Trinity College Dublin

This course introduces students to intellectual, political, social, and cultural trends in the Middle East (19th-20th centuries). Important political, social, and cultural developments in the region are studied. In this case, Lebanon serves as a case study for various trends that influenced the Middle East during the period in question.

The course provides a brief introduction to prehistoric Ireland, and it covers in more detail the period from the arrival of Christianity in the fifth century to the eve of the first Viking attacks at the end of the eighth. The focus is wide-ranging, from early Irish politics and the emergence of a high-kingship to St Patrick and the impact of Christianization, from Brehon law and the bonds of society to the study of landscape and settlement and early Irish farming, and from Hiberno-Latin and Gaelic literature to the visual art that culminated in the creation of the greatest masterpiece of the Golden Age, the Book of Kells.

This course investigates the responsibilities and limitations of government in a market economy. It covers traditional public-finance topics of public goods, externalities, unwanted markets, and asymmetric information alongside social insurance, moral hazard, and social mobility. Topics Covered Include: Public goods, Social costs and benefits, Restraint on personal choice, Information and efficiency, Social insurance and moral hazard, Social justice in taxation and without government, The attributes and consequences of entitlements, Old age and health care entitlements, The choice of taxation, Optimal taxation and alternative tax bases, and the growth of government and competing views on the need for government

Students study one of the most exciting periods of British literary and social history, when tumultuous political and social changes such as revolution and industrialization produced a range of remarkable and enduring literary responses. The course examines British Romantic literature through the close study of a broad range of prose, poetry, and non-fiction. The course is structured around examination of the work of the "Big Six" high Romantic writers, whose work is read alongside that of noncanonical Romantic writers. It examines a wide range of literary genres from the period, including various forms of poetry, the novel, and non-fictional prose writing, and offers the opportunity to study both canonical and lesser-known authors. 

This course offers an introduction to the earliest literature in English and the language it is written in. Old English is the form of English used between the fifth and eleventh century beside languages like Celtic, Old Norse and Latin. It is one of the earliest European vernaculars to have a substantial body of written literature. This course begins by reading some texts in translation and introducing basic aspects of the grammar of the language. Students read texts in the original with the help of glossaries and other aids. At the end of the course, students read extracts from the most famous poem in Old English, Beowulf.