diffusion models, including the use of stochastic differential equations and innovative techniques to safeguard private data in generative processes; Privacy considerations in large language models (LLMs), examining methods for mitigating data leakage, adversarial attacks, and ensuring compliance with differential privacy principles in training and inference.