English

This course considers how nuclear energy is viewed from a science, political, and public standpoint. It investigates how one of the most sought-after solutions to climate change is also the most decried one. Based on recognized institutions reports and experts interviews, the course turns to history and physics to explain this energy (and its track record) to address politically and culturally the root of the various debates surrounding its use, impact, and potential threats; investigate the potential it represents in addressing the greatest challenges of our generation and the next; and overall, to rebalance the debate on nuclear energy by exploring its advantages as well as disadvantages, as far removed as possible from the passion it sometimes inspires.

This course investigates the institutional, legal, political, and economic aspects of the global city. It explores how a truly multinational but local-based political community could rise where, in a circular way, native roots, universalism, cultural diversity, and international links can coexist and support each other. It considers how cities have been the standpoint from which scholars investigate macro-phenomena and issues affecting society as a whole, and discusses how any change affecting the delicate urban ecosystem will therefore also have wider repercussions on how global governance itself is conceived.

This course introduces students to the Earth, to its environmental systems, and to the ways in which these systems operate and change both spatially and temporally, producing distinctive physical geographies. Topics include: the history of physical geography; the theory of plate tectonics and the rock cycle; and the atmosphere, the hydrological cycle, glacial, fluvial, and coastal systems.
 

As critics including Eric Hayot have pointed out, it can be difficult to analyze and write about contemporary culture because we lack the critical distance to gain perspective on works that depict our own historical moment. This course provides some of that critical distance, or "leverage" as Hayot describes it. Through its comparative approach, the course explores how socio-political topics that are of pressing concern to writers, artists, and thinkers now were also examined in earlier periods. The course illustrates how studying the ways in which these themes and issues were represented and understood in the past enables us to enrich our engagement with the contemporary iteration of those topics today. The course considers a different socio-political topic each week, examining how it has been explored in a pair of texts. The course covers a range of creative works, critical concepts and cultural theories from the 20th and 21st centuries. The genres covered by the course include novels, films, essays, autofiction, memoir, a play, TV episode, and photo-text book. 

Data science and machine learning are exciting new areas that combine scientific inquiry, statistical knowledge, substantive expertise, and computer programming. One of the main challenges for businesses and policy makers when using big data is to find people with the appropriate skills. Good data science requires experts that combine substantive knowledge with data analytical skills, which makes it a prime area for social scientists with an interest in quantitative methods. This course extends the foundation of probability and statistics with an introduction to the most important concepts in applied machine learning, with social science examples. It covers the main analytical methods from this field with hands-on applications using example datasets, so that students gain experience with and confidence in using the methods covered. 

This course offers a comparative study and close reading of the major heroic epics of ancient Greece and Rome: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey (Greece), and Virgil’s Aeneid (Rome). Topics include the warrior ethic, the distinction between kleos (glory) and time (honor), heroic friendship, of nostos (homecoming), fate and the gods, oral vs. written poetry, the social function of epic, myth and epic, and the changing nature of heroism. It also explores more closely the themes of retribution and justice, as they are very starkly presented in Aeschylus's Agamemnon, and of human and divine concepts of justice in Sophocles's Antigone.

The globalization of the translation industry has accelerated the use of specialized tools in response to constraints such as time, cost, consistency and teamwork. This class offers students an opportunity for hands-on exploration of a number of industry-leading applications widely used today by key players in the translation industry to equip students with knowledge about translation working environment; translation memory technology; translation project management; translation workflow management; translation quality management; machine translation, and so forth. By using them to complete both individual and collaborative translation tasks, you will gain an understanding of: (1) An overview of the localization industry in which the tools are used; (2) Their potential and limitations; (3) Methods of evaluating their performance, and (4) How translation quality are evaluated in the translation industry.

This course offers an introduction to the academic study of international politics. It begins with a basic introduction to international relations theories, in order to provide the theoretical framework for understanding and debating global topics. The course then moves on to discussing main subjects in contemporary international relations by focusing on the interaction between state actors, non-state actors, and international institutions. It looks specifically at the role of small states like Norway in the international system and how they interact with international institutions and major powers. The final section of the course utilizes the empirical and analytical knowledge gathered to analyze important topics on the global agenda, like the future of globalization and geopolitical conflicts. The class encourages lively discussion, a goal easily met by the students' contribution of their opinions based on their diverse cultural and academic backgrounds.

This course explores classic and contemporary issues in environmental psychology. Topics include belonging, place attachment, and place identity; restorative environments, health, and well-being; perceptions of natural and urban environments; socially marked spaces and stigmatized environments; territory, boundaries, contested spaces, and environmental conflicts; pro-environmental action and environmental protection. Seminars are discussion-based and structured around weekly set readings that incorporate theoretical and empirical work, including quantitative and qualitative studies.

Eukaryotic cells are characterized by the presence of intracellular organelles. Membrane trafficking is the essential process of maintaining these organelles and allowing the transport of proteins and lipids from one compartment to another and to the correct destination. This course introduces students to the world-leading research in this area taking place at UCL, and focuses on presenting a data-led accumulation of knowledge. Students will learn how to critically analyze research papers and gain experience in scientific writing and presentation.