University of Copenhagen

This course introduces the key insights, concepts, and debates of environmental sociology, with a particular emphasis on climate change, biodiversity, and other major ecological risks at stake in the so-called green transition. In doing so, the course provides the conceptual tools needed to understand, analyze, and critically-constructively engage with key questions of society-wide change towards sustainability: how much of it is currently happening across societal sectors and levels; how has it or is it currently being brought about; what shapes, conditions, or hampers more of it? To frame these questions sociologically, the course starts by reviewing debates on two contrasting diagnoses: the risk society diagnosis of Ulrich Beck and the ecological modernization diagnosis of Arthur Mol, John Dryzek, and others. At stake is the questions of the place of environmental concern, policy, and practice in late-modern social change. From here, the course delves into the main institutional vectors of environmental social change, covering in turn questions of: socio-technical change (green technological innovation, changing infrastructures); political-economic change (shifting modes of governance and politics, new circular market models); activism-driven change (environmental social movements, urban green communities); changing North-South relations (new globalized inequalities, climate justice activism); everyday practice change (emerging consumptions habits, new social distinctions and divisions); cultural value change (continuity and change in moral valuations of ‘nature’ in the Anthropocene). Throughout, focus is on understanding present-day environmental social change in light of historical experience, empirical findings, and key sociological theories (as well as, to some extent, insights from neighboring disciplines). This enables students to take stock of what near-future changes lie ahead. Alongside examining the various substantive dimensions of green transition, the course also discusses adequate methodological strategies affiliated with the different problem complexes and vectors of social change. Throughout, students work on aligning theoretical and empirical insights via their own case analyses.

Although this course focuses on Islamic and Muslim feminisms (in the plural) it also cover women’s experiences with radical Islam, masculinities, LGBTQ+ Islam, and similar phenomena. The course consists of five modules. The first module studies Muslim migration to Denmark and explores Islam in Copenhagen through a field study in which students do photo-journalism. The second module focuses on female and LGBTQ+ imams in Europe. In the third module, students read and listen to artistic productions by Muslim minority women and men in the form of novels, poetry, and music. As part of this module students do a semi-structured interview with either a Muslim or a non-Muslim on private and public perceptions of Islam. The fourth module investigates current Muslim civil rights organizations, and the final module focus on Muslim female piousness.

This course examines mathematical concepts for stochastic calculus. The topics include: introduction to continuous time stochastic processes; definition and properties of Brownian motion; semimartingales; Stochastic integration; Itô (change of variable) formula; theorems for applications (e.g., Girsanov’s theorem).

This course develops presentation skills for speaking before academic audiences. Students practice writing to think through research and communicate thoughts by means of informative and appealing texts. This intensive course, designed as a series of interactive workshops, offers an opportunity to present and write in English within the student's own discipline and reflect on use of academic sources, AI literacy, presentation skills, writing habits, and writer identity. Students choose a research problem to investigate and follow the stages of researching and writing as two interlinked processes: focus the research question, conduct the literature review, collect the best evidence to argue for the importance of the research project. The course also provides an opportunity to read like a writer by analyzing model texts and sample texts written by peers to better understand rhetorical strategies and stylistic conventions of selected academic text types. Students practice presenting by preparing three 3-minute presentations based on secondary sources about the research question, delivered for a small group of peers. They also present for 7 minutes in front of the whole class to share their views, engage in a question-and-answer session, and hear feedback on their performance. Students also practice writing and giving feedback through drafting three sections of the research paper (extended definition of a key concept, literature review, introduction or discussion/conclusion), cite primary as well as secondary sources, and acknowledge collaboration with AI. Students exchange feedback on drafts with peers and receive comments from tutors in order to rewrite their texts for greater persuasiveness and clarity. The semester of reading, writing, presenting, and exchanging ideas with international peers from various disciplines allow students to become better academic communicators.

This course covers the following topics: graph algorithms such as max flow; data structures such as van Emde Boas Trees; NP-completeness; exponential and parameterized algorithms for NP-hard problems; approximation algorithms; randomized algorithms; computational geometry; linear programming and optimization.

This course explores the broad, societal implications of capitalism. It explores three main topics—colonialism, gender, and ecology—to investigate how we can view capitalism as extending beyond the market economy, mode of production, and class relations. Furthermore, these three topics allow us to connect critiques of capitalism to major societal issues and core themes in contemporary economics, namely inequality and ecological crises and policies. The course critically examines both the foundations of capitalism theories and key critiques, encouraging students to assess the relevance of these perspectives in understanding contemporary economic challenges. The course specifically deals with economics but takes an interdisciplinary approach. Large parts of the curriculum come from other disciplines, mainly sociology, political theory, human geography, and philosophy. At its core, the course equips students with the tools to critically engage with these critiques, examine their strengths and limitations, and relate them to mainstream economic theory and research.

This course introduces students to fundamental techniques for mobile autonomous robotics. In this course, a robot is a computer mounted on a chassis with controllable wheels. To allow the robot to perceive its surroundings, a camera and several distance sensors are attached to the computer. This course is oriented towards the practical aspects of mobile robotics and students in groups solve a set of assignments on the robots. Furthermore, the course introduces relevant robotics theory and methods including control, navigation, and localization of the robot as well as problem solving with robots including hardware/software trouble shooting. Some methods for analyzing sensor data are also covered. The course finishes with a larger assignment.

This course provides an overview of foundational coaching theories, evidence-based practices, and the evolution of coaching psychology. It focuses on current issues, ethical considerations, cultural competency, and practical coaching strategies. The course offers an exploration of future trends and innovations to prepare students for emerging challenges and effective, sustainable coaching outcomes.

This course focuses on rural landscape management with emphasis on ends, means, and solutions in management and planning projects. The course consists of two parts: an introduction and a problem-based project. The introductory part of the course includes lectures, exercises, and seminars on landscape processes and functions as well as methods for analyzing landscapes and collecting data relevant to planning and management of rural landscapes. Topics include: analyses of cultural landscapes and their current changes and implication for landscape policy, planning, and management; farmers' and other stakeholders' values and practices in relation to land use, cultural heritage, nature conservation, and aesthetic values; spatial planning and the design and implementation of spatial plans in relation to conflict management and place-making; case study approach and relevant research methods. Students are expected to contribute substantially to the seminars in the introductory part by presenting relevant methods and literature as well as preliminary ideas for projects. The project part of the course is the main part of the course and starts with a visit to a Danish municipality to show practical landscape management and planning tasks and challenges that are found in the municipality. Students then form project groups and propose a project problem to be approved.