English

This course deals with masterpieces of Japanese visual art from ancient times to the contemporary period. It aims to explain their meaning, expression, material, and technique, guiding students to obtain basic knowledge and skill to appreciate and understand essential works of Japanese art.

Psychology Now! introduces students to a variety of contemporary topics in psychology and a variety of ways in which psychological knowledge is applied to understand and solve everyday problems. The course covers topics related to well-being, mental health, the psychology of work and rest, hypnosis, gender differences, educational psychology, and how the presence of others affects our behavior.

This course explores the relationship between the natural world and United States culture, considering specifically the visual expression of that relationship: How have Americans imagined “nature” and represented it? How have concepts of land and landscape shaped perceptions about social order, identity, and sustainability? The course provides both a historical framework for thinking about these questions as well as a contemporary perspective, particularly in the context of a potential new era known as the “Anthropocene.” 

In Germany and Europe public debates on migration, migrant and ethnic communities and religion play a big role in politics and society. This course first analyzes the concepts of race and racism, looking at historical and contemporary moments as well as developments of racism in society. Further, it examines the various uses of terminology in the field and particularly elaborates on the concept of ‘intersectionality’, studying racism and discrimination from this angle. After gaining the theoretical lens for this course, students engage with clear examples of different forms of racism and discrimination such as Antisemitism, anti-Black racism, anti-Muslim racism or anti-Gypsyism. These examples are analyzed and contextualized by looking at structural and societal problems of racism. Finally, students visit and hear from activists in Berlin dealing with the problem of racism and discrimination. Additionally, the course looks into how governments and policy makers try to tackle racism within their own societies. Students learn from this course the different concepts and forms of racism and are able to apply this knowledge in future discussions by critically questioning processes and events in politics and society.

The course provides students interested in the field of foreign language teaching various resources to make English-language instruction for young learners (students aged 3-12) more dynamic while remaining adapted to 21st century competencies. Topics covered include: historical overview of teaching methods and approaches; teaching integrating skills; the role of culture in foreign language classrooms; folklore and children's literature as learning resources; challenges in teaching digital natives; drama techniques as a resource for learning English; ICT resources for teachers.

This course studies English phonetics and phonology, dealing with segmental and prosodic aspects of the language. Lectures will focus on the typical characteristics of the sound systems of English in relation to phonetic and phonological theories. This course focuses mainly on theory, but practical pronunciation training is included, whenever appropriate, in order to help understanding of the theories. The course is aimed at students who are interested in teaching English as a foreign language. Participation is highly encouraged.

The course introduces some of the most interesting and innovative work in contemporary fiction, and gives students the knowledge and the tools to read it, judge it, and write about it with pleasure and with critical insight. Students are asked to think rigorously about the idea of the "contemporary," and how that term might relate to other literary and cultural categories. Spanning the last twenty years or so, the set texts don't attempt any sort of representative cross-section of fiction of the period; rather than seeking such a survey, students concentrate on how certain writers have used fictional form to think about what is old and what is new: what is current, or anachronistic, or ahead of its time. (To think, that is, about the structure of contemporaneity itself.)

This course provides an introduction to selected themes in the anthropology of the region in the Southwest Pacific Ocean known as Melanesia. It gives students a grounding in the contemporary anthropology of the region, primarily through a close reading of three book-length ethnographies. The three ethnographies, which are all new since 2013, are Christopher Wright's THE ECHO OF THINGS, an account of what photography means to people in the western Solomon Islands; Alice Street's BIOMEDICINE IN AN UNSTABLE PLACE, an analysis of how persons and diseases are made visible or invisible in a hospital on the north coast of Papua New Guinea; and Maggie Wilson’s A TRUE CHILD OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA (edited by Rosita Henry), the part-memoir/part-"ethnographic biography" of a woman who lived between "two worlds," that of her mother, a New Guinea Highlander, and that of her father, an Australian colonist. These ethnographies not only provide students with focused accounts of three very different contexts in Melanesia, they also address histories, dynamics, and concerns familiar to people living throughout the region. Engagement with these three books is enhanced and supplemented by other readings (including works by Pacific Islanders), ethnographic films, and a visit to the British Museum.

This course offers an introduction to the full sweep of English literature from the Anglo-Saxon period to the present day. It allows students to sample works from different periods while also showing how these works are connected together, over and across time, by continuing narrative, generic and thematic concerns. Teaching will be by seminar, setting literary works written in English including modern translations of Old English. The course introduces students to a wide variety of reading matter – epics, mock-epics, long poems, novels, and it encourages students, through intense weekly seminars, to further develop their reading skills, and to broaden their critical vocabulary. The richness and variety of English literature is unparalleled – it is a wonderful subject to study. But it is also a challenging one, and this course is designed to give students a taste of that challenge.

This course explores the scientific basis for understanding energy management, both at global and local scales. It discusses the energy resources available worldwide, how we consume energy today, and the pros, cons, and limitations of each form of energy production. This course examines the criteria that should drive energy management and energy transition at a global scale, as well as the current geopolitical and economic scenarios that impact this process.