University of Sydney

We all want to be happy and to live a worthwhile life. But what is happiness? Why should we want it? And how do we get it? These are among the most fundamental questions of philosophy. Students evaluate the answers of major thinkers from ancient and modern traditions. They also consider the implications of current psychological research into the causes of happiness regarding the question of how to live well as individuals and as a society.

This course presents an overview of the archaeology and ancient history of the Ancient World, introducing the great civilizations of Mesopotamia, Iran, and Egypt. It also explores the prehistoric and historic cultures of Greece and Italy, ending with the height of the Roman Empire.

This course examines how advancement in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) can lead to social and political change, particularly in developing nations. It will compare and contrast how ICT expansion affects different types of political regimes.

This course examines probability, the concept of random variables, special distributions including the Binomial, Hypergeometric, Poisson, Normal, Geometric and Gamma and statistical estimation. This course will investigate univariate techniques in data analysis and for the most common statistical distributions that are used to model patterns of variability. Students will learn the method of moments and maximum likelihood techniques for fitting statistical distributions to data.

This course examines episodes of crises and instability in order to understand how their key dynamics are embedded within historical, institutional and social contexts. It examines why some crises have a cyclical character while others do not, and how crisis contains elements to unlock the secrets of present-day and future sources of instability.

This course examines the representation and practices of intimate relations focusing on the intersection between intimacy and the constructions of gender. Topics include theories of love and friendship, contemporary cultural representations of love, desire and friendship (especially in film and literature), and the ethics and politics of erotica.