University of Galway

This course examines the history and development of the fairytales in Europe from the 16th century to the present day. The course begins with an overview of the most well-known fairytales collections by Giovanni Straparola, Giambattista Basile, Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, before exploring modern retellings in children’s picturebooks, young adult literature, and children’s film. The course is grounded in contemporary psychological and socio-historical fairytale theory and encourages students to reflect on the form, purpose and content of classic fairytales over time.

The course introduces students to Relational Frame Theory (RFT) as an approach to understanding human psychology. It familiarizes students with the philosophical and theoretical underpinning of RFT and explains the core behavioral processes implicated by this approach. It examines up to date RFT-based research into diverse areas of human language and cognition including cognitive development, motivation, problem-solving, and analogical reasoning.

In this course students read two great works of the 14th century: Geoffrey Chaucer's CANTERBURY TALES and SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT (author's name unknown). Chaucer wrote his famous CANTERBURY TALES in the 1370s and 1380s and this last great work of his is one of the most exciting and varied in the English language. Obscenity and profanity jostle with piety as 23 characters tell tales of fornication, magic, war, love, philosophy, religious devotion, and virtue. The 14th-century alliterative poem SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT is a striking example of the genre of medieval Arthurian romance. Chivalric worth, testing, temptation, religious devotion, games, and nature are among the themes which permeate this tale of one knight's quest to uphold the honor and integrity of the Round Table.

Focusing on the Anglophone world (USA, Canada, Ireland, Britain, and Australia in particular), this seminar course examines the emergence of the radical labor ideologies of syndicalism (or industrial unionism) and communism in the early 20th century. It considers the organizational forms and cultures of the principal movements espousing these ideologies (i.e., the 'Wobblies', originating in the US, c.1905; the Russian-dominated Communist movement, post-1917), discuss the relationship of one to the other, and compare their orientations towards social democratic and nationalist movements.

This course provides knowledge of the fundamentals of Old Irish gramma and of the relationship of Old Irish to later stages of the language. It enables students to translate and analyze straightforward Old Irish text, and to locate and use beginners’ aids to reading and understanding Old Irish.