Maastricht University – University College Maastricht

Business administration studies economic problems within the firm and relates to problems in the fields of marketing and logistics, finance, accounting, information management, and organization and strategy. Business administration aims to provide an integrated view of all the various (sub) disciplines. This course introduces basic topics that are related to business administration. The course centers around a real-life management simulation: Market Place live.

This course develops competencies in the planning and performance of experiments and the evaluation of results using common techniques in molecular genetics and cell biology. The skills training starts with an introductory lecture providing information on the assignments as well as an introduction to Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and Safe Laboratory Practice (SLP). Students perform experiments on several different topics including Immunocytochemistry; Immunofluorescence and advanced imaging (confocal and STED microscopy); Western blotting; and Electron microscopy. This course is designed to be taken in combination with SCI2037 Cell Biology. Students who wish to take this course should concurrently enroll in SCI2037 Cell Biology prior to enrolling in SKI2077.

This course provides an introduction to contemporary philosophical debates about core concepts of justice, liberty, equality, community, and democracy in modern liberal-democratic societies. Students become familiar with the work of some of the leading political philosophers of today, like Thomas Hobbes, Mary Wollstonecraft, John Rawls, Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Frantz Fanon, Martha Nussbaum, and Achille Mbembe. Since conceptual analysis is the core business of philosophy, students learn to analyze concepts, clarify moral ideas, and how tensions between moral ideas can be made explicit. They also learn how to apply these concepts in current political debate and practice.

Examine how racism works structurally and individually and how, this, in turn, affects us in our everyday lives. The course engages with critical approaches such as decolonizing the mind (DTM).  The course builds on the premise that although white and BIPOC persons are affected differently by racism, all groups are affected deeply. The course spends a significant amount of time focusing on whiteness and the ways in which white people are complicit with racism. Through detailed recordings of racialized situations in their everyday lives, participants exercise their ability to recognize that they live in a racialized environment.  Throughout the course, students grapple with France Twine’s contention that racial identities are changeable and movable – at least to some extent. This may help us to get away from monolithic ways of conceptualizing racial identities and, instead, adopt more fluid practices of speaking, writing, seeing, and perceiving. 

Learn about international negotiations and how countries, companies, and institutions plan and seek to achieve their goals in a multicultural and often multilateral setting. Students learn the negotiation and cultural skills necessary for completing a successful international negotiation: analytical, strategic, social, and bargaining. Students are trained to analyze complex negotiation situations and then apply theories to maximize their outcomes. After every simulation, students discuss their strategies/ negotiation skills and outcomes with their peers and the tutor. In the final EU simulation, students experience participating in an international negotiation.

This course deals with some of the most fundamental questions concerning the development of the European Identity: what have been the decisive common experiences that have fostered a sense of European community and identity, and how have they evolved over time? The course provides an overview of the concept of Europe and the development of European identity, highlighting the specific characteristics of European political/social/cultural history, notably in comparison with that of other (non-European) societies, that contributed to a sense of European community and the European identity.

This course will explore development and underdevelopment in Latin America with a focus on contemporary resource extraction i.e. extractivism. We will analyze these problems from an anthropological perspective by focusing on local and indigenous groups experiences, and exploring the concepts, theories and alternatives coming from Latin American political and intellectual scene itself. We will begin by examining how during the second half of the XX century, "Development" became the buzzword that encompassed state intervention, urbanization projects, foreign aid and investments, and intellectual contributions such as Dependence Theory. We will focus on the changes associated with Globalization and Neoliberalism after the 1990s and the implications for Latin American local/indigenous groups. We will then examine the boom of natural resource extraction projects, and discuss case studies, debates and environmental controversies in local/indigenous territories. We will then place attention on social movements and activist networks that emerge in these contexts, and finish the course by discussing key concepts such as "post development" "post extractivism" or "Buen Vivir", proposed by Latin American thought as alternatives to "development".

This course educates students on the history, process, and sources of American foreign policy. The course is divided into four sections. The first section focuses on the field of foreign policy analysis as a subfield in International Relations. An overview of the various analytical perspectives on U.S. foreign policy is covered. This first section also considers the importance of examining American foreign policy in today's world. Section two concentrates on the history of U.S. foreign policy, covering such events as the Founding of the United States, World War I, the inter-war years, World War II, the making of a Superpower, the Cold War, the Post-Cold War world, September 11th, and ending with recent world events, such as the Iraq War and the Global War on Terror. Part three examines the politics and the policy-making process of American foreign policy. Topics for discussion in this section include the institutions involved in the policy-making process, such as the President, various bureaucracies like the State Department, the Department of Defense, and the CIA, plus Congress and the Courts. This section also considers the role the American public plays in the process of making U.S. foreign policy. The final part of this course studies the instruments used to implement American Foreign Policy. This section includes a discussion of America's use of open or diplomatic instruments, secret instruments, economic instruments, and also its military instruments. This final section ends with a task that discusses the future of American Foreign Policy. Prerequisites for this course include an introductory international relations or political science course and at least one intermediate-level social science course.