Maastricht University – University College Maastricht

The course first addresses the concept of the “atrocity triangle” and it looks into the relationship between the three actors (the perpetrator, the victim, and the bystander) involved in the triangle. An integrated criminological model is introduced which sets out the relevant etiological elements that are addressed in greater detail in the second part of the course. The second part of the course, which focuses on the perpetrators, starts with the forms, functions, and effects of (political) violence and the concept of torture in particular. The analysis continues on the macro level and addresses the role of policy and ideology. Subsequent analysis focuses on the meso level and the role of military organizations and other institutions. In this context, attention is paid to the influence of military training and students discuss how, with the help of a bureaucratic system, genocide can be planned, organized, and carried out. The course furthermore discusses several experiments (Milgram, Ash, Stanford, etc.) on obedience, institutional roles, and conformity, but also addresses other social-psychological mechanisms that help understand how and why people can participate in the perpetration of gross human rights violations. Lastly, the important role that language and discourse play in conflict and international crime is highlighted. The third part of the course focuses on the role of the bystander by looking into the phenomenon of the “bystander effect” to address the question of why bystanders fail to act. Secondly, the role of bystanders in international politics at the macro-level of both states and international organizations in the field of human rights is discussed. Special attention was given to the role of the UN Security Council when it was confronted with gross human rights violations. The course then looks more closely into the phenomenon of rescuing to find out what turns actors into rescuers. The fourth and last part of the course takes a more victimological perspective, which focuses on the position of the victim. Specific attention is paid to gender-selective violence. More particularly, the phenomena of rape as a “weapon of war” and gendercide (gender-selective mass killings) are discussed. Also, the complex case of child soldiers is addressed as they are victims and perpetrators at the same time. These lectures in this course are used to illustrate the discussed materials and to provide the participants with a deeper understanding of the subject matter by presenting the linkage between theory and (research) practice. During the lectures, various guest speakers address the subject matter from the practitioner's perspective. In addition, several documentaries are screened and then analyzed during the post-discussion. Case studies play an important role throughout the course wide variety of cases are covered including The Holocaust and other cases of genocide (Armenia, Australia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Srebrenica, Darfur, etc.). Prerequisites for this course include two intermediate-level courses in the Social Sciences or Humanities.

This course examines the complex interactions between gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, age, and species difference in the contemporary world. Through a critical inquiry into various topical cases as well as major theoretical texts within contemporary gender and diversity studies, the course traces the multiple ways in which identity and difference, inclusion and exclusion, equality and inequality are produced and reproduced in ongoing flows of negotiation and transformation. The course is rooted in intersectional feminism, critical race theory, queer and trans studies, decolonial theory, and other critical frameworks that link together academic scholarship and grassroots activism. The emergence of various social movements during the 1960s and 1970s – including the women’s movement, the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, and LGBT+ activism – serves as a historical and conceptual starting point of the course. Special attention is directed to how intersectional feminisms and queer activisms have challenged the identity politics of mainstream social justice movements, and to the implications of these interventions for academic knowledge production. Subsequently, the course looks into the entangled workings of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, religion, and other ‘crucial differences’ through a variety of current case studies. From the ‘headscarf debates' and anti-Muslim racism in France to the medicalization of intersex bodies, from the rise of Dutch homonationalism to queer and anti-racist environmental movements, the course critically examines the manifold dynamics of difference, power, and inequality in the twenty-first century. Simultaneously, the course traces a future landscape of possibility for minoritarian subjects – including women, queer and trans people, persons of color and indigenous people, as well as a range of nonhuman ‘others’ – by mapping critical strategies of resistance, resilience, and social justice. Prerequisites HUM2003 The Making of Crucial Differences (strongly recommended!) or another relevant 2000-level course in the Humanities or Social Sciences.

Full course description

The long-run economic development of countries, as well as inequality within countries are the major topics of this course. The long-run growth part deals with topics such as basic growth theories, including institutions, population, education, health, and migration. The inequality part relates to how the distribution of income, access to education, health services, or infrastructure can be highly uneven and become a major obstacle for economic development. Throuhout the course, policy implications and potential actions related to these topics are taken into consideration and discussed.

Course objectives

• To provide participants with an overview of major economic concepts and policies in development issues, such as growth and population dynamics, education, aid, trade and debt. 
• To deliver the skills needed to consider development problems and approach them in a rigorous and critical way, using both economic theories and policy analysis. 

Prerequisites

SSC1027 Principles of Economics. Knowledge of basic quantitative concepts such as reading and working with graphs and simple equations is also a prerequisite. 

This course delves into the sociological-historical contexts of non-institutionalized ideologies at the inter-cultural and inter-disciplinary crossroads of eastern and western religious, philosophical, psychological, and scientific discourses in modern western cultures. It focuses on alternative beliefs and practices of eastern and western charismatic leaders and new religious movements—popularly referred to as "spiritual teachers" or "gurus" and "cults"—in Europe and North America, after 1800. This includes Ralph Waldo Emerson's American Transcendentalism, Helena Blavatsky's Theosophy, Phineas Quimby's New Thought, Vivekananda's Neo-Hinduism, D.T. Suzuki's Neo-Buddhism, Inayat Khan's Neo-Sufism, Count Keyserling's Darmstadt School, C.G. Jung's Eranos Circle and various New Age movements. Students critically reflect on such alternative quests for meaning outside conventional sciences and religions. In doing so, they learn more about post-Enlightenment responses to the "age of reason," post-colonial encounters between eastern and western traditions in a globalizing world, and post-modern blends of methods and theories from different academic and societal domains, which have culminated in a growing cultic milieu of seekers across modern western cultures. Seekers are individuals who collectively identify as spiritual, but not religious. During this course, students reflect on questions such as: Why have so many seekers in modern western cultures turned away from conventional western religions and sciences? Why are they turning to eastern and alternative western traditions instead? How are they selectively combining eastern and western methods and theories into new sources of meaning? What combinations have we seen in the recent past and which ones do we see around today?

This course offers a study of personality and difference from a psychological perspective. This course examines why and when a person behaves in a different way than someone else and how personality impacts what will happen to us in our life. The course also discusses practical applications of theory and research findings and learns to apply measurement techniques for assessing individual differences. The course explores the different theoretical conceptualizations and measurement approaches of personality and intelligence. Based on the purpose of the assessment, different methods may prove more or less useful. The course discovers different explanations for why people differ in their personality and their level of intelligence. The course looks at physiological, evolutionary-genetic, as well as contextual explanations. Further, the course analyzes the relationship between personality, intelligence, and meaningful life events. What personality traits are important for marital satisfaction and what characteristics make us become a criminal? But also, how does becoming a parent or getting a new job change our personality? Lastly the course introduces real life applications of knowledge on personality and intelligence. Specifically, the course discusses how this knowledge is used in clinical settings (e.g., when having patients with a personality disorders) and in organizational settings (e.g., for personnel selection purposes).

This course provides an advanced introduction to the field of human rights by exploring and parsing out disagreement on divisive and polemical issues. The course analyzes how a variety of key issues of legal concern, such as hate speech, social welfare, dignity, the death penalty, and discrimination, are addressed by a variety of domestic and international institutions, such as the European Court of Human Rights, the UN, and the Supreme Court of the United States. This course is predominantly legal in character, social scientific explanation and understanding are not the focus of the course. Rather, the course concentrates on analyzing the justification of legal decisions in accordance with legal rules and principles.

This course introduces students to the basic principles and molecular techniques in genetics (in the context of oncology), to develop basic competences in the planning and performance of experiments and the evaluation of results. The course consists of 6 sessions of approx. 4 hours and covers topics such as RNA isolation/purification/quantification, staining procedures, protein detection, basic bioinformatics (commonly used databases, finding gene sequences of a specific gene, design amplification primers for a specific genetic region, etc) and image analysis using online available tools. Furthermore, this course provides basic knowledge on Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and Laboratory Safety Regulations. Besides the hands-on time in the lab, each session requires preparation beforehand. Lab experience is not required, although biological and chemical background knowledge at secondary school level is recommendable for full understanding of the provided techniques. In the first lab session, pipetting skills will be trained or refreshed. Prerequisite This course is designed to be taken in combination with SCI2022 Genetics and Evolution. Students who wish to take this course should concurrently enroll in SCI2022 Genetics and Evolution or have taken SCI2022 Genetics and Evolution before.