University of Edinburgh

This is a semester 1 course for beginners with no previous knowledge of German, designed to give absolute beginners a basic, working knowledge of spoken and written German. The course is not suitable for students with previous knowledge of German. All students take all elements of assessment, including the examination.

This course is an introduction to the political, economic, social and cultural history of the Middle East from 1950 to the present. It covers the coming to independence of nation-states in the region after the Second World War and examines the subsequent domestic and regional conflicts, ranging from nationalism, statism and socialism to Islamism and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Probability theory, the mathematical description of chance, is a subject in its own right but also the bedrock on which statistics and data science are built. We are surrounded by important questions involving chance but our intuition on the subject is often wrong. This course gives an understanding of the subject that help students understand issues where chance plays a central role as well as preparing them for further study.
 

The course provides an introduction to selected genres of Celtic literature from the early modern and modern periods, and an understanding of the social and historical background that gave rise to the texts studied. Two strands make up the course, one dealing with the Scottish Gaelic tradition and the other looking at Early Modern and Modern Irish literature. English translations are used throughout the course, and no knowledge of the original Celtic languages is required. The course is aimed at students who have successfully completed Celtic Civilization 1A and 1B, as well as Heroes, Wonders, Saints and Sagas: Medieval Celtic Literature in Translation, but it is also open to anyone who has taken a course in a literary or historical or similar subject at university level and wishes to explore the Celtic tradition. The course does not provide a comprehensive survey of the two literatures studied, but rather to examine in greater depth certain periods or themes or genres which are characteristic of the tradition, which offer cross-cultural comparisons within the Celtic world, and which are amenable to study through translation. For history students, the course offers insight into the nature and working of the two literary traditions; for literature students, enhanced understanding of the social and political background to the selected parts of Scottish Gaelic and Early Modern and Modern Irish literature; for students of Celtic Studies, the opportunity to range widely in the early modern and modern fields.

The course looks at the way assets are valued in financial markets. It considers interest rates and the pricing of fixed-income bonds, stock market prices and returns, stock market risk and the influence of risk on the pricing of shares, and the characteristics and pricing of financial futures and options. The course also covers some aspects of company finance theory. These include business investment decisions, sources of finance, the cost of capital, the financial structure decision, and the dividend decision.

This course develops a rigorous understanding of core economic models and analysis, together with an ability to apply the analysis in a variety of contexts. It looks at the theory of the firm and market structure, factor markets, externalities, the role of government and general equilibrium, with applications to monopoly and oligopoly, stock markets, property rights and public goods. Along with two economics lectures each week, a third lecture focuses on mathematical techniques including constrained optimization. Students with a weak math background need to be prepared to work at developing their math skills.