English

This course explores the fundamental environmental units: ecosystems. Students use biological and physical science perspectives to examine the geographical distribution of ecosystems and to understand the principles and processes governing their structure and function. Students study the exchange of materials and energy between biotic and abiotic ecosystem components, focusing on water and carbon cycles. Students apply biogeoscience perspectives when interpreting how ecosystems change in response to internal system processes, environmental change, natural disturbance events and human activities.

Microbes, extremely diverse both in form and in function, play a critical role in the global ecosystem. Students explore how these organisms evolved from more primitive lifeforms to colonize new environmental niches. Students study their interactions with plants, animals, and insects and how they impact on our everyday lives.

This course is an introduction to what is known as formal or mathematical logic, requiring no prior knowledge of philosophy or mathematics. It does not communicate results about logical systems but instead it imparts a skill - the ability to recognize and construct correct deductions and refutations. The course provides a general introduction to both propositional logic and predicate logic. Lectures and detailed handouts provide the central course material; and weekly tutorial groups provide support for students to work through the formal exercises. 

This course provides a historical understanding of some key issues and themes in modern and contemporary political history. It provides a general basis of knowledge of the 20th and 21st centuries while addressing multiple topics and historical questions, as political history is understood broadly and flexibly, encompassing social, economic, and cultural factors. This course presents the history of the contemporary world through carefully selected topics with a particular focus on the history of Europe and the Americas. The opening session of the course will address the decline of traditional empires, which characterized world history throughout the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century. The final session of the course will bring the material up to the present. The course presents a comparative and transnational analysis and discussion of the history of the past one hundred years.

This course explores the origins of cinema in Japan and its development up to the present day. It investigates cultural influences that shaped approaches to filmmaking as well as narrative conventions and genres. The course also investigates how Japanese films have shaped foreign views of Japan and Japanese culture. Particular attention will be paid to issues and problems of film study in relation to cinema from Japan, including the construction of the “Japaneseness” of Japanese films.

This course is designed to understand post-WWII Japanese foreign policy shaped by history and domestic and international politics. International systemic changes affect Japan's domestic socio-economic and political contexts that, in turn, influence its foreign policy options within the scope of the constitutional framework (“pacifism”). The defeat of Japan in WWII and the US occupation had generated the Japan-US alliance as the cornerstone of Japanese foreign policy (“bilateralism”); at the same time, Japan has become the ardent supporter of the international liberal order (“multilateralism”) led by the United States. The relative decline of the US economy and the rise of Japan as an economic power in the 1980s impacted both regional and international order; Japanese foreign policy then began to seek affirmative diplomacy in search of becoming a “normal” state. China's rise in the 2000s and the surge of nationalism and populism have eroded regional and international order.  Thus, this course examines Japan's major foreign policies from the end of WWII to the present.

In the spring of 2021 the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) began paying 122 people 1200€ a month, tax free, no strings attached, for three years. The study, which will compare their fortunes to those of a much larger group who also put their hand up to receive the money but were not among the lucky few, aims to contribute empirical evidence to the debate over the merits of a basic income. We will compare the idea of a basic income to other types of government benefits in cash and in kind, and engage with arguments for and against these different benefit types. We will analyze in detail the claim that a basic income would eliminate relative poverty and reduce income inequality by studying income inequality in Germany today. We will look at any data published by the German experiment, and compare its design to that of a two-year trial carried out in Finland in 2017–18. In this way the course will serve as an introduction to research methods in social policy. By the end of the semester you will have gained an overview of tax–transfer systems and of their role in reducing income inequality, and you will be in a position to engage in an informed way in debate over the promise of a basic income.

The course examines topics in the field of architecture and their connection to Brazil. Topics vary each term.

This course provides an overview of the academic field of international security. It is designed to provide students with a foundation in security studies with the aim of helping them develop their understanding of what international security is and think critically about explanations of international security. The course emphasizes peace and war among states, beginning with examining the realist paradigm (as a baseline argument) which has significantly influenced the discipline and policymakers. Reviewing key concepts and analytical perspectives, the course considers state behavior and security policy in the complex reality with reference to the Japanese case (and the Ukraine war as well).

This course surveys American literature and literary history, examining how major American authors from the early colonial period to the present contributed the American literary tradition. Authors, including such canonical writers as Bradstreet, Franklin, Hawthorne, Emerson, Melville, Whitman, Frost, Williams, Faulkner, Lowell and Morrison, and their selected writings in various genres are read in relevant historical, social and cultural contexts so as to offer a broad understanding of American literary history.