Trinity College Dublin

Coastal regions are some of the most dynamic on Earth, not least because human and natural processes act in tight connection to each other. This dynamism poses one of the great societal challenges of the 21st Century. Building upon a basic, foundational knowledge of ocean and coastal processes covered in relevant courses within the first and second year ("Spaceship Earth" and "Physical Geography: Dynamic Earth"), students gain wide ranging theoretical and practical skills required to address those challenges. The lectures and seminars take students on a journey that highlights how the natural processes operating within estuaries and on coasts are a function of external factors (past and present climate, geology, human influences) and feedbacks in which the landforms themselves affect the operation of processes that shape the landforms. Equipped with this knowledge, and several examples from around the world, students put their knowledge into practice. A day field trip and practical exercise challenges students to apply what they have learnt to real-world coastal management problems. 

This course offers an introductory survey of the development and major artistic achievements of Roman art and architecture from the early Republic to the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian in the early 2nd century AD. The course places art and architecture in its social, political, and cultural context. It explores themes such as the representation of the human form, the use of narrative and mythology in art, urbanization, and the development of architectural forms such as temples, commemorative monuments, and buildings for spectacle and leisure with attention to some of the iconic buildings and sites of the ancient world, such as the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and Pompeii.

The course equips students with an understanding of engineering approaches to advanced biomedical imaging. It strongly focuses understanding the physical processes that occur between a particular imaging modality and the biological material being investigated. This course introduces the physical concepts of advanced medical imaging via lectures focused on specific imaging modalities. Lectures cover various imaging techniques to provide an advanced understanding of the physics of the signal and its interaction with biological tissue; image formation or reconstruction; modality-specific issues for image quality; clinical applications; and biological effects and safety. This course uses state-of-the-art emerging imaging modalities in research and engineering approaches to advance such techniques to the clinic.  

Cosmology traces developments in the mythological and natural-scientific study of the universe in its complex history. This course presents these developments as they have been interpreted from biblical, theological, and philosophical perspectives, and the conditions under which they have been understood to conflict or converge with cosmologies from the natural sciences, particularly since the 16th century. It explores how specific cosmologies emerged and in turn impacted on theology, science and culture, in astronomy, thermodynamics, emerging universe models, evolutionary theory and the return to narrative in the natural sciences. It includes implications for anthropology: the human person as created in the image of God (imago Dei); as embodied and free, contingent and subject to frailty and failure (“sin”); as "steward" of creation; and as inhabitant of the earthly cosmopolis. 

This courses explores the nature and impacts of globalization in Africa. It focuses on the geography of HIV/AIDS, gender and development, China’s rising role in the continent, oil politics and the so called “resource curse” or paradox of plenty that Africa is the most resource rich continent in the world but also the poorest. Other topics covered included gender and the mobile phone revolution. 

The issue of market provision and/or state provision provides a central and recurring theme in this course. Within each policy area covered, the course investigates market failure and government failure, via for example consideration of externalities, informational problems, and an examination of the public choice perspective with respect to possible government failure. Specific topics to be covered include but are not limited to a subset of the following: resource allocation (regulated markets and/or state); taxation; distribution, inequality, and poverty; economic growth, employment, and unemployment; regulation; care (formal/paid and informal/unpaid); competition; education; health; housing; aging; agriculture; and energy. 

Social innovation has been described as the process of developing and deploying effective solutions to challenging and often systemic societal and environmental issues. This course examines patterns of social innovation against a backdrop of the great climate and biodiversity crises of our times, with cases drawn from climate justice, the circular economy, nature-based enterprise and food systems. The course critically assesses the evidence in support of social innovation and examines theory and practice – local and international - in social innovation, social purpose scaling, social value creation, and impact measurement.  Students consider the organizational settings that social innovators adopt, including social and solidarity enterprises. Students work with theory, case studies, and their own projects to identify how social innovation can respond to and even drive social-economic-political change in the current context. 

This course gives an overview of contemporary approaches to tissue and cell engineering, including stem cells, cellular signaling, biomaterial scaffolds, use of bioreactors in tissue engineering, and controlled release strategies. Students explore ethical considerations related to clinical application of tissue and cell engineering technology. Topics include stem cells, embryogenesis, cellular signaling, extracellular matrix as a scaffold, degradable biomaterials for tissue engineering, cell-material interactions, scaffold design and fabrication, controlled drug release in tissue engineering, bioreactors in tissue engineering, production of mesenchymal stem cells, industrial tissue engineering manufacturing, cartilage tissue engineering, bone tissue engineering, cardiovascular tissue engineering, corneal tissue engineering and replacement, tissue engineering of the intervertebral disc (IVD). 

The course offers an overview of Western philosophy and analyses the questions treated in its main branches. This course studies the Greeks as the founders of the Western philosophical tradition, key texts, and ideas relating to Presocratic philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, emphasizing on metaphysical questions about the nature of reality and of the soul.  The course covers the medieval era through the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, emphasizing on his use of an Aristotelian approach to metaphysical notions of substance and soul, as well as his arguments for the existence of God. The study of modern philosophy focuses on Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein. In this part of the course, students explore the views of these thinkers on questions like: What is knowledge, and is it possible? How is the mind related to the body? What is meant by virtue ethics? What is the relation between language and the world?

This course provides an overview of Islamic history. It presents and discusses Islamic scriptures, doctrines, and rituals. The course demonstrates the significance and development within Islam of concepts such as prophethood, revelation, jihad, theology, law, and gender. Students develop an understanding of the contribution of Islamic civilization to human culture and examine various scholarly approaches to the study of Islam.