Trinity College Dublin

The course is taught jointly by the School of Natural Sciences and the School of Psychology, and begins with a brief history of behavioral research. Students are introduced to various aspects of learning, cultural transmission, cognition, play, and intelligence in animals, including humans. They explore the animal’s behavior in its environment and why all individuals of a species do not behave in the same way. The course addresses the importance of an understanding of behavior in relation to conservation in the wild and in zoos, and in relation to climate change.

This course covers approaches to meeting the needs of people with neurological disorders and progressive neurological diseases. As the production of purposeful goal directed movement pervades all aspects of behavior, there is a specific focus upon the physical, psychological, and social consequences of movement dysfunction. The course deals with the scientific principles underlying neurological rehabilitation, including motor control and learning. Students are also introduced to intervention strategies that are designed to maintain or re-establish functional capability, such as brain-computer interfaces, robot assisted therapy, deep brain stimulation, and cortical stimulation.

How do we acquire language? How are we to interpret the fact that language use varies according to geography, social class, gender, and context? Why do languages die? What is the impact of immigration on language attitudes, language acquisition, and language transmission? This course attempts to provide the beginnings of answers to such questions, as well as many others relating to language, the individual, and society.

This course contemplates the unfolding ecological crisis of modern industrial society, from a sociological perspective, as the central conflict of our times. It explores key theoretical and substantive concerns in a critical evaluation of the relationship between human beings and the natural world, the interactions between society and environment, and the linkages between social issues and environmental problems. To do so, the course introduces students to the subfield of environmental sociology, to its central themes and foci, as well as to environmental and ecological thought more generally. It considers historical and sociological dimensions of the environmental movement and explores important debates and contrasting perspectives in ecological politics. Given its salience at the contemporary conjuncture, particular attention is given to the problem of anthropogenic climate change. The course seeks to explore the societal dimensions of this problem and consider the sociological concerns of power and conflict in an assessment of the challenges it poses and the practical and ethical questions it raises.