University of Edinburgh

This course explores some of the main trends of French and Francophone life writing since the beginning of the 21st century, and evaluates in what ways these trends (and the authorial strategies associated with them) offer new perspectives on the traditional concerns of the literary genre of autobiography, reflecting the increasing gender and ethnic diversity apparent amongst contemporary authors of French and Francophone literature. Questions of personal identity are at the center of this course, with a particular focus on (ethnically) hybrid identities. The course centers on the role of images in contemporary French and Francophone life-writing in order to interrogate the tendency in such works to use images in diverse ways to explore the complexities of identity. Visiting students should have the equivalent of at least two years of study at University level of French.

While this course is based around primary Victorian comic texts, it allows students to understand and apply key concepts in the wider study of comedy: these include forms such as irony, satire, farce, comedy of manners, parody, and black comedy; and theoretical concepts in comedy, such as superiority, incongruity, and relief theories. Students also have the opportunity to study the work of key comedy theorists such as Freud, Bakhtin, and Bergson.
 

The seminar gives an introduction into the different ideas around sex and gender in the Hebrew Bible. It discusses matters such as the creation of man and woman, the connection of sexuality and male struggles for power and honor, laws about sexuality in the Pentateuch, and the use of the marriage metaphor for the relationship between Yhwh and Israel.

This course introduces students to a variety of theoretical models, tools, and techniques which explore psychological well-being and their applicability in personal and professional development, and in the business world. These models are used as the basis for developing self-awareness, personal and professional strength and growth, and evaluating how these can be fostered in others, in order to achieve a positive impact on personal, professional, and organizational performance, through adaptability and change.

An introduction to linear algebra, mainly in R^n but concluding with an introduction to abstract vector spaces. The principal topics are vectors, systems of linear equations, matrices, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, and orthogonality. The important notions of linear independence, span and bases are introduced. This course is both a preparation for the practical use of vectors, matrices, and systems of equations and also lays the groundwork for a more abstract, pure-mathematical treatment of vector spaces. Students learn how to use a computer to calculate the results of some simple matrix operations and to visualize vectors.

This course engages with some of the large theoretical debates in the study of social movements, reading both empirical treatments of particular movements and theoretical treatments of key issues. It is particularly concerned with the social and political context of protest, focusing on basic questions, such as under what circumstances do social movements emerge? How do dissidents choose political tactics and strategies? How do movements affect social and political change?

For most of us, the first intimate relationships that we experience are family relationships, although at other stages of our life-cycle non-familial relationships may dominate. The course explores different sociological understandings of such relationships and debates about the nature of social change in personal life. The course reviews research on parent-child relationships, friendship and kinship relationships, sexual relationships and couple relationships, drawing on North American, Australian, and New Zealand research as well as British literature.

This course provides an introduction to the design and implementation of modern general-purpose operating systems. It concentrates on the operating system kernel with the emphasis being on concepts that lead to practical implementations. Throughout the course reference is made to a number of widely-adopted general-purpose operating systems (including Linux, Windows, and OS X) to illustrate real implementations. An educational operating system is used for the coursework.

This course provides students with a policy-relevant and theoretically informed examination of parliaments in the United Kingdom. It is therefore concerned both with the formal processes and (perhaps more importantly) the cultures, traditions, and relationships that make these institutions work. Although the institutional focus is on the Houses of Parliament and the Scottish Parliament, students are encouraged to think comparatively and to situate these cases in a wider context.

This course is an introduction to what is known as formal or mathematical logic, requiring no prior knowledge of philosophy or mathematics. It does not communicate results about logical systems but instead it imparts a skill - the ability to recognize and construct correct deductions and refutations. The course provides a general introduction to both propositional logic and predicate logic. Lectures and detailed handouts provide the central course material; and weekly tutorial groups provide support for students to work through the formal exercises.