University of Copenhagen

This course examines the meaning of globalization and its potential benefits and risks for Africa and Africans. The primary objectives of this course are to debate globalization and its implications for Africa, develop understanding of key concepts and theories related to globalization, and discuss specific cases from Africa related to globalization. Some key elements explored in this course are the role of African actors and institutions in linking or delinking from globalization, the relationship between globalization and natural resources with respect to cost/benefit sharing, and conflicts related to scarcity and abundance. Students also examine globalization as it relates to the role of state, migration both within and outside of Africa, and the impact of climate change. Students gain knowledge about perspectives on and implications of globalization in relation to a range of key actors, processes, relationships, and practices in Africa. Students choose a sub-topic to focus on and select relevant literature to independently and critically analyze the sub-topic in question and place it within the overall context of globalization.

This course enables students to critically evaluate the merits of the particular way welfare provisions and entitlements are organized in Scandinavia. The course assesses to which degree Scandinavian welfare states can still be characterized as women friendly and promoting equality within an environment of European Union and global challenges. Emphasis is on historical and contemporary developments.

The focus of this course is the uses of the French language, both in France and around the world. Also covered is the linguistic variation within French. The theoretical framework used is sociolinguistics (variational linguistics, linguistic attitudes, linguistic policies, etc.) and several concrete examples are used to illustrate the theory in practice. More specifically, the phenomena relevant to the use of the language in France is distinguished where French is the principal language but there is significant variation according to the speakers and the context where French is mixed with other regional languages and languages of immigrants. Also covered are instances where French is used in a formally multilingual setting, such as Belgium and Switzerland, and informally multilingual settings such as the Creole-speaking regions where French is merged with several indigenous languages, as in Reunion Island or Louisiana.

The Roman Empire has traditionally been studied in the perspective of European history, yet Europe is normally defined by the absence of a new overarching, universal empire. It is simply difficult to shoehorn Rome, a realm which bestrode three continents, into a European size. This course explores other comparative contexts for Rome, the imperial Titan. Rather than the oversized anomaly of European history, Rome fits into a world history of vast universal empires spanning across Eurasia from the Achaemenids to the Mughal and Qing dynasties. The course uses a comparative ancient history to view Rome and the Han dynasty empire, and embarks on a journey through history and across cultures.

This course investigates the economic aspects of climate change and the economics of climate policy in a global perspective. It starts with a brief introduction to the key economic concepts which are useful to analyze the climate change problem (e.g., efficiency and optimality, externalities and public goods, property rights, market failure). The course then discusses the issues around international environmental problems from a game theory perspective. It analyzes several pollution control instruments, with a particular focus on the use of tax incentives and marketable permits to control emissions of greenhouse gases. The overall mitigation/adaptation problem is addressed; the implications of choosing the appropriate social discount rate are discussed. The final part of the course addresses specific issues such as the role of energy prices and the transition to renewable energy; the situation and role of developing countries. The latter includes ethical principles underlying equity and environmental justice considerations in a North-South perspective.

Sport is a crucial aspect of people's lives. Doing sport affects one's emotions and feelings, fitness, self-view, social relations etc. In a similar vein, watching sport can have significant impact on one's life. In fact, most people do, watch, and/or talk about sport. In this course, students learn about different (psychological or psychological-based) aspects related to sport. Examples of topics are cognitions, emotions, leadership, motivation, performance, social relations, stress, team composition, or team dynamics. Although the main focus of the elective course is on “traditional” sports, aspects related to eSports are discussed in some of the classes.

This is an individual study project. Students must have a well thought-through idea of the theme of the study. A faculty teacher is appointed as supervisor, and an agreement is signed between the student and the teacher describing the title, contents, ECTS credits etc. of the study. A supervisor normally meets with the student between two and four times in order to discuss the progress of the individual study, or any problems encountered. Most supervisors also choose to read and comment on parts of the study. Students applying to do an individual study must submit a detailed project description with their application.

The medical humanities ask big questions about how health, illness, medicine, and the body are understood, and with what effects. They do so from an interdisciplinary perspective, attempting to overcome the typical separation between biological and humanities approaches by applying different disciplinary methods to answer shared questions. Disciplines include philosophy, ethics, history, religion, critical theory, literary studies, visual studies (art, image and film), museum studies, and many more. Medical humanities research often involves situating clinical or technical practice in a broad cultural, historical, and experiential context, but it also asks what role arts and humanities themselves play in the medical landscape, and includes the production and analysis of arts and humanities-based interventions that attempt to improve medical care. The debate about whether we are, or soon will be, living a post-human reality is one of the most important cultural markers of our time, and medicine and health are a domain where this theoretical debate has concrete groundings and practical consequences. Topics covered include: how do new ways of thinking about materiality and the human affect medical practice; what is the role of the humanities in this reconfiguration; which technologies and devices lie behind the challenge to traditional conceptions of the human and of matter, for example, genetic technologies, but also tracking devices, network science; how are our understandings of the body, the self, disease, wellness and death being affected; what are the ethical and political implications of a renewed focus on materiality; what has really changed when we talk about the post-human, trans-human, or enhanced human; what are the consequences of these different ways of understanding the human.