English

This course requires reading several short texts by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant, which introduce us to ideas about philosophy and what constitutes philosophical inquiry. As different as these two philosophers are, Rousseau had a tremendous impact on Kant. It is helpful to read Kant in the light of Rousseau. Each thinker will introduce us to some basic philosophical problem and we will think for ourselves about these problems.

This course aims to introduce the subject of philosophy but also the activity of philosophizing. This means that there will be much discussion in class and a fair amount of writing outside of class. The ideal would be to form a "community of inquirers." The depth of realizing this ideal will be up to each student.
 

This introductory module provides an overview of law or legal studies. Participants are expected to carefully read, research, and discuss the underlying ideas and principles of law, and the frameworks and methods (often presupposed) in legal studies.

By the end of this course, students are expected to
(1) Understand and explain basic terms and concepts of legal studies;
(2) Acquire basic knowledge of major legal systems;
(3) Gain fundamental skills to analyze and explain legal aspects of social issues.

In no other city did the Cold War materialize itself more concretely than in Berlin. Set in the emblematic capital, this course offers students a glimpse of the Cold War, understood as both a stable bipolar system of spheres of influence in the European theater, and a dynamic, largely unstable, environment of power struggle (and resistance) in the so-called 'Third World'. Particularly in the Global South, superpower interference facilitated, exacerbated, and fueled internal conflicts, often leading to bloody proxy wars – which nevertheless allowed local actors to internationalize their greed and grievances. These conflicts might have seemed far away from Berlin – the quintessential 'frontier city' –, but the block confrontation had important consequences here as well. The Cold War’s lingering effects make its study essential to understanding the present. From the perspective of a free and reunited Berlin, students will have the unique opportunity of both studying and experiencing the past under the Iron Curtain, which divided the world, the country, and the city – and made, back then, Humboldt University the scientific center of the GDR, with its extensive networks to the Soviet world, only a mile away from the Berlin Wall.

The aim of the course is to learn and discuss 1) Basic concepts of communication/intercultural communication, and 2) Basic/universal emotions and different emotions between cultures. More specifically, the course examines (a) how openly certain emotions tend to be expressed; (b) how often certain emotions tend to be controlled, and (c) how differently certain emotions tend to be perceived in particular cultures. The course also addresses how different emotions between cultures could be related to different perceptions of “self” and cognitive styles such as thought patterns.

This pilot course introduces cutting-edge approaches to analyze and devise responses in relation to conflict and violence, with a particular focus on digital instruments. Students will learn emerging concepts and techniques in various fields, from peacemaking to peacekeeping; peacebuilding; disarmament; human rights, and disaster relief, as well as associated risks and benefits. The course includes active learning elements, whereby students will interact with guest lecturers from the UN, research institutes, and aid groups, while practicing skills for open-source investigation.

What has become known as the "spatial turn" in the humanities has alerted us to the ways in which the spaces we inhabit are produced by culture. These seminars take as their starting point the premise that Irish writing since the end of the 18th century (the massive exception of Joyce notwithstanding) has traditionally defined itself in terms of versions of the pastoral, and this in turn has had implications for the ways in which it has been possible to write the city as an Irish space. The central avenue in this course runs through the question of how literature produces space, and how this occurs differently across literary forms (fiction, poetry, drama).  However, there are diversions down alleys to encounter ghosts, crime, history, the flaneur, psychogeography, modernity, and the mediations of culture. There are glances in the shop windows of visual culture, as well as excursions into history, architecture, and philosophy, all with a view to sketching an outline map of Dublin in literature.

The course covers various aspects of biosynthesis and bioenergetics.  The course provides students with important information relevant to understanding the living cell as a chemical reactor, focusing on the chemistry of biosynthesis and bioenergetics underpinning this. The chemistry of key metabolic functions including energy-generating processes such as glycolysis, the citric acid cycle, respiration, photosynthesis as well as aspects regarding control of metabolic flux in the cell are looked at in detail. The course includes a detailed look at information flow and molecular machinery of the cell.

Today, as conditions of contemporary globalization have stimulated demand for “international education,” higher education internationalization has become the focus of governments and higher education institutions around the world. However, the meaning of higher education internationalization itself is contested, and there are various rationales for pursuing these activities, including those that are economic, political, socio-cultural, and academic. Moreover, different stakeholders (e.g. students, faculty, institutions, governments, etc.) each have their own distinct rationales for engaging in these activities. This course focuses on: 1) general contexts and trends relating to higher education internationalization around the world, and 2) the specific national contexts and trends of higher education internationalization that can be observed in the cases of various countries. We will focus on several key questions: What is the function of higher education in society, and how has this evolved over time? How have the conditions of contemporary globalization shaped higher education internationalization in universal and specific ways? What are the main universal trends that characterize higher education internationalization today, and how do these apply differently in particular countries? What are the future trends and possibilities for higher education internationalization?

The course covers a broad range of optimization algorithms and models. Topics include linear programming, simplex algorithm, duality, sensitivity analysis, two player zero-sum games, network optimization, minimum cost flow, network simplex algorithm, integer programming, branch and bound methods, cutting plane methods, and dynamic programming.

Neoplatonism is the last great ancient Greek philosophical tradition, founded in the 3rd century by Plotinus, who is arguably the most important ancient Greek thinker after Plato and Aristotle. Neoplatonism had a tremendous historical influence on subsequent philosophy, in both the European and Islamic worlds. Above all, however, the Neoplatonists are distinctive for their own philosophical interest and value, developing fascinating positions on issues such as the structure of reality, the soul and its happiness, the nature of evil, and the meaning of freedom. The Neoplatonic tradition also devoted considerable attention to the interpretation and harmonization of Plato and Aristotle. Anyone interested in the work of these two thinkers is likely to find Neoplatonism of interest too.