University College Dublin

This course explores communication across cultures and languages. It examines concepts of culture, focusing on non-essentialist perspectives and its role in the construction of (self) identity and others' identities. Focusing on both face-to-face and non-face-to-face, including digital communication, the course explores how people with different cultural backgrounds communicate and the issues that are likely to arise in cross-cultural communication.

The course is an introduction to early Irish society and culture. The period covered was one of great change for Irish society: the arrival of Christianity with a new language, the rise of new, forceful power groupings, and the opportunities and challenges posed by the intrusion of the Vikings. Underlying these transformations there was continuity and we examine the evidence for the survival of earlier belief, specifically in burial records and the role of women in the administration of associated rituals. We look at the institution of kingship, with rituals & taboos grounded in Paganism.  We consider the position of slaves in Irish society, their role in the running  the household, in labor, and intensive agricultural economy. Students engage with myth and saga literature of the time to deepen the their understanding of early Irish culture and society.

This course provides a firm understanding of physical concepts and processes, and students apply concepts learnt to recent advances in our understanding of science in general. Under the headings of physiology, diagnosis and therapy, and on scales from the cell through macro-organisms to the environment, students learn ways in which biological and medical phenomena may be better understood from a physics viewpoint.