Germany

This course provides a basic background into the current research on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and its treatment, including cognitive, exposure-based, narrative, and psychodynamic treatment approaches. Students present about the current literature behind a specific treatment method as well as engage in in-class exercises and discussions on the nuances and limitations of different approaches.

This course introduces a basic understanding of what leadership actually is and how that understanding depends on time and context. Students take a closer look at what enables individuals to lead in an entrepreneurial way and why an entrepreneurial mindset is more than ever important among today’s leaders. The European Commission developed a reference framework (“EntreComp”) to establish an understanding of entrepreneurship as a competence that results in social, cultural, or financial value for others. The basic idea of this framework is that the necessary skills and attitudes can be learned and applied by anyone. However, the outcome in practice regarding entrepreneurial diversity looks different. Women and ethnic minorities, for instance, remain significantly underrepresented in startup ecosystems worldwide. The course touches upon the causes and discusses possible solutions. It also emphasizes learning about the diversity of the Berlin startup ecosystem; to this end, guests from local startups and impact communities visit or are visited. Through participation in the course, students gain a basic understanding of entrepreneurial leadership in its diversity with a focus on Berlin and Europe. Integrated work with historical and modern role models help students adopt a critical perspective on good leadership. Moreover, students have the opportunity to reflect on and develop their own (entrepreneurial) leadership skills. For this purpose, the course is designed to be highly interactive and relies on innovative teaching methods.

A special session is a full day leadership coaching with horses (physical contact is voluntary!). Such an approach is relatively new to university education but is gaining popularity in Human Resources (HR) and leadership development. The beauty of equine interaction is that horses are not biased. They do not judge a person by status, gender, or skin color, but respond only to personal radiance when deciding whether or not to follow a human being. This way, students experience the value of diversity in leadership and ultimately learn about the importance of trustworthiness and communication. By receiving very honest individual feedback, students have the opportunity to further develop their personal leadership identity and skills.

In this course, we will bring together Plato's and Wittgenstein's discussions of negation, truth, and being. This is not an arbitrary juxtaposition: Plato's Theaetetus is a text that Wittgenstein responds to directly in the Philosophical Investigations--one of a very few philosophical texts to be mentioned at all. In the first half of the semester, we will engage in close reading of parts of Plato's Theaetetus and Sophist that discuss the structure of propositions, the nature of truth, the possibility of false belief and false statements, and also negation. (The Sophist is closely tied to the Theaetetus, by both literary signals and philosophical themes.) In the second half of the semester, we will turn to Wittgenstein, reading selections from the Tractatus and the Investigations. We will be interested both in how Wittgenstein responds explicitly to Plato and in how Wittgensteins responds indirectly (or unintentionally) to Plato.

The course aims to acquire skills in the management of the fundamental contents of Public International Law in Spanish. It develops the main topics of this matter, such as concept, international treaties and other sources, subjects of international law -especially the State in the international legal order and international organizations (United Nations Organization)-, law of the sea, human rights, the the international responsibility of the State and the individual, the use of force in international law and humanitarian law, among others.
 

Prejudices and stereotypes against different groups are widespread and can lead to discrimination and exclusion. In order to break down prejudices against different groups, it is often suggested that contact and exchange be established between the groups concerned. In this seminar we will deal with the question of whether contact between two groups can actually lead to a reduction in prejudices, which framework conditions are useful for reducing prejudices through contact and what further consequences contact can have for both groups. The topics are developed on the basis of empirical studies and presented, discussed and applied to practical examples in the context of lectures and interactive group work.

This course is designed for beginners in the French language (i.e. no prerequisites or prior knowledge are needed). The content of this course consists of the basics of French taught through interactive listening, speaking and reading tasks. At the end of the course, students will be prepared for French A2 according to CEFR standards.

How can we understand the relationship between gender and environment? And what can feminist thinking contribute to debates on the current ecological crisis and the needed sustainability transition? Drawing on feminist and gender scholarship the course introduces students to key theories and debates including ecofeminism and feminist political ecology. Over the course of the seminar we look at early critiques of the women-environment nexus to more recent debates on care politics or posthumanism. Through diverse empirical examples of topics such as agri-food regimes, climate change, natural resources and environmental activism this course addresses the gender dimensions of environmental issues.

This seminar is designed to offer students a first insight into the broad range of writings during the Romantic period. It explores a number of the many authors, genres, and thematic facets of the Romantic period, from responses to the French revolution in essays, poetry, and fiction to programmatic turns towards a new kind of poetry, issues of Romantic nature writing, and the Romantic imagination (also in the visual arts). Travel narratives, the concern with science, and finally the socioeconomic contexts of publishing is also addressed. Thus, the literary versatility and (cultural) politics marking the Romantic period comes to the fore within their broader contexts; almost inevitably, gender as a critical category plays a key role.

Haunted castles, labyrinthine catacombs, wailing ghosts, horrifying revelations, mad scientists, and undead antagonists. These are all part of the constellation of signs associated with Gothic literature. Nowadays, echoes of the historical Gothic are part of pop culture and academic theory alike; in Mark Fisher’s words, “The ghosts are swarming at the moment. Hauntology has caught on. It’s a zeitgeist.” This seminar aims to take a step back and look at where it all started. To this end, we will read key texts from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries and examine Gothic aesthetics, temporality, and topology in context. We will try to answer questions such as: what are Gothic literature’s historical/cultural origins? What anxieties were embodied and explored through it? And how did it evolve into the 19th and 20th centuries?

In Germany, the field of Intelligence Studies is marginalized in academic curricula. This seminar tries to fill the gap and introduces students to the emerging and complex field of Intelligence Studies. Students will learn about the strengths and weaknesses of the academic field and about its main theoretical debates. Emphasis will be put on the development of theories of international intelligence relations. One session will reflect on the methods and methodology in intelligence studies. Students will study the historical origins of intelligence agencies in the Middle East, especially within the Cold War context, and their role up until today (for example, OSINT + AI). Further, students will explore diverse themes such as covert action campaigns, the institutions’ highly bureaucratic set-up and their exercise of repression and violence. Within the course of the seminar, we will give a broad overview of several Middle Eastern intelligence agencies. We will highlight two examples: Iraqi and Syrian intelligence agencies. The examples will serve to illustrate the aforementioned themes. Further, students will be familiarized with the involvement of Western intelligence agencies in the Middle East, with a focus on both Germany's during the Cold War: German foreign intelligence (BND), East German State Security (MfS). Additionally, we will look at the new trends in Intelligence Studies and, for instance, investigate how intelligence is portrayed in literature and films.