Trinity College Dublin

This course explores the cultural impact which selected high-profile true crime narratives have had upon works of literature, non-fiction, popular literature and film. It explores the various ways in which certain real life crimes have inspired a range of cultural responses. The course incorporates weeks on classic non-fiction true crime texts as well as works of memoir, film, literary fiction and popular fiction which have been inspired by real-life cases. Additionally, students engage with the current true-crime podcasting landscape and other true crime media. 

This course considers both the theoretical and practical questions which arise in this evolving area of the law. Initially, the course examines the role of the media in a constitutional democracy. The constitutional protection of the media in Ireland is compared with similar regimes in other jurisdictions with particular emphasis on the jurisprudence of the European Convention of Human Rights. The course addresses a number of specific areas of media law. Lectures deal with topics such as privacy, contempt of court, the protection of journalistic sources, obscenity, blasphemy, and the regulatory regimes in Ireland and in the EU. Throughout the course, lectures explore the issues raised by the rise of new media forms like the internet.
 

In this course, students are introduced to a range of modernist authors from a variety of contexts and working in various genres and modes, including poetry, fic on, and the essay.  They learn how to recognize and articulate different conceptualizations of literary modernism from the early 20th century to the present. Students articulate the differences and interrelationships between some of the key figures of literary modernism across a range of cultural contexts. Students explore the debates regarding the multiple possible ways of defining literary modernisms. They gain a clear sense of how literary modernisms fit in within the literary histories of English, European, and US American literature. 

Religion is prominent in public debates, in the media, and in the cultural imaginary of people's daily life, no matter whether they see themselves as believers or not. In turn, religions also “make use” of media and mediation, creating symbolic representations and special experiences, be it through architecture and music, images and narratives, or through clothes and body practices. The course focuses on how the relationship between religion and media can be studied, and how this can help to better understand the role of religion in the public sphere. Our understanding of media reaches beyond TV and the internet – scripture and dance, money, and microphones are means of mediating religion as well. The course explores what a medium is; how religions are depicted in the media; how religions act on and react to new media; and how religions can be understood as mediation while often claiming to provide “immediate” and direct access to divine spheres.

In high value added manufacturing industry, engineers are required to understand how mechanical systems and materials behave at length scales at the micron level. This course develops the student’s skills and knowledge in both precision engineering and micro engineering. The course considers the selected topics in precision, micromanufacturing, ranging from enabling technologies, and processes to applications. This is research-lead, hence the content can vary on a year-to-year basis. Currently, most of the course focuses on LASER based manufacturing, LASER-Additive Manufacturing (3D printing) with metallic materials, and related automation.   

Developmental psychology is the scientific study of age‐related change and consistency across the spectrum of human growth. This course builds on students' prior knowledge and introduces them to longstanding and current issues. The focus is on presenting the key elements of each perspective under scrutiny and then inviting students to critically review, examine, and evaluate the available information. Topics include: Stressed out kids? The over-scheduling debate. Prejudiced from preschool? The development of stigma in childhood. Decision-making in pediatrics: How should child patients get involved? Are children reliable and credible witnesses? Impressionable young minds? Screen time & child outcomes.  

This course presents a practical and theoretical introduction to modern autonomous mobile robot systems. It gives students a broad introduction to the field spanning topics including hardware, software, AI and machine learning, and human-robot interaction and robot ethics. Students study the technology and methods underlying a robot’s ability to sense and act in its environment. Through a series of labs and assignments, students gain a proficiency in developing applications for robots in both simulation and real-world settings  The course has the following key components: an introduction to mobile robots – sensors, actuators, and control paradigms; the fundamental theory for autonomous mobile robots (kinematics, localization, mapping, and path planning); the scientific methods for evaluating robot performance; an introduction to the field of human-robot interaction; and robots-in-the-wild: case studies of real-world robots and their ethical implications.

The course is an interdisciplinary course drawing on political science, law, and history. Although the major focus of the course is on the European Court of Justice, the politics and law of other courts and international tribunals are also discussed, certainly including the United States Supreme Court and the politics of the US constitution, but also perhaps including the Supreme Court of Ireland and the German Bundesverfassungsgericht as well as international dispute settlement tribunals such as the World Trade Organization, Investor-State Dispute Settlement systems, and the European Convention on Human Rights. Students also study alternative approaches to understanding and investigating court decision-making, including through a focus on legal texts, use of the comparative method, archival research, judicial biography, and quantitative approaches.

Topics include regular languages, context-free languages, feature structures, and brief introductions to probabilistic methods in natural language processing and recursive computation of semantic values from grammatical structures.

The problems facing less developed countries are among the greatest challenges facing the world today. This course focuses on the diverse structures and common characteristics of less developed countries and offers an evaluation of policies being pursued. It begins by discussing the idea of economic development before moving onto sources of and barriers to development. It uses contemporary models of economic development to investigate why some countries are rich and others are poor.