University of Galway

The course is organized around the themes of how we sociologically understand and interpret the phenomenon of religion. Emphasis is placed on the analysis of texts that are supplemented with empirical studies to encourage students to think sociologically about religion. The course addresses the classical concepts of religion as well as contemporary theories, and discusses the social, political, and cultural processes that affect transformation of religion and its institutions. Students examine relationships between religion and other spheres of social life such as politics, gender, sexuality, and health.

This course explores the impact of digital technology on the production and consumption of film and other image-based media. Through task-based learning, students are asked to consider the impact of digital media on our relationship to the world which we inhabit. How do we use digital technology to construct our sense of personal identity? How has our relationship to cinema and photography been transformed by digital technology?

Topics in this course include indexing techniques (primary, secondary, clustering, B trees), and hashing (extendible, dynamic, and linear); database architectures and data models (network, hierarchical, relational, and object-oriented); relational model (relations, relational operators, and integrity constraints); relational algebra and SQL (relational operators, query optimisation, DDL, DML, and DCL); and extended relational model.

This course focuses on comparative public policy and is divided into two parts. The first part deals with a range of theoretical issues involved in the comparative analysis of public policy. The second part of the course deals with a number of specific policy areas, exploring similarities and differences in how these have been handled in different national contexts.

The course examines the core themes within Marx's work through a detailed textual examination of his major publications. The last three seminars explore critical views of Marx's work from Weberian, feminist, and environmentalist positions. The seminars are devoted to further exploration of the implications of Marx's work, and its impact in academic circles. The course also examines the political ramifications of his writings, and their reception through the past century.

This course is primarily a study of the tactics and technology of European warfare on land and sea during an epoch of religious wars, unprecedented diplomatic realignments, rising and failing states, a "general crisis," and external Ottoman pressure. Through discussion, presentation and self-directed learning, with an emphasis on contemporary texts, the course progresses thematically through such themes as state policy and grand strategy, tactical changes as a response to gunpowder weaponry, the (in)decisiveness of battle, "heroism" versus "technique" in the Vaubanian siege, maneuver, logistics and "contributions," the impact of war on civilians, moral contexts: the "laws of war" and the "law of nations," women in the world of camp and train, recruitment and promotion, officers and men, and the intellectual inheritance of classical Greece and Rome.

This course provides an introduction to the study of politics and sociology.

This seminar is an introduction to African writing. The course focuses on writing from Africa but includes reference to some texts written about Africa by non-Africans to demonstrate the contrast in style, context, and representation. The main texts are from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. Students examine postcoloniality, language, the oral tradition, and access to publishing, as well as the clash of tradition and modernity, gender, landscape, childhood, and politics.

This course studies King Arthur, the legends surrounding him beginning from medieval times throughout Western Europe, and his origin as a Welsh folk hero. The course traces the earliest development of the Arthurian legend from its Welsh beginnings, and looks at the earliest sources to bear witness to Arthur (from Wales in the 9th to the 11th centuries). The course considers how this hero from a far Western European culture became famous throughout the world. The Celtic origin of the theme of the Holy Grail is examined as well as the way it became represented and later adapted in literature and culture. The Welsh origin of the character of Merlin the magician is also studied and original sources in translation form the basis of the study of all these themes.