Korea, South

This course examines psychopathology theories, research, and clinical implications of abnormal psychology. It also explores the multicultural, sociocultural, and diversity aspects of abnormal psychology. Topics include major ethical issues, impact of mental health stigma, and using the Multipath Model of Mental Disorders to explain how four essential factors-biological, psychological, social, and sociocultural-interact to cause mental disorders.
 

The course addresses the history, current state, and future of North Korea, essential to understanding its human rights and human security situation. It examines the vast oppressive apparatus employed to execute North Korea’s policy of human rights denial and to maintain the status quo. The course also covers the applicable international legal framework, and the available remedies embedded in relevant provisions, as well as the methodology employed by human rights organizations dealing with North Korea, including the execution, processing, and analysis of interviews with North Korean defectors and other witnesses, and their corroboration with satellite imagery and other available relevant data. Also explored in depth is the structure and functions of both the UN system and international civil society.

This course covers the fundamentals of finite element analysis of solids, structures, and dynamics. This includes the theoretical foundations, physical insights of them, and appropriate use of finite element methods. The course also covers how to write a simple MATLAB code for basic finite element analysis.

This course addresses politics in the Middle East and North Africa with a focus on relations between states. Questions that guide the course include: When do countries engage in costly conflict against each other? What is the relationship between domestic politics and international relations? Do transnational ideologies impact politics? If so, how? In line with these overarching questions, the course addresses topics such as international involvement in the region, the role of resources, authoritarianism and democratization, sectarianism and ethnicity, terrorism, and protests.

Why did some Middle Eastern countries experience uprisings and others did not? Why do we observe Iran and Saudi Arabic supporting some non-state actors but ignore others? Why have some actors changed their religious rhetoric? Does oil impact politics in Saudi Arabia? This seminar examines these questions and contemporary politics in the Middle East. Students familiarize themselves with major political science debates on issues relevant to the region, and develop understanding of concepts and theory that are useful for analyzing Middle East regional politics Themes addressed include: war and international involvement in the region; authoritarianism and the Arab Spring, religion and sect; and, energy resources. The course examines a number of events, including, but not limited to, the 2003 Iraq War, the Arab Spring and the Syrian Civil War, and the Iranian nuclear deal. This course is designed as a broad survey of Middle East politics; given the time constraints; it is not possible to cover every country and issue. 

This course focuses on theoretical and empirical explanations for political phenomena in the Middle East. As such, we pay close attention to how to theoretically and empirically address social and behavioral science research questions relevant to the Middle East.

This course provides students with theoretical knowledge, which is essential for discussing critical issues on public bureaucracy in modern liberal democracies. The course is divided into four main parts. In Part I examines the primary concepts of this course (i.e., bureaucracy, democracy, and their relationships). Part II focuses on the administrative branch by discussing traditional scholarly debates and recent controversial topics such as representativeness, democratic control, political neutrality, and the brain drain of government bureaucracy. Part III discussions are expanded to the other government institutions: the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and their relationships with the administrative branch. Part IV includes in-depth discussions on how we could blend in our understanding of the essential values and relationships revolving around public bureaucracy which is especially helpful for those who plan to work in the (quasi-) public sector.

The course covers basic concepts and theories of contemporary debates and issues in security affairs of Northeast Asia. The course studies basic concepts, theories and logic that are useful for making sense of contemporary security issues. It then surveys several important issues in regional security with frequent use of recent historical examples. Topics include realism and military security; liberalism and cooperative security and arms control; constructivism and human security; domestic politics and international security; hegemony and military security; coercive diplomacy; alliances in northeast Asia; US-China competition; Japan`s security policy; North Korea`s nuclear challenge; Rok and peace in the Korean peninsula; and the US grand strategies and the future of NEA regional order.

This course looks at emotion and life from a psychological perspective. 

This course is designed to improve critical thinking skills in English that will further enhance problem solving and overall communication ability. It covers argument structures, analysis, definitions and fallacies and provides application of these components in oral forms of debate and negotiation along with writing.

This course offers an introduction to the Haegeum (the 2-string Korean fiddle). While learning to play this instrument, students deepen their understanding of Korean traditional music.