University of Edinburgh

This is a two-semester course on the classical interactions of light and matter (electromagnetism), and the relationship between space and time (special relativity). The focus of the course is similarly twofold; there is emphasis on developing skills to solve physical problems, and on the close interplay between mathematical results and physical laws.

The course provides students with an understanding of qualitative and quantitative approaches to research, and the key characteristics of common research designs applicable to nursing and healthcare, (qualitative, quantitative, and participatory approaches) linked to the theories that underpin them. Sampling and data collection methods are introduced. An understanding of research governance, ethics, and user involvement are developed.
 

This course explores a selection of topics in Buddhist ethics, using a range of sources from historical contexts and contemporary debate. Themes include ecology and animal rights, human rights (including abortion, euthanasia, and issues of equality), war and peace, and economic ethics. The course begins with an introductory discussion of the foundations of Buddhist ethics, including ideas such as karma and rebirth, and key Buddhist virtues and ideals. Ethical topics are then explored in turn, using a range of sources from a variety of Buddhist contexts, historical and contemporary.

This course considers art from around the world in order to understand the ways in which different religions, power structures, and intercultural relations impacted upon artists, objects, and audiences. Students learn about the key works and ideas that underpin this period in the history of art. Lectures are supported by readings and activities on the course website. In tutorials, students put ideas and skills into practice. Some of the tutorials take place in Edinburgh's museums and galleries. 

The course starts with a look at the evolution of animal body plans and physiological systems through the radiations of animal life and leads on to a series of lectures on animal adaptations in marine environments. The course then looks at the evolution and diversification of vertebrate body plans, leading into a detailed study of the mammals. The course ends with a section on animal associations, including symbiosis and parasitism, and considers the adaptations associated with living in or on other animals.

This course explores the diverse forms of collaboration in which anthropologists are involved. Whether in working across academic disciplines, with Amazonian people to document an indigenous language, co-authoring ethnographic texts with local research assistants, or working with government officials to design public health policies, collaboration has become an ethical imperative that underscores the potential benefits and challenges of contemporary anthropology. The course involves thinking creatively about new possibilities for collaborative practice in anthropology. It also invites critical thinking about how, whether in academia, international development, artistic practice, or the business world, collaboration has become a seemingly ubiquitous regime of value in the contemporary world.

This course introduces students to key themes and debates in early modern history (c. 1500-1800), using selected case studies from Britain, Europe and the wider world. Particular attention is paid to the usefulness (or otherwise) of the concept of "early modernity," and the extent to which it can be applied to the world beyond Europe.

The course shows how social research can shed light on topical social and political debates. Students are given opportunities to reflect critically on the ways in which evidence is used in debate about public policy. This course illustrates how social research can shed light on topical social and political debates. The specific aims are to understand how academic enquiry can be used to understand public political debates and public policy to understand how evidence informs debates, and how it is sometimes distorted and misused in these debates; to understand how social and political theory can be brought to bear on understanding topical debates; and to develop the skills of engaging in topical debates in a rational and evidence-based way while also taking account of the important role of ideology and emotion. 

The course enables students to understand and use multilevel models mainly in the context of social science, but examples are also given from medicine and some aspects of biological science. The focus is on multilevel models for quantitative, binary, and multinomial outcomes, with further sessions on models for ordinal and count outcomes. The importance of multilevel modelling for longitudinal data is explained. Analysis is conducted using the Noteable service and the R Stan statistical modelling package, which is free to all users.

This course focuses on comic writing for the English stage during one of its most exuberantly creative periods. Beginning with the romantic comedy of Shakespeare and concluding with some of the most daringly sceptical drama of the Restoration period, the course explores the varieties of comic theatre developed over the 17th century, including festive comedy, the carnivalesque, fable, city comedy, and different modes of satire. In doing so, it examines the comic engagement with a range of moral, social and political debates and conflicts, both of the early modern period and in our own time. It also reads the plays in the light of theories of the purposes and workings of comedy, as well as in the context of the very different social and staging conditions obtaining at either end of the century.