Netherlands

This course engages with central concepts and debates in the anthropology of health, illness and medicine. It considers the specificity of local therapeutic communities as well as the processes that connect such systems of knowledge and practice. The production of medical knowledge and healthcare systems – including biomedicine – are also examined, for they, and their social actors, do not exist outside of culture, society and power relations. Drawing on both classic and contemporary studies, students are introduced to different theoretical approaches and consider their value for specific research topics. Topics addressed include the meaning of disease and healing; theories of embodiment, disability and reproduction; medicalization; new medical technologies; and global health. Finally, the course considers how the study of medical knowledge and practice provide a prism to understand social relations and contribute to more general debates concerning issue such as nature-nurture, structural violence, modernity, globalization or commodification. Weekly sessions include lectures introducing conceptual building blocks and key debates, followed by student lead sessions dedicated to subtopics and case studies. Students are required to come prepared and share insights and questions based on their reading accounts, complete two writing exercises and prepare one presentation and discussion session in teamwork with colleagues. Lectures and readings are occasionally supplemented by documentaries and guest lectures.

This ground-breaking course invites humanities, pre-med, and social science students interested in reading literature to experience the effects of ‘shared reading’: reading literary texts together, out loud, with communities such as people in care homes, schools, hospitals, prisons, or asylum seeker centers. Students learn the basics of how literary texts can "work" for readers, both in theory and in practice. The course discusses the issues in proving the positive effects of literary reading scientifically while seeing in practice when a text resonates with someone. Students take part in shared reading groups first-hand and examine under which circumstances shared reading can lead to comforting or transformative experiences.  The course connects students to other communities, and vice versa, as well as the community members to each other.

This foundational course combines theoretical and conceptual thinking from human geography and ways to analyze and understand the reciprocal relationships between humans and their environments, both natural and built. The learning materials are designed to introduce students to key themes and concepts that relate to human/environment relationships seen from the perspective of human geography and related social sciences, ranging from the complex and evolving relationship between society and nature to the significance of urban design for human wellbeing. Students work in small groups to further explore the weekly themes through discussion and practical exercises.

This course examines forensic linguistics. It covers legal language, forced confessions, investigative interviewing, authorship analysis, copyright infringement, earwitness testimony, linguistic disadvantage and the impact of power in real case outcomes.

The primary goal of this course is to understand Earth’s geologic and surface processes with respect to landscape formation, functioning, land degradation, and human impacts to the environment. The course features an integrative systems approach while introducing fundamental concepts from Earth science disciplines (physical geography, geology, geomorphology, hydrology). A guiding principle is to investigate why, how, when, and where materials, landforms, and natural resources are created, degraded, and changed by the action of tectonics, gravity, water, winds, and waves from high-mountain settings to the coastal zone. Introduced concepts are reviewed in the context of a range of potential topics, such as plate tectonics, volcanism, rocks and minerals, soils, climate, mass wasting, karst, water resources, river systems, coastal processes, and associated natural hazards.

The course includes compulsory field trips to the environs of The Hague to learn how concepts reviewed in class apply to what is commonly perceived as "the abiotic environment". Field activities include the training of observational and sampling skills. Basic laboratory analysis of soil and/or sediment samples introduce students to testing methods and reporting on self-produced environmental information.

The course is about Dutch art – with an emphasis on painting. Since the Middle Ages, the Netherlands has played a pivotal role in the history of European art and culture. Dutch and Flemish artists were the first to use oil paints, the first to visually document the lives and cultures of ordinary people, and the first to produce art for a free market. Painters such as Van Eyck, Brueghel, Bosch, Rubens, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Mondrian are counted among the great masters of history. Their art embodies qualities that are believed to be typical for the country, such as a devotion to truthfulness, attention to detail, and a love of textures. But there were many more artists whose works are still considered among the most important in history – if only because they were the first to notice the mundane things nobody else had paid attention to, such as the beauty of a still-life or the wonders of a cloudy sky. From the late Middle Ages through the Renaissance and the Baroque to the modern era, Dutch artists have tried to come to terms with ever-changing principles and conceptions regarding the world around them and have been constantly improving techniques to visualize it. The results of their efforts are the subject of this course. The course mostly follows a chronological order. In the first lecture, the (religious) significance of art in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Baroque is introduced. In the following lectures, students are given an overview of the development of Dutch art from the Middle Ages to the modern era. The course includes tours to various museums in Mauritshuis and the Hague.