English

This course provides a transnational and comparative overview of Jewish life in postwar France and the United States. These two countries emerged as home to the largest Jewish populations in the world outside of the State of Israel after 1945. Despite important differences between them, both France and the United States are built on a rational, voluntaristic and ethnically neutral concept of citizenship. In the postwar years, both countries have also become more diverse in real social terms and also more open to the idea that heritage communities should claim their rightful place in the public sphere. Throughout, the course examines the various ways in which multiculturalism in the larger sense and Jewish difference in particular have been conceptualized and experienced in these two national settings, considering both similarities and differences between the United States and France.

The course highlights the ways in which economic and financial processes both shape, and are shaped by, space. In particular, the course focuses on understanding of how uneven development occurs, alongside exploring questions of how social inequalities arise and what causes economic and financial crises. In addition to this, the impacts of economic and financial processes on the environment and the climate crisis are considered. In doing so, the course engages with fundamental challenges facing contemporary societies and explores policy options to address them. Students gain a solid grounding in a number of theoretical approaches, concepts and debates pertaining to the economy, finance and space; explore economic and financial processes in the real world through case studies from a range of different contexts, including those in the Western capitalist core and (semi-)peripheries of post-socialist Eastern Europe; and debate policy options for the future. 

This course examines key theories and approaches used to understand and influence health and wellbeing. Consideration will be given to the types of questions that are asked by health psychology researchers, and the different methods and tools used to deepen understandings of health and illness in the social world.

This course introduces students to the field of social psychology and the principles underlying group and individual interaction.  It presents the historical and philosophical roots of social psychology in the context of the current state of the discipline.  Students become acquainted with debates and tensions between different schools within social psychology and are presented with critiques of the discipline. The course presents the richness, complexity, and variety of human social behavior and the discipline that studies it in a conceptually integrated way. 

This course develops students’ core social policy skills, including critical analysis, argument development, and the use of an evidence-informed approach. The course introduces students to key social policy issues including activation policy, universal basic income, and the gender pay gap. Students are challenged to practice and develop the skills they have learned by engaging critically with these topics. Students are supported to critically appraise how explanations of and solutions to social issues may be influenced by analysis of evidence and competing perspectives.

This course builds on the formal analysis skills introduced in FS10010 Introduction to Film and Media. Students are introduced to key theoretical ideas about film and media and a variety of approaches to interpreting and understanding film, television, and digital media in context. Topics may include gender, race, sexuality, industry, and audiences, among others. The course includes case studies in film, television, and other media forms.

This course examines the comparative study of political systems. It covers relevant concepts and theories, and  applies these learnings to case studies from around the world.

This course introduces students to the grand challenges of today’s world (for example planetary boundaries) and the necessity for a “Great Transformation” toward a sustainable development of our societies. Students examine the systemic characters and the complex dynamics in today’s societies, including the individual, organizational, community, regional, national and international levels and their relations and interactions.

One of the major questions explored in the course is which social actors contribute to a transformation towards sustainable development and how - and in what way this happens, which inertias and obstacles stand in the way and could be overcome? What has the German government done, what is the German parliament doing, what is the function of business, sciences or civil society organizations – what happens in Berlin? The course considers the broadest possible spectrum of approaches, strategies and actors for a reflected change towards a Great Transformation in an exemplary manner, as well as thinking theory and practice together (in the sense of transformative science and shaping the future). Students examine the different national, regional and cultural systems and backgrounds for all this. Specific examples which are part of the pathway to sustainability are green taxes, renewable energy projects, cooperative housing, car-free streets and places, urban farming, or even eco-villages.

Additional topics include concepts like path dependency (path management), Multi-Level Perspective – MLP, social innovation, models of change, change agents, MAP – movement action plan. The course includes relevant sociological theories, i.e. social systems theory, practice theory and real utopias. These will give insights into societal factors for stability as well as for change.

This course introduces different types of electoral systems, including the main categories of majoritarian, proportional, and mixed systems, and highlighting the significant variety of rules within each. Additionally, it explores how electoral systems are not neutral: they can influence the behavior of voters and parties, and can shape the quality of political representation (e.g., representation of women, degree of congruence between citizens' preferences and government decisions). Finally, the course considers current debates on electoral system reforms, and new electoral systems that propose to improve democratic representation.

This course helps master the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI agents for data collection, analysis, and visualization. The curriculum goes beyond traditional data analysis by teaching students how to extract hidden patterns and uncover semantic meanings from dynamically built corpora. This approach enables students to gather insights and design results that can only be achieved with the assistance of AI tools. The course develops an understanding of both the capabilities and limitations of AI tools in research contexts and explores how AI tools can enhance our understanding of social phenomena and examine the strengths and limitations of AI-assisted research. Through hands-on projects, students investigate these questions using real-world data from various sources such as climate negotiations reports, parliamentary speeches, social media discourses, etc. Additionally, the course develop a methodological toolbox by generating an analysis pipeline with the assistance of AI. The course goes over fundamental concepts in Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing and culminates in a student-led investigation project. Working in groups, students develop their own research protocol, collect and analyze data using AI tools, and present their findings in the form of a website. Each student also produces an individual reflective essay on their experience with AI-assisted research.