Trinity College Dublin

All societies have patterns of stratification and inequality, i.e. structured differences in economic resources, power, and prestige which are relatively enduring and often reproduced between generations. What’s interesting from a sociological perspective is that the structure and pattern of these inequalities varies between societies and over time in the same society. This suggests that the fundamental processes driving inequality and stratification are social and economic processes. This course focuses on the theories and measures of social class as well as social class inequalities in electoral behavior, education, and health.

This course provides students with an in-depth understanding of human rights in the Middle East and North Africa from theoretical and practical perspectives. The course gives an overview of the state of international human rights discourse and looks at the implementation of human rights law in the regions of the Middle East and North Africa. The theoretical perspective both engage the international human rights system and also consider debates around the universality of rights and the relationship between Islam and human rights.

Hugh Kenner described Faulkner as "the last novelist," because in spite of his complex and challenging modernist narratives he maintained a 19th century-rooted belief in fiction’s humanist power and social relevance, and that the writer’s job is "to bring news of the world." This course is an opportunity to read and reflect on Faulkner in a sustained way, where students read and discuss Faulkner’s most significant and influential fiction and consider his iterative stylized representation of the American South.