Denmark

The course provides students with core knowledge of current discussions about theories of how cognitive processes are shaped by more broad bodily processes, specially those of the motor system. It focuses on the influence of bottom-up processes in the formation of emotions, and the relation to theories of the self. The course encourages cross sectional discussions about the relationship between our three main overarching topics: embodiment, emotions, and the self, as well as the implications for cognition, behavior, and decision making. Students learn the relevance of these topics for psychology by examining some specific clinical disorders in both psychological and medical research. Similarly, examples for the relevance of this intersection in everyday-life as well as for areas outside psychology are highlighted.

The evolution of digital technologies – such as Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, digital platforms, and blockchain – is radically changing businesses. Information Technology (IT) is not just about improving the efficiency of existing business processes, but has the potential to bring about the creation of new services, of new business models, and of entire new industries. Digital transformation is a wide-encompassing trend that forces us to rethink the interaction between organizations, technology, and people. This course explores the phenomenon of digital transformation, with a focus on business. Students are provided with theoretical and practical tools to critically understand digital transformation at a societal, organizational, and at a consumer level. Understanding the transformative impacts of digitalization enables students to evaluate how digital technologies can be embedded in successful business strategies, and how value can be created from novel digital tools. The course features the analysis of real life cases and the critical discussion of different perspectives on the impacts of digital transformation on businesses.

This course introduces students to quantitative text analysis, reviews selected methods falling within this category of approaches, and illustrates their implementation in the statistical programming language R. It covers the origins of quantitative approaches to studying text and how they complement traditional, qualitative methodologies. Using recent peer-reviewed publications, the course explores how these methodological approaches can be used to answer sociological questions and, in hands-on lab session, students implement selected techniques in R.

This course offers a study of genome and cell biology. Topics covered include gene regulation, structure of genomes and their content of information, use of databases and experimental techniques for genome analysis, gene control, genome function, gene and genome techniques, membrane structure, membrane transport, intracellular compartments and the sorting of proteins, signal transduction, cell division, cell cycle control, programmed cell death, and autophagy. The course consists of lectures, group work, and student presentations. The course highly recommends but does not require that students have completed a bachelor level course in cell biology as a prerequisite.

This course develops an understanding of key concepts and theories related to climate issues, sustainability, and environmental governance in Africa. It debates climate adaptation and mitigation, sustainable development, and governing the environment, and discusses specific African cases related to climate-smart interventions, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and governance initiatives related to biodiversity conservation and rural development. The course examines key actors in Africa's development and the roles they play in responding to the climate crisis, in sustainability, and in governing natural resources. It discusses relevant questions concerning the relationship between climate, scarcity, and abundance; internationally-driven, climate-smart initiatives in Africa related to the role of state, market, and civil society; and the impacts and coping strategies related to implementing the SDGs in Africa. The course consists of a combination of lectures and workshop-like activities with active student participation and presentations by a number of external lecturers, including guests from the private sector, NGOs, and researchers. This version of the course is worth 6 quarter UC units and assessment consists of a written paper on a topic of the student's own choosing comprising 24,000-28,800 characters.

This course provides insight into three interconnected fields of inquiry: the study of Scandinavia and the larger Nordic region; the analysis of film and audiovisual media; and an understanding of how film reflects past and present transnational and transcultural relations in a globally interconnected world. The interdisciplinary course relates close readings of films to discussions of the larger socio-political and media-aesthetic context. This context is marked, among others, by the global circulation of ideas and cultural products, by the Scandinavian welfare state and issues of gender equality, migration and diversity, environmental concerns, and decolonization processes. The course responds to contemporary shifts in Nordic self-imagining and closely examine the ways in which film mediates notions of imagined communities at local, national, and regional levels. Students are presented to a variety of audiovisual material, including documentaries, feature films, TV series, web-based series and short films. Apart from internationally renowned Scandinavian film directors, the Nordic screen milieu has in recent years been very successful in producing transnational TV and web-based series that have travelled globally. Another recent development reflected by the course is the strengthened voice of contemporary film from Greenland and Sápmi (the traditional lands of the indigenous Sámi people on the northern Scandinavian peninsula) that has so far not necessarily been marketed or seen as “Nordic” but circulates as “Indigenous cinema.” This diverse internationally circulating body of contemporary film helps to explore and expand the notion of “Norden” to understand better the region’s ethnic and cultural diversity and its transnational connectedness as reflected by contemporary audiovisual media.

This course explores how the conceptualization of migration is related to ideas about citizenship and belonging, and to the racialization of those positioned as foreign. It draws together theorizations, historical background, and concrete examples of contemporary politics to discuss what migration is and who is considered a migrant. It considers the political effects of conceptualizing migration, such that although each state sets immigration rules, the making of migrants is at the same time impacted by how global politics is regulated and imagined, including international norms on refugees or states’ self-perception as open to the world. This interactive course includes group work and lecture-style elements, interacts with a variety of texts, and provides opportunities to reflect on and learn about writing.