Japan

This course aims to help students learn Japanese for academic purposes through various familiar topics about society and culture. The target level is CEFR B1.1.

The course provides opportunities to complete various tasks using Japanese, enabling students to acquire the language skills necessary to perform the tasks and also increase their knowledge of Japanese vocabulary, grammar patterns, expressions and kanji. The final requirement of the course is a project presentation, where students present the results of their research on a particular topic. This course aims to enhance students’ Japanese proficiency and their ability to comprehend and engage deeply with the content. 

This course includes an elective component "Expand your World in Japanese." 

This course studies practical issues of international tax law through case studies to develop a general understanding for business, tax strategy and controversy. The course also discusses indirect tax matters such as customs duty and VATs given the recent high profile of such taxes. Lectures focus on learning how tax laws affect the daily operations of multinational companies and how such companies overcome the handling of complex tax laws around the world.

This course introduces analytical tools and recent topics in industrial organization related to the digital economy.

It provides students with theoretical tools for equilibrium analysis of oligopolistic competition, both useful for research in both empirical and theoretical industrial organization. These tools include discrete choice models, basic contract theory, and some theories of particular games such as aggregative games and supermodular games.  Additionally, it provides students with theoretical frameworks to analyze recent market phenomena in the digital economy such as platform’s business strategies and competition in online markets.

The course offers a solid basis of the Italian language, beginning from its phonetics and fundamental grammar. The course begins with students becoming familiar with names; their number and gender; articles; verb grammar (present and past), and pronouns. The study then progresses through conversation, games and the production of simple texts.

The course teaches correct application of the basics of Italian language; focuses on apprehending expressions used in everyday context, and instructs on beginner level reading comprehension.

This course investigates various economic issues of South and North Korean economics without serious economic theory. The course covers the economic development differences between North and South Korean economies; the history of both economies after WWII,; trade between North and South Korean economy; each country’s export and import; each economy’s labor market, and each economy’s current situation. For a better understanding of Korean economic issues, the course employs economic concepts like GDP, inflation, unemployment, interest rate, and etc. 

This course introduces undergraduate students to the empirical aspects of international trade. It analyzes the causes and consequences of international trade both in developed and developing countries, with a special emphasis on the role of firms.  After an introduction on key stylized facts of international trade, the course studies the published-work in international trade: trade from the point of view of individual firms. The course discusses various topics such as trade policy, trade liberalization, inequality and Global Supply Chains. 

Recommended prerequisites: 2nd year basic microeconomics, macroeconomics and econometrics. Basic understanding of applied-microeconomics is desirable (not essential).

The 'Gothic novel', which originated in mid-18th-century England, took the world by storm as a form of weird and terrifying fiction reflecting the medieval taste of the time. There were many variations, and the most common in the early years were bizarre adventure stories, such as the tale of a maiden locked in an old castle and the young man who rescues her. Other typical variations include tales of a wise man who sells his soul to the devil and falls into hell; tales of an artificial man such as Frankenstein; tales of a man who transforms into a monster such as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; vampire tales such as Dracula, and many other types. Furthermore, up to the present day, the Gothic tale continues to be reproduced and re-created in a variety of media, not limited to the novel, while further diversifying. The mystery novel, a significant genre, is one of the tributaries that branched off from the Gothic novel.

English Literature 7 and 8 traces the Gothic novel's development over a year. This course is the first half, which will begin with the beginnings of the Gothic novel in the 18th century, the medieval taste that formed its background, and the establishment of a new tourism culture. Then it moves on to the new developments of the Gothic novel in the 19th century and its relationship to psychic studies of the same period.

This course closely examines the historical, social and cultural backgrounds of several works of German-language literature from Prague and studies how these are expressed in literature. 

Upon completion, students acquire basic knowledge about the society and culture of the German-speaking area of ​​Prague and reconsider various issues that can be gleaned from literary works of that time as issues that still apply to the present day.

This course looks into current environmental and social sustainability topics in business. The course considers the topics from a global perspective and visits points specific to Japan, and helps students assess environmental and social sustainability concepts independently from the perspective of businesses and consumers.

This course provides an outline of the evolutionary history and morphological diversity of fossil reptiles. This class especiallly focuses on the origin, evolution and extinction of major groups such as turtles, crocodiles, marine reptiles, and dinosaurs. Fossil reptiles also include various extinct groups such as mammal-like reptiles and gigantic marine forms (e.g., ichthyosaurs) as well as flying giants (pterosaurs). Reptiles are also important for understanding origin of living birds and ma mammals. Visual instruments and real specimens would be used during the lectures for the aid of comprehension. Preparation of fossil materials would be organized for students in this lecture. Museum excursion or field trip should be organized as optional events on weekends.