Victoria University of Wellington

This course examines Indigenous, Māori ways of understanding, doing, and creating history. It also examines how Māori historical frameworks engage with the legal and political processes of the Waitangi Tribunal. 

This course examines how cognitive and behavioral neuroscience can be applied in clinical settings. It examines the ways in which neurological illness can affect functions such as attention, memory, speech, decision making and emotion regulation. It covers the principles underlying neuropsychological assessment, and the problems that are typically observed following specific illnesses such as stroke, traumatic brain injury and dementia. It also explores how neuroscience can provide insights into problems that present in the psychology clinic, such as depression, anxiety, addiction and schizophrenia.  

This course teaches how to design ethically and culturally responsive psychological experiments in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand. It covers the analysis of data collected using common experimental designs and the reporting of results according to the conventions of scientific writing.

This course examines migration to New Zealand from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales between 1800 and 1945, situating it within the broader context of British and Irish migration and New Zealand’s role in the Age of Mass Migration. It covers factors in Britain and Ireland that encouraged emigration, conditions in New Zealand that attracted immigrants, and the migration and settler experiences of specific groups.

This course covers foundational topics in cognitive science from the perspectives of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, and computation. Topics may include how minds are defined, how they represent the world, how they communicate, and how they support adaptive behavior.

This course introduces narrative and storytelling in the context of visual design. It draws on a range of traditional and contemporary examples, including Māori storytelling practices, and examples from film, animation, digital and physical games, and comics. 

This course offers an in-depth exploration of cultural diversity in Oceania by analyzing the complex interplay among colonial encounters, postcolonial impacts, Indigenous epistemologies, and identity formation. It approaches these themes through the lens of the ocean, which has historically shaped connections, migration, trade, and cultural exchange across the region. Through theoretical discussions, case studies, ethnographic readings, and multimedia materials, the course examines how various colonial histories have influenced Indigenous societies and their ways of knowing, being, and relating.

This course takes a thematic approach to significant historical film movements, with attention to the contexts in which they operate and the influence they continue to have on global film culture. It begins by examining the development of narrative, aesthetic, and industrial strategies in the dominant film industry of the twentieth century—Hollywood—and then explores several movements that offer alternative or complementary approaches to filmmaking, including the French New Wave, Third Cinema, Fourth Cinema, Italian Neorealism, German Expressionism, Surrealism, and Soviet Montage. The course provides historical background to these movements and introduces key theoretical and aesthetic concepts related to film history. It fosters critical awareness of the cultural, political, and artistic contexts of these periods and situates them in relation to one another.

This course examines the role of evaluation and epidemiology in health. It introduces key evaluation and epidemiology principles and explores the relevance of these across various health issues and settings. 

This course examines ancient myth in literature (poetry, drama, historiography, and other genres) and art. It explores different ways of interpreting myths and seek to understand the meaning of myths in their contexts. Prominent themes include creation, gods, heroes, sex/gender, violence, and civilization.