English

This course critically examines the issue of endangered languages, focusing on the impacts of globalization, ethnic identity, and language policies on language survival. It explores historical and contemporary factors, including population movements, war, trade, and colonization, that have shaped linguistic diversity. The course investigates why a small number of global languages dominate while thousands of minor languages face decline, and considers debates around language preservation, revitalization, and the pressures of modernity. Students analyze the political, cultural, and educational forces that influence language use and endangerment, developing insight into the tension between preserving linguistic heritage and adapting to a globalized world.

This course covers the different periods of collaboration between the United States and the United Kingdom in various domains (such as politics, economics, diplomacy, defense, culture) from the origins until now, with a sharp focus on the 1945-2025 period. It discusses foreign policy-making and provides an overview of the current state of the relationship. The course analyzes foreign policies with the recurring strategic features for each country concerned, and assesses crisis management and resolution options as regards complex defense and security issues.

This course explores Buddhist philosophical issues and logic that were established during Mahayanic development. Topics include Mahayanic issues such as icchantika and the Mahayanic theory of knowledge. Under the latter, topics such as the concept of Buddha nature, reality, sources of knowledge, sensations, reflexes, conceptions, judgement, inferences, etc. are examined.

This course concerns the contexts in which English is used, and the fact that the patterns and variations in language used in the everyday are worthy of analysis. It demonstrates how language-in-use can be studied systematically, and to show how English is used in particular situations and in the module of activities, speech situations, public discourse, and interpersonal interactions that might otherwise be taken for granted.

This intermediate international business course solves a challenge related to the internationalization of companies. As a learning outcome, the class develops skills to understand the processes required to conduct business in Mexico using various input methods while grasping the processes involved and, of course, understanding how cultural differences must be analyzed when doing business in an international context.

Course topics include:

• History of Mexico and the political environment
• Mexican economy
• Mexican infrastructure
• Trade agreements
• Cultural patterns and business protocol
• Management styles
• Work and labor conditions in Mexico

Forget about the American Dream. This course explores the nightmarish and phantasmagorical hinterlands of the American project. It covers that which is repressed, depraved, monstrous, grotesque, terrifying, disturbing, unsettling, marginal, and bizarre in its culture. Together students seek to account for the existence of these horrors, through historicizing, close reading, and conceptualizing them via the contested histories of race, gender, sexuality, and class in the US. Students are looking at different genres and the troubled worlds contained within them. Students can expect to read in any given year works in the gothic, horror, noir and neo-noir, grotesque, racial melodrama, black comedy, crime, war, dystopian, science fiction, and mystery traditions. 

This course traces the history of comics and graphic novels in Western Europe and North America. Beginning with an introduction presenting the main characteristics of this medium, this course traces its development, from the beginnings of storytelling with images in Antiquity to the latest innovations. Even though they have retained their own characteristics over the last two centuries, Western European and North American comics have also developed in close proximity. Following the development of the press and book industry, as well as other media like cinema, comics and graphic novels have a rich history that can only be understood in their cultural context. This course allows students to understand how this medium has shaped and been shaped by many aspects of the history and cultures of these places.

This course addresses the business and social issues related to the use of modern biotechnology. Topics include business development in the industry, operations in running a bio-business, manufacturing practice, drug development process, regulation and policy, intellectual property issues, environmental aspects of biotechnology, ethical and public concerns.

This course explores the art and visual culture of Asia from Neolithic times to the tenth century CE, with a focus on major developments in India, China, Korea, and Japan. Students will engage with a wide array of objects across diverse media—including sculpture, painting, pottery, crafts, and architecture—analyzing them not only as aesthetic forms but also as products of specific historical and cultural contexts. The overarching goal is to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of key monuments and artifacts, while also introducing a range of critical approaches to studying visual culture. By the end of the course, students develop visual literacy skills and analytical tools applicable to the study of art traditions in Asia. 

The objective of this course is to work on optimisation problems which can be formulated as linear and network optimisation problems. The course covers formulating linear programming (LP) problems and solving them by the simplex method (algorithm); looking at the geometrical aspect and developing the mathematical theory of the simplex method; studying problems which may be formulated using graphs and networks. These optimisation problems can be solved by using linear or integer programming approaches. However, due to its graphical structure, it is easier to handle these problems by using network algorithmic approaches. Applications of LP and network optimisation are demonstrated. Major topics: Introduction to LP: solving 2-variable LP via graphical methods. Geometry of LP: polyhedron, extreme points, existence of optimal solution at extreme point. Development of simplex method: basic solution, reduced costs and optimality condition, iterative steps in a simplex method, 2-phase method and Big-M method. Duality: dual LP, duality theory, dual simplex method. Sensitivity Analysis. Network optimisation problems: minimal spanning tree problems, shortest path problems, maximal flow problems, minimum cost flow problems, salesman problems and postman problems. The course requires students to take prerequisites.