English

The course will be conducted in the form of seminar. We will interpret and discuss one of the most important classic texts of moral philosophy resp. philosophical ethics, Critique ofPractical Reason

by Immanuel Kant, in which he rejects all hitherto representative moral principles, such as the desire for happiness (eudaimonia), the will of God (theonomy) and the moral sense. They are replaced by the radically new principle, autonomy, namely the self-legislating of the will. In this way the key

concept of the modern time, the freedom, receives a philosophical foundation.

These sessions will follow the order of the actual sequence of the original text. There will be 13 sessions in total.

This course is mainly designed for graduate students, while it is also open to advanced undergraduate students. Students and docents from other universities are also welcomed. We are looking forward to having students and docents who already have some preliminary knowledge of Kant’s philosophy and are eager to broaden and deepen their comprehension.

It is advisable to read through the entire Critique of Practical Reason, at least cursorily, before the beginning of the course.

International trade as a field of economics has changed a lot in the past two decades. Previously, we employ some toy models to understand the principles of international trade. These principles are insightful, but they cannot provide us tools to understand the issues in practice. The recent decades development in international trade has shifted the focus from the earlier intensely discussed principles to more practical, sophisticate observations in international trade. We employ recently available data at firm level or transaction level to understand trade intermediary, finance, R&D, resource allocation, firm dynamics, offshoring, etc. These recent developments in international research is important for us to fully understand how a world with open economies works and how some most important movements of factors, goods and services affect our welfare. The objective of this course is to guide undergraduate students from understanding some basic international economics principles to try to investigate and understand how exactly international trade in practice is conducted and shape the world.

This course explores the relationship between literary texts and their precursors. The course moves from the ancient world of classical Greece, Rome, and the Middle East to the present day. Students focus on the transhistorical, however, not chronological. The course introduces some of the ways in which writers speak to one another across and through time, considering what it means for a writer to invoke other literary texts in their work. Students explore different theoretical models for thinking about this relationship, moving beyond ideas of influence to instead consider more creative ways in which texts have existed in relation to one another. 

The course shows how social research can shed light on topical social and political debates. Students are given opportunities to reflect critically on the ways in which evidence is used in debate about public policy. This course illustrates how social research can shed light on topical social and political debates. The specific aims are to understand how academic enquiry can be used to understand public political debates and public policy to understand how evidence informs debates, and how it is sometimes distorted and misused in these debates; to understand how social and political theory can be brought to bear on understanding topical debates; and to develop the skills of engaging in topical debates in a rational and evidence-based way while also taking account of the important role of ideology and emotion. 

The course is based on a religious studies perspective to discuss the concepts of antisemitism and islamophobia concept which refers to fears and prejudices relating to Jews, Judaism, Muslims, and Islam. By focusing on the historical, theological/ideological, political, and cultural aspects of antisemitism and islamophobia, the historical roots and the contemporary forms of these fears and prejudices are explored. The course starts by problematizing the concepts of antisemitism and islamophobia and continues by analyzing how these concepts have been used to designate "the enemy" and in processes of religious, cultural, and political "alienation". Thereafter, the historical roots and ideological contexts in which antisemitism and islamophobia arise and develop are studied. The course concludes by focusing on modern and contemporary manifestations of antisemitism and islamophobia, such as, how conspiracy theories are used to heighten hostility towards Jews and Muslims today.

This course is designed to help students gain insights into Chinese institutions that can facilitate investment decisions in Chinese capital markets. Understanding the institutional environment in China is important because it exhibits significant differences from shareholder-driven Western economies. The course begins by introducing a stakeholder approach to understanding Chinese markets and highlighting the major differences relative to the capital markets in developed countries. Subsequent classes are devoted to understanding the behaviors and incentives of each important stakeholders and market participants in more depth such as the government, managers, investors, analysts, and China’s position in the world. The course materials are largely based on the field research conducted in China involving case studies and surveys. Topics include insider trading, financial market transparency, frauds, ESG, Investment in AI, joint-venture and cross-listing firms. While the course focuses on China and its institutions, the theories and insights covered in the course are applicable to understanding international, especially other emerging, markets. A broader objective of this course is to raise awareness for a thorough understanding of the relevant institutions when engaging in international investment decisions.

The course enables students to understand and use multilevel models mainly in the context of social science, but examples are also given from medicine and some aspects of biological science. The focus is on multilevel models for quantitative, binary, and multinomial outcomes, with further sessions on models for ordinal and count outcomes. The importance of multilevel modelling for longitudinal data is explained. Analysis is conducted using the Noteable service and the R Stan statistical modelling package, which is free to all users.

This course examines components, decompositions, smoothing and filtering, modelling and forecasting. 

In this course, students read, view, and analyze a selection of plays, performances, and other texts that pose gender as a central problem. In conjunction with these performance texts, students also read a variety of theoretical texts that offer methods both for interpreting gender in performance and for understanding gender as performance. The course focuses on theatre and performance works produced from the 1950s to the present and covers a range of performance forms, including dramatic realism, experimental theatre, performance art, and drag performance.