University College Dublin

This course charts the evolution of modern Ireland from the height of colonial expansion in the 17th Century, through the era of the landlords to the Act of Union, and through the Great Famine to the revolutionary period of the War of Independence and the creation of the Irish Free State. This course examines the historical geography of Ireland through the prisms of colonialism and decolonialism and challenges the notion of Ireland as a 19th Century colony raising questions about this island's position within the British Empire. The course focuses on both urban and rural areas and discuss the importance of historical geography in understanding the contemporary Irish landscape. Course includes a compulsory one-day fieldtrip.

Students are introduced to the Medieval art and architecture from 4th to 15th century AD and to an understanding of the principles, the technological developments, and innovations of cultural diversity and assimilation. The lectures examine material histories of objects and works of art of this period, which reflect the varied connections of European Art of the Middle Ages. Themes to be explored include the heritage of the post Classical world of ancient Greece and Rome; identity and diversity in the post Roman world; aspects of continuity and transformation in the arts of the Byzantine world in the east and the development of monasticism and the formation of the Early Medieval Monastery in the west, with reference to the Carolingian and Ottonian period including the specific contribution of Irish monasticism to Medieval art; and the impact of the pilgrimage tradition on art and architecture during the Romanesque and Gothic periods. The course also examines characteristics of the Gothic style as it emerges at the end of the 12th century, and the late medieval period is examined through reflections in urban and secular architectural developments. 

This course offers an introduction to qualitative research methods in social sciences. Students learn about the advantages and limitations of qualitative research methods and how apply the knowledge to small scale research studies.

This course explores ethical issues in the design and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). It examines ethical theories and practices from historical, interdisciplinary, and cross-cultural perspectives relating to current and emerging ICTs. Students  study the major ethical frameworks such as consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics etc. They look at how they are applied to issues around privacy, security, social media interactions, access, health, game design, and so on. And they explore how the design of technological systems and structures can support ethical principles.

Through an exploration of the complex and contradictory relationships between the global, local, regional, and national, this course focuses on the key issues and scholarly debates in the field of global media studies. Students explore a broad range of media as case studies to understand the relationship between location, culture, and identity. This course equips students with a broad-ranging and comparative understanding of the many ways in which media are produced, consumed, distributed, and circulated across the globe and their impact on our imaginations of a global world.

Students are introduced to the political, social, and economic history of ancient Greece during the the "Classical" period, c. 480-323 BC. This era spans from the Greco-Persian Wars to the death of Alexander the Great. This course explores sources and methods that modern historians use to study ancient Greek culture, including literary texts that are read in translation and artefacts from the ancient world.

This course builds on the formal analysis skills introduced in FS10010 Introduction to Film and Media. Students are introduced to key theoretical ideas about film and media and a variety of approaches to interpreting and understanding film, television, and digital media in context. Topics may include gender, race, sexuality, industry, and audiences, among others. The course includes case studies in film, television, and other media forms.

This course enables students to explore various aspects of Irish culture and identity in an interdisciplinary and interactive manner, focusing specifically on society, literature and language. Students are introduced to key themes, debates, texts, influences and events that help to provide a greater understanding of how Ireland evolved into the country it is today. The course examines how the language of place and space relates to society; Ireland's Celtic influences; the evolution from manuscript to print culture; the tradition of oral narrative; and literary representations of Ireland in both the English and Irish languages, from early modern sources through to twentieth and twenty-first century texts.

The course provides an introduction to the essentials of computer game development. The process of development by small independents, even single individuals, shares important features with development by large companies: innovation, creativity, storyboarding, software development, testing, deployment, and (sometimes) marketing. Topics include the economic importance of the computer game industry; common genres of games; the development of game software using specialized tools which promote rapid development through their integration of numerous prepackaged components; techniques for representing objects in 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional space, and determining whether they collide; techniques for equipping non-player characters with AI; techniques for producing special effects; gamification, that is, the provision of enjoyably game-like experience to promote education or customer loyalty or other purposes. 

Topics covered in this course include HTML syntax, composition, and validation; cascading style sheets (CSS); basic dynamic scripting examples; site planning, visual information management, and responsive design; digital image formats; and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Students provide markup for various HTML elements, attributes, and values associated with the representation of web page content. They use CSS to effectively control the presentation of websites and understand the usefulness of incorporating dynamic scripting into web sites. This course teaches students how to differentiate between alternate image formats that are appropriate for web use, make responsive design layouts using CSS Grid and Flexbox, and understand the importance of consistency, structure, and aesthetics of design and how to achieve these. Students learn current W3C standards and recommendations when planning, designing, and publishing a website.