University of Copenhagen

This course interrogates the intersection of environmental studies with ethical and political theories of justice. It engages with issues of environmental justice and injustice on a global scale and provides special consideration to the intersecting dimensions of race, ethnicity, class, and gender as well as global economic inequality and settler colonialism. An important dimension of the course is learning about the understandings of environment and claims to justice mobilized by social movements seeking to address environmental injustice. Beginning with an introduction to theories of environment, justice, and scientific knowledge production and continuing with an investigation of themes in environmental in/justice, the course considers how capital flows and the distribution of power shape who has access to the necessities of life and to clean environments and who does not, and how the world itself is being radically altered by human action. Finally, it considers what ethical and political obligations humans may have to more-than-human beings, and how the struggle to protect these beings is often tied up with the social justice struggles of marginalized human groups. The course continually returns to the question of how plural understandings of justice and the environment underwrite or challenge environmental destruction and socio-economic inequality and examines the social movements locally and globally that are challenging and, in some cases, transforming such inequality. Through readings, in-class discussions, guest lectures, selected films and documentaries, and a final project, students reflect critically on the root causes of the uneven distribution of the basic resources necessary for life.

This course introduces the fundamental principles behind methods in pharmaceutical modeling and provides hands-on experience with methods used in academia and industry. It focuses on mathematical models and computer programming for a quantitative understanding of diverse pharmaceutically relevant problems. This includes models at different scales, both for molecular and particle level properties, interactions between molecules and particles, and their interactions with the organism. The course uses practical examples to provide the theory behind methods used for pharmaceutical modeling and simulation of system behavior. It begins with a introduction and refresher of fundamental mathematical tools, then applies and modifies computer scripts that model the pharmaceutical systems, and discusses these models in relation to the literature.

This course presents an understanding of how the complexity of matter has evolved from its simplest forms during Big Bang to the rise of intelligent life that is capable of understanding its own place in this fabulous development. Topics include the formation of the elements during Big Bang, supernovae, and red giants; dust formation, stellar winds, and the re-circulation of cosmic material; the formation of the solar system; planets around other stars; the physical-chemical basis for life; the rise and development of life on the Earth; conditions for finding life beyond Earth; and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

This course covers family behaviors from a life-course perspective and an ecological system perspective. It introduces recent and hot research topics of family studies and provides a historical review on how family behaviors and policies change with the development of a society. The course provides an overview of theories, empirical research, research design, and methods under family sociology. The course follows a topic-specific and a case-specific approach to explore the diversity of life experience in the family sphere and the determinants of family behaviors. Topics include dating and mate selection, cohabitation and marriage, sexual life, parenting, work and life balance, gender and domestic work, break-up and divorce, intergenerational relationship, family policies, et cetera.

This course provides the conceptual tools needed to understand, analyze, and critically and constructively engage with ongoing societal transformations induced by climate change, biodiversity, and other ecological crises, colloquially known as green transition. It builds on scholarship and meso-level theories founded in environmental and climate sociology, branching also into other literatures to ask foundational questions about society-wide change towards sustainability: how much of it is currently happening across societal sectors, domains, and levels; how it has or is currently being brought about; and what shapes, conditions, or hampers more of it. The course begins by reviewing debates on two contrasting diagnoses: the risk society diagnosis of Ulrich Beck and the ecological modernization diagnosis of Maarten Hajer, John Dryzek, and others. At stake is the question of the place of environmental concern, policy, and practice in reworking (late) modernity. From here, the course delves into the main institutional vectors of green 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); mobilization-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); and cultural value change (continuity and change in moral valuations of ‘nature’ in the Anthropocene). Throughout, the focus is on understanding present-day green social change in light of historical experience and meso-level sociological theory, with a view to taking stock of what near-future changes lie ahead. Alongside examining the various substantive dimensions of green transition, it also discusses adequate methodological strategies affiliated with the different problem complexes and vectors of social change. Throughout, students work on aligning analytical and methodological strategies via case analyses.

This course provides a survey of the role of plant-animal interactions in the evolution of biodiversity. It covers various subjects from an evolutionary approach and uses examples from recent and ongoing research. Topics include antagonistic and mutualistic types of plant-animal interactions; generalization versus specialization; evolutionary approaches to study plant-animal interaction, including understanding phylogenies; herbivory and grazing from both a plant and animal perspective; pollination ecology, especially plant-insect interactions; attractants and rewards; seed predation and dispersal; plant protection; arms race and co-evolution; physical and chemical plant defenses; plant-plant and other interactions; grazer-algae interactions in the marine environment; and community-level interactions including plants as habitat and food webs. The course consists of lectures and small in class exercises, hands-on activities, visits to the botanic gardens, and literature-based discussions. Training in scientific writing and oral and written communication skills is provided through workshops, journal clubs, an essay and an oral presentation. Students choose a plant-animal interaction and write an individual essay in the form of a scientific article (in review form) using primary literature.