Netherlands

This course teaches the intricacies of the interaction between animal and plant parasites and their host. The focus is on current topics in the field of host-parasite interactions, including recent insights from many other disciplines such as ecology, soil biology, molecular and cell biology, plant and animal physiology, biotechnology, immunology, and genetics. Besides developing a more integrative view of host-parasite interactions as a broad biological phenomenon, students also discuss how this knowledge can be translated into better human, animal, and plant health. This course uses the development of effective writing skills help to deepen the understanding of a topic.

After completing this course students can:

1. explain the major concepts of human and animal physiology, development, and evolution.
2. describe the contemporary issues related to these general biological topics.
3. obtain basic skills in, scientific writing, oral presentations,  group work, and laboratory work. 

Content

This course focuses on the many intriguing aspects of human biology. Examples from the animal kingdom are used to illustrate the context of human physiology, development, and evolution. The course builds upon secondary high school higher level biology. The textbook functions as basis however additional content is added throughout the course. The main topics discussed and studied are:

• Human and animal structure (morphology and anatomy) and function (physiology).
• And, related to the above-mentioned topic, investigating how evolution accounts for diversity of animal body forms and strategies that animals use to cope with their environments.

In addition, general academic skills are trained through a variety of assignments.

The program is divided in three content units:

Unit 1. Homeostasis, Hormones and Adaptation. Based on textbook chapters 40-44. This includes

• The structural organization of the animal body at tissue, organ, and organ system level
• Chemical signaling in animals
• The digestive system
• The circulatory and respiratory system
• The excretory system

Unit 2. Animal Diversity, Reproduction and Development. Based on textbook chapters 22, 24, 32 and 34 (partly), and 45-46 (completely). This includes:

• Animal reproduction
• Evolution, animal diversity and animal development

Unit 3. Defense and Neural Integration. Based on textbook chapters 47-50. This includes:

• The innate and adaptive immune system
• The neural system and neural integration
• The sensory system
• Movement in animals    

When studying organizations, different social science disciplines do not merely define this concept, they propose theories about why organizations exist, how they operate, how they can be structured, how they develop, how they interact with their external environment, and how they innovate. Insights into different organization theories are thus crucial for the understanding of a wide array of social science theories that build on the notion of organizations. The first part of this course examines seminal theories concerning different facets of organizations: stakeholders and ethics, structure and culture, strategy and relation to the external environment, and lifecycle and change. Near the end of the course, students review how organizations are shaped by organizational politics and cognitive biases in decision-making and how platforms are changing the organizational landscape. Students use case studies to analyze an existing organization using the theories learned in the course. 

Current theories of psychiatric and neurological disorders are largely derived from what is known about drugs that can mimic the symptoms or that are used for treating these disorders. Basic knowledge of the effects of drugs and their underlying neurobiological mechanisms will therefore help to understand these theories better. This course facilitates the understanding of therapeutic and side effects of psychoactive drugs. The course presents major classes of CNS drugs and their use in prominent disorders, such as anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia, and presents the mechanisms and effects of a number of recreational drugs such as cocaine, LSD, and ketamine. The course recommends a basic understanding of neuroanatomy and neurotransmission as a prerequisite.

This course examines Black (Afro-diasporic) music and its impact on society in America and Europe. It reveals how Black Music functions as a form of cultural politics, a philosophy, and a way of building identity and community. It shows how Afro-diasporic musical production has been a central force in political movements and social transformations from interwar anti-colonial activism to Civil Rights campaigns, which has continued in the recent #BlackLivesMatter movement. This course engages with genres of music such as blues and spirituals, jazz, gospel, afro-futurist pop, and hip-hop. This course situates these genres in their historical context, listens to and performs them, and shows how the music – both individual pieces and whole genres - makes political and philosophical claims. This treatment of music serves as a form of critical thinking and engagement with scholarly traditions that give primacy to textual work. The course combines readings, historical case studies and biography, and music listening and making. It therefore enacts and models radically interdisciplinary approaches that connect text-based and embodied learning.