English

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. 

This course introduces students to the key ideas of Game Theory and strategic thinking, allowing them to use game theoretic tools to analyze real world problems. Students see applications in industrial organization, auctions, competition and cooperation, voting, solving environment problems, and arms races.

This course introduces students to geographical scholarship that has sought to explain, understand, and critically analyze the manifold relationships between space and society in different contexts. The course familiarizes students with innovative geographical research exploring issues such as, for example, environment and uneven development; culture, the global, and the local; transnationalism and migration; gender, race, identity; politics, the state, and regions; empire, colonialism, and postcolonialism; nature, materiality, and non-human agencies.

This introduction to Natural Resource Economics examines the scarcity and optimal allocation of freshwater resources in the Western Cape, South Africa. The theoretical framework is neo-classical microeconomics, market failure, and climate change are being addressed. Assessment: tests and essays (40%), final examination (60%).