Trinity College Dublin

This course introduces students to the main institutions of the American political system: Presidency, Congress, Judiciary. In the process, we learn about the way in which the members of these institutions are selected, the functions played by each of these institutions, and the way in which they interact under the checks and balances system of the United States. Special attention will be given to the historical development of these relationships. The course also covers the institutional structure of the US, such as the Constitution, the federal system, and the party system.

By the end of this course, students have a critical understanding and comprehensive knowledge of the government and politics in the US, as well as the processes through which policy making takes place. Through discussions of current and past events and a close following of the Congressional electoral campaign taking place during the term students are familiarized with examples of how these institutions and processes interact.

From his emergence on the international stage with the Italian and Egyptian campaigns of the late 1790s to his death in 1821 and beyond, Napoleon Bonaparte’s career, first as all-conquering general, then as Emperor and finally as exile inspired an unprecedented explosion of visual imagery throughout Europe. From epic canvases of the enlightened hero on horseback and caustic caricatures of a demented ‘little Boney’ to physical mementos of the Emperor and booty plundered during the wars he waged, these images and objects offer important insights into how contemporaries understood and expressed their experience of revolution and regime change, of conquest and colonisation, of victory and defeat. Surveying the history of the Napoleonic period and its aftermath through its visual and material culture, this course draws upon local and international research collections to explore the interaction between image-making and empire-building in the early 19th century and to interrogate the relationship between art and politics in the making of modernity. In so doing, it also asks how historians can bring visual culture to bear upon their study of the past.

This course teaches critical thinking approaches, methods, and techniques for evaluating information and making sound decisions. It examines misinformation, common logical fallacies, and misleading uses of statistics and data visualization, using everyday examples to build practical analytical skills. Emphasis is placed on assessing the credibility and validity of information in an environment saturated with competing claims. By strengthening the ability to identify and challenge misinformation, the course highlights the importance of critical thinking for informed decision-making, scientific literacy, and the functioning of democratic societies.

This course looks at historical approaches to political trials in the twentieth century with a focus on the Scottsboro Trial, a major civil rights case in the Depression-era United States. Which historical sources can we use to understand the history of political trials, justice, and law? What makes a trial 'political'? The course examines a diverse range of sources including the contemporary press, poetry, theater, legal documents, speeches, and literature from the period, as well as the memory of the case through the Cold War and beyond. The course places the case in an international perspective and uses it to examine the controversial and contested intersection between contemporary law, race, and politics.

This course provides an overview of some of the major developments in American culture since 1840. It introduces the basic methods of cultural history and teaches them how to place cultural developments within broader economic, political, and social contexts. Some of the themes discussed in the module include: the way culture has shaped racial, gender, and class conflicts and identities; the role of popular music in American life; the growth of advertising and consumer culture; the role of culture in debates over immigration and multiculturalism; and how the conquest of the American West was registered in American culture.

This course explores the evolution of the Great American Songbook, a loosely defined canon of influential American popular songs from the early 20th century. These songs, many originating from Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood, have shaped the foundation of American popular music. Students examine the craft of songwriting, the business of music publishing, and the cultural contexts that influenced the work of composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers. Through musical and lyrical analysis, historical inquiry, and engagement with primary sources, students develop a critical understanding of the enduring legacy of these songs and their impact on jazz, musical theatre, and contemporary popular music.

This course enables students to apply key areas of psychology in the understanding and practice of post-primary education and specifically provides a clear, reflective, and critical knowledge of areas such as adolescent development, identity development through adolescence, bully/victim problems, growth mindset, intelligence, and applied issues pertinent to bereavement, separation, and divorce.

This course engages with practical and theoretical questions of theater and performance as social practices. By focusing on various theatrical outputs and their reception, paying particular attention to history, politics, national identity, justice and collective memory, this course showcases the importance played by theater practitioners, performers and playwrights in Latin America in terms of validating stories from subaltern groups, including indigenous communities, in relation to power.

2 years of university-level Spanish (or B1 level) is required in order to take this course.

This course offers an introduction to the history of modern Eastern Europe, with a focus on the region’s politics, society, and culture, from the late 19th century to the present. It traces the collapse of the Ottoman, Habsburg, and Russian empires; the rise of nationalism and creation of nation-states; the impact of the world wars; the establishment and evolution of communist regimes; and the region’s transition to democracy after the fall of communism in 1989. Through engagement with primary sources, memoirs, literature, artistic works, and major historiographical debates, the course explores how the countries of the region continue to grapple with the questions of identity, memory, power, and belonging raised during Europe’s tumultuous twentieth century.

The institutional church never had the kind of control over the populace of medieval Europe that modern people think it did. This course explores the multiplicity of types of belief and practice amongst those who lived in accordance with the church’s teaching—monks and nuns, wandering preachers, pious families—and the varieties of resistance among those who did not—Jews, Muslims, and heretics, social revolutionaries, sexual nonconformists, practitioners of the occult, student wastrels. The course discusses the kinds of sources that tell us about these groups, including saints’ lives, chronicles, Inquisition registers, letters, and poetry. This course helps students appreciate how people in the past operated much as people do today, but in a very different world with a different set of assumptions. Continuous emphasis is placed on the geographical and cultural diversity of medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, and the decentralized and multivocal nature of medieval religion.