English

Films evoke a variety of feelings and thoughts with the stories they tell and the way in which they tell those stories. How a film looks and shapes our aesthetic experience. This course provides a basic understanding of the form and content of a film and introduces its formal elements such as narrative, design, composition, camera movement and angle, editing, and the like.  It also shows us how to critically engage with these formal elements that construct our cinematic experiences. 

By looking at films more systematically and approaching them more analytically, one can arrive at a better understanding of film as an art form as well as a social, cultural, and political practice that informs, challenges, and interrogates our understanding of self, society, and the world. 

This is a course that focuses on student wellbeing, personal growth, and coping with stress, so that students can equip themselves with lifelong skills for learning, working, and being well. Students learn how to thrive in university life and beyond - including leadership skills for future employment - through fostering physical, cognitive, emotional, and social skills that will support their wellbeing. The course is delivered in the context of our digital world: understanding data and finding digital supports and strategies for life management. Expert speakers join for sessions around areas such as nutrition, sleep, and mental health, and students track their own personal data and progress in areas of their choice (e.g. emotional wellbeing, study habits, time management, exercise). 

This course is intended to give a panoramic view of contemporary China. The topics are restricted to different aspects of the status-quo of China, including people and nationalities, food and cuisines, languages and dialects, festivals and traditions, marriage and family, leisure and entertainment, arts and sports, traffic and transport, travel and world heritage, natural resources and environment protection, mass media and publication, education and research, politics and government, religions and beliefs, information technology and internet, cities and countryside. Each topic is framed into 10 to 15 questions and presented in an easily accessible way with statistic figures, stories, pictures and video clips from different sources in order to ensure objectivity. The aim of the course is to offer a panoramic view of contemporary China in the selected aspects and help understand the variety and diversity of contemporary Chinese society.

This course familiarizes students with the way in which science & technology interact with the economy on different scales illustrated by empirical data and introduces them to the notion of engineering production functions and their relation to ordinary production functions and how they are amended by technological progress. The course also introduces students to analyzing scientific progress and Science through knowledge engineering relations and gives them hands-on experience in modeling technological progress in growth models. It gives students insight in science & technology funding and the distinct roles played by private investors and governments, a proper grasp of the key international and national institutions facilitating and/or funding scientific research, an introductory knowledge of how to model networks and the flow of information or other assets through networks.

This is a 15 ECTS course focused on children with special needs in family, community, and educational contexts. The course delivery is through a blended mode of lectures, tutorials, and inquiry-based project work. Students explore holistic models of conceptualizing the diverse needs of children, as well as examining and reflecting upon practical support strategies for inclusive environments. Students explore and understand the Disability Act (2005) and the process of Individualized Education Plans (IEPs).

This course examines statistics for students who aspire to major in Statistics or Risk Management. It focuses on the roles of statistics as a scientific tool with applications to a wide spectrum of disciplines, and as a science of reasoning which has revolutionized modern intellectual endeavours. It lays a panoramic foundation for a formal study of statistics at the university level. 

This course offers an introduction to the history of the Middle Ages. The course focuses on the history of Europe between 400 and 1500, as well as regions in the Byzantine and Islamic world.  Material evidence (written, visual, architectural) of how people of all social standings lived, worked, and interacted is examined. While predominantly focused on European developments, the course also considers other regional trajectories, notably of Byzantium and the Islamic world, exploring the Middle Ages as a period of connectivity, transformation, and innovation.

This course provides an introduction to the analysis of music composed in the Western extended common practice. It concentrates on Western tonal music from the 17th to the 20th centuries, but more broadly extends modal and post-tonal repertoires from c. 1350 to the present, and ranges from instrumental and vocal genres to music theatre and music for screen. It involves the study of musical scores alongside aural evidence obtained from listening. Students must be able to read music and a good grasp of basic theory (harmonic functions, cadences, etc.).

This course helps students look differently and critically at objects from the past (and the present) and to appreciate the huge importance material culture holds for understanding human society. Much older than the written record, objects are a major category of archaeological evidence and a vital tool for the archaeologist. Students review key artefact assemblages from prehistory through to the medieval period. While there is a general focus on Irish artefacts, students also consider things from Britain and continental Europe. Students explore such topics as object classification (typologies), the scientific analysis of archaeological materials, and the contribution of experimental archaeology. Alongside this, students examine the many different roles and functions that objects had in the past and how these often diverge from our modern views and practices. They explore concepts such as ownership and wealth, object deposition and discard, and the life-cycle of objects.