English

This course introduces climate change law and policy. It examines climate change as a disruptive legal phenomenon, exploring how it is framed and how legal systems have responded to it. It provides a foundation in climate law and policy across international, EU, and selected national legal orders. It covers also climate litigation, including the growing importance of judicial adjudication and the role of courts in climate governance. Building on this foundation, the course then examines specific climate measures in greater depth, including carbon markets, greenhouse gas removal technologies, and critical raw material mining. Finally, it addresses greenwashing and the risks it poses to the credibility and effectiveness of climate action.
 

The course provides an introduction to maritime law and aviation law, examining how maritime and air transport have been regulated internationally. It examines how the law responds to the challenges these critical sectors of the global economy are faced with, such as climate change, the use of new technologies and artificial intelligence (e.g. autonomous vessels and drones), external shocks (e.g. sanctions and trade wars) and an unlevel playing field. The course concludes with a comparative analysis of the international regulation of shipping and aviation.

This course theoretically explores the psychology of play and enjoyment manifested through various entertainment-based media—including dramas, films, variety shows, political entertainment, and social networking services. The primary goal is to understand the underlying mechanisms of media enjoyment through empirical research. The curriculum focuses on analyzing media user responses through key concepts of entertainment psychology, such as empathy, immersion, identification, narrative comprehension, and affective disposition. Rooted in psychological perspectives, this course applies traditional media effects theories to the context of entertainment content and provides an in-depth examination of the psychological influence of entertainment in the contemporary media environment. 

This course introduces students to the study of the relationship between religion and politics. The course is structured around key research areas in the field such as the conditions under which societies or the institutions that govern them become secularized, the emergence and persistence of the religious-secular divide as a salient political cleavage, the formation and electoral performance of religious parties, the relationship between religion and regime type, the potential implications of religious doctrines for public policy and economic outcomes, the causes of religious violence, as well as the historical and contemporary role of religion in the international sphere.

This course examines comparative political theories about political institutions and the characteristics of each type of institution. The main topics covered in the course are the presidential system, the parliamentary cabinet system, and the mixed system, as well as the working mechanisms of various electoral systems and their political impact. 

This course surveys political institutions—the “rules of the game”—in various democracies around the world.  An institution is a set of incentives/constraints that affect actors’ preferences and choices.  In order to investigate political behaviors and outcomes, it is essential to understand the effects of institutions.  

The course first introduces students to scientific approaches to analyzing the consequences of institutions.  Then, we discuss constitutional designs to solve the principal-agent (delegation) problem in representative democracies.  Next, we compare the varying effects of different political institutions, including parliamentarism versus presidentialism, federalism versus unitary government, majoritarian electoral system versus proportional representation, two-party versus multiparty systems, unicameralism versus bicameralism, direct versus representative democracy, and majoritarian versus consociational government. We also consider institutions in dictatorships.  Finally, given the consequences of institutions, we deliberate over the origin or the choice of institutions.    

This course explores the dynamic intersections of influencer marketing and artificial intelligence (AI), equipping students with the insights and skills to navigate these critical aspects of modern marketing. Through this course, students gain an in-depth understanding of influencer culture within both traditional and digital marketing landscapes. Key topics include the role of influencers in digital marketing, strategies for brand-influencer partnerships, online community building, and content creation that resonates across platforms. Students will analyze various types of creative and strategic content, developing the skills to create impactful marketing campaigns.

This course examines the foundations of the modern Human Rights regime, and address important controversies for Human Rights, including, accusations of Western-Centrism; protections for gender and sexuality; and issues of self-determination.

This course examines the fundamentals of European integration from an economic, social and political perspectives, with emphasis on both microeconomics and macroeconomics. It mobilizes a very limited mathematical formalized demonstration yet is significantly backed by data collection and analysis. It examines a variety of key EU policies: competition, industry, trade, agricultural, regional, monetary and fiscal policy. Finally, the course offers a thorough analysis of the multilateralism crisis and the war in Ukraine (among economic sanctions efficiency). Various course topics are illustrated with press releases on the latest news or interesting scientific articles and deepened through group presentations, group case studies and an individual term paper.

Evolutionary thinking provides useful new insights into the origins of diseases and contemporary health problems. This course explores the applications of the tools and concepts of evolutionary biology to human health and health-related behavior. Incorporating examples from the lecturer’s ongoing research on BaYakahunter-gatherers living in the Northern rainforests of Congo and current health problems, students cover a range of topics including: Evolution and human-microbe interactions; Hunter-gatherers as models in public health; Diet, exercise, evolutionary mismatches and non-communicable diseases; Life-history theory and reproductive health; Evolutionary perspectives on mental health and wellbeing; Cultural evolution and health-related behavior; and Applied evolutionary medicine: future of medicine and how evolutionary thinking can be applied to current health problems.

This course examines human behavior and humans' expectations of computers, computer interfaces and the interaction between humans and computers, the significance of the user interface, interface design and user centered design process in software development, and interface usability evaluation methodologies and practice.