English

The course explores key conceptual and empirical issues in evolutionary biology. It combines pattern-oriented approaches, such as phylogenetics, with process-oriented developments in population genetics, developmental biology, and molecular ecology.

In this course, students take a step back and explore what it means to perceive particular situations in terms of “crisis.” Students focus on emergency interventions and examine how sustainable these interventions are. The course investigates to what extent these interventions have changed the very meaning of “health.” A particular focus in our discussions is on the category of crisis itself. How is the category operating today in particular contexts? How is it mobilized and what are its effects? To what extent might the category of crisis enable or disable distinctive forms of intervention? What accounts for the productivity of crisis in contemporary debates about the health and well-being of populations, both in the global North and the global South? What are the analytical and political limits of “crisis” as a category of thought and action in contemporary global health and social medicine?  

This course is designed to introduce students to the basic drivers of international relations in the modern age from the Antiquities, namely, the causes of war and peace through theoretical and historical examination of major conflicts up to the 21st century.

Audiences could not get enough of the best-selling stories of bigamy, madness, and murder known as the sensation novel. This course considers the Sensation Mania of the 1860s as a literary, historical, and psychological phenomenon reflecting many of the cultural anxieties of Victorian society. To this end, students examine how a variety of sensation narratives participated in contemporary debates over sexuality and provided alternate ways of thinking about identity. Texts to be covered include the key novels to establish the genre of sensation fiction.

In Studio 3 students will produce a body of work that is conceptually, technically and aesthetically of exhibition quality that also demonstrates a rigorous process of research analysis and critical awareness. 

Located at the intersection between economics and political science, political economy as a field explores a great variety of issues arising from interactions between economic and political arenas. This course is designed to introduce to students the conceptual tools developed by political economists for assessing the role politics plays in economic activities and vice versa. Specifically, the course investigates the following topics:

• Social Networks 
• Historical Political Economy 
• Institutional Complementarity 
• Cognitive Political Economy 
• Public Debt 
• Regime Transitions 
• Institutional Choices 
• Natural Resource Curse 
• Political Polarization 

While the list is by no means exhaustive, the topics included are nonetheless well established in the literature and are very useful for students to learn the necessary analytic skills from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. The ultimate goal of the course is to enable students to think independently and formulate their own views as a political economist.

This course explores key contemporary complexities and future urban issues faced by evolving cities. By drawing on the expertise of leading urban professionals, academics, and researchers, students learn to critically analyze and discuss specific topics relating to current urban issues, debates, and technologies. Each run of the course focuses on a topical study or thematic analysis of specific urban issues to provide greater insights and highlight current cutting-edge research and technologies in the field. Students learn, interact, and collaborate with these leading professionals to stay abreast of the latest trends, practices, and challenges to remain informed and adaptable in the ever-changing environment of cities.

This course explores the ways in which Singapore films constitute a national cinema by considering the history and development of local film production as well as closely examining how individual films perform and engage the notion of a Singapore identity. Through a group creative project, students are challenged to make their own Singapore film that involves the practical application of critical ideas and enables students to participate in the ways that a national cinema performs and functions. The films studied may involve mature content and have varied film ratings.

For much of the 20th Century, Ireland lagged behind other states in Northern Europe in terms of economic development and average standard of living. Yet in the last decade of the century Ireland’s economic fortunes changed dramatically with the advent of the "Celtic Tiger." Ireland experienced rapid economic, social and cultural change over a short period of time that continues to unfold. Rapid population and demographic change and liberalization of social attitudes and values have all contributed to this change. Such changes have reinvigorated debates about what it means to be Irish, the values, lifestyles, and identities associated with such changes and the institutional practices, occupational structures, and the political priorities evident in Irish society. Yet there are continuities that can be traced back in Irish history that underpin and also help explain the dynamics of Irish society. This course utilizes theories of social change to explore what type of society Ireland is. It critically evaluates theories of development that have been used by academics and experts in Ireland to explain Ireland’s conversion from a "late modernizer" to a "knowledge society." Finally, it locates Ireland’s societal change in the context of Europe and globally.