English

This course provides the necessary building blocks for conducting research and writing results in the form of a scholarly paper. Students are guided through the process of refining a research idea, writing a literature review, defending the methodology, and interpreting the results. The course pays special attention to necessary conventions of academic writing in English and introduces the basic concepts and methods of digital humanities. The course begins with a focus on the basic theoretical and technological issues involved in digital humanities research and explores the strengths and weaknesses of the new methodologies. 

This course develops the awareness, knowledge, and skills needed to both appreciate the real-world societal context in which taxation exists as well as the technical ability to plan and manage the taxation for individuals and companies. 

This course aims to enhance students’ ecological and holistic understanding of education, in close consideration for the aesthetic experience. The course discusses topics including: the theoretical framework and the main operational directions of the Holistic approach applied to pedagogy and educational practice; the concepts of well-being, in its complex relationship with health and personal growth; the design of educational and training processes responsive to physical, personal, social, emotional, and spiritual needs; strategies and tools for generating self-reflection, expressiveness, communication, and cooperation skills; how to make use of the tried learning methods and of the acquired analysis tools for the development of students’ personal and professional growth; and giving value to artistic and non-verbal expressive languages.

This course contextualizes Supreme Court decisions by revisiting major societal shifts through the prism of American fiction, from the 19th Century to the present. The course begins with a brief introduction on mimesis and literature’s potential to relate and reflect historical events and, more simply, facts. It then focuses on numerous works of fiction contextualizing and referring to the following topics chronologically following the Supreme Court’s decisions: slavery (Dredd Scott v. Sandford), segregation (Plessy v. Ferguson), the New Deal, interracial marriage and race relations in the United States (Loving V. Virginia), the Pentagon Papers and the freedom of the press (New York Times v. United States), the limits of free speech (Texas v. Johnson), culture and political wars in the contemporary United States (Bush v. Gore/Citizens United v. FEC), same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges), and Covid-19 and mask mandates (Lucas Wall, et al. v. Transportation Security Administration). 

Tropical forests are amongst the most species-rich biomes in the world. Yet, our understanding of their evolution, functioning, and development is far from complete. There are three main tropical rainforest areas, the Neotropics (Central and South America), Africa, and Asia, but this course mainly focuses on the Neotropics. The course examines what defines the tropical region, the differences, and similarities between the three large blocks of rainforest, and investigates the structure and biodiversity of tropical rainforests. The development of tropical forests, how biodiversity changes over time (ecologically and evolutionarily), and how trophic levels work within these forests are also reviewed. Furthermore, the role of tropical forests in relation to climate change and global carbon cycling is investigated, and a link between tropical savannas and dry tropical forests is made. Finally, the IUCN red list is investigated as well as the different dimensions (e.g., biological, cultural, and political) of nature conservation in tropical areas.

The course discusses the key economic policy areas of the European Union and offers an analysis of the different approaches to regional economic integration throughout the history of the European Union. The course analyzes the economic bases for the rise of the European Union from its origins in the post-World War II recovery to its historic enlargements in 2004 and 2007. The accession of the new Central and Eastern European Member-States (most recently Croatia in 2013) poses new challenges for the EU. Since Europe accounts for one-quarter of the global economy, half of the global trade, and a substantial part of world's capital markets, this course also looks at the impact of the European Union on other trading blocs like NAFTA. Competitiveness is the key word for globalization and the course focuses on different forms of market integration used inside the EU and discusses consequences for both competition policy and industrial policy. The theory of the economic integration process is applied to a business setting, with a series of business cases illustrating how a variety of firms are responding strategically to the establishment of the Economic and Monetary Union, Brexit, and the accession of new Member-States. Students are given advice and guidance on using case studies and how to evaluate the strategies and choices made by firms. Special attention is given to the present problems of the Euro crisis and corresponding consequences for national tax policies within the EU. The course may include a field trip.

This course provides a detailed but accessible introduction to the government and politics of the United Kingdom. Students study the main political institutions of the UK and how they have been affected by devolution, voter apathy, and the increasing fragmentation of the party system. Does Parliament matter or does it merely approve decisions taken elsewhere? Does the Prime Minister dominate the British system? Will Brexit lead to the break-up of the UK? Why do people vote UKIP? Students are introduced to important institutions and debates in the study of British government. They consider, in particular: the British parliamentary state and the enduring influence of the Westminster Model; the peculiar nature of the constitution; the management of the (increasingly) multi-national nature of the UK; and the explanations for and impact of the vote for Brexit.
 

This course looks at how the experience of migration is represented in 20th-century Irish writing. While the central focus is on literary representations of the Irish diaspora, contemporary representations of the immigrant experience within Ireland is also examined. English language and Irish language texts (in translation) are considered.

The course provides an introduction to statistical and computational methods of analyzing and interpreting genetics/genomics data. Emphasis is placed on statistical model application and interpretation. Students learn how to implement various statistical methods, analyze and visualize genetic data through programming in R and command line tools. The emphasis is on students doing analyses in class, and on the interpretation of the results. Programming forms a major part of this course. Students learn how to write their own scripts to perform advanced statistical analyses of genetic data. This is an advanced, fast-paced course with extensive programming assignments. We strongly advise students with no previous programming experience to undertake the R crash course. A short introduction to R at the start of the module will be given. If enrolling on the module with no previous programming knowledge, please be aware that programming skills can only be obtained through many hours of practice. Good performance in the course is dependent upon additional private study to further develop programming skills.

Major technological advances in affordable nucleic acid sequencing have allowed for an explosion of sequencing data and molecular tools available for researchers in biological sciences. This provides the opportunity for ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and molecular biologists to incorporate bioinformatic analyses into their existing research program to approach their research questions from an interdisciplinary angle. This course provides a general understanding of several major bioinformatics concepts and tools commonly used in biology and molecular biology.  Basic knowledge and practice in designing and executing bioinformatics procedures aimed at answering scientific questions in the fields mentioned above are gained. More specifically, the course gives an overview of the most commonly used methods within applied bioinformatics within the fields of biology and molecular biology. Areas covered include sequence databases, pairwise and multiple sequence alignment, homology searches in sequence databases, and subcellular localization prediction. Several downstream analyses are performed and their utility in applied ecology, evolutionary biology, and molecular biology research are discussed with guest speakers. An overview of the algorithms and statistics behind the bioinformatics methods is included, but the primary focus of course is on applicability, not on methodological details.