University of Edinburgh

This course provides an introduction to archaeology for students who may or may not have studied the subject before. The course outlines what archaeology is, and how it is practiced. Topics include principles and methods of archaeological investigation, analysis, and reconstruction; human evolution and the hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic; and early agricultural societies, which charts the crucial shift from hunting and gathering to farming in the Near East and Europe.

 

This course explores issues of crime and detection in a variety of literary texts from different historical contexts and from a variety of European and, depending on staff availability, also Latin American countries. This is done in relation to the main tropes of the genre and a range of theoretical approaches. It considers the contexts in which the texts appear and how crime fiction addresses ideological and social issues.
 

This course examines how working-class writers have represented themselves as well as how they have been represented by others. It pays due attention to the formal modes employed by working-class writing (realism, expressionism, surrealism, fantasy etc.) across a range of genres - fiction, poetry, drama, and film. The course moves from the 19th century to the present in order to understand how class identities change over time yet it also affirms how the reconstitution of class is not synonymous with its disappearance. The course focuses on key issues such as the relationship between culture and politics, the intellectual or writer as a socially mediated figure, solidarity and individuality, social mobility, gender, voice and vernacular, the politics of representation.

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.