Norway

This course addresses how the film medium can provide alternative historical, aesthetic, analytical, and theoretical expressions. The course focuses on various alternatives to the culturally and financially dominant model of Hollywood cinema, and to the characteristics of this model in terms of film style and narrative. The course  invites analysis and theoretical discussions on larger aesthetic movements and trends, as well as focused studies on specific films and audiovisual images. The course illustrates the historical conditions that form the basis of various cinematic orientations, and explores how film has always in various ways tested the limits and characteristics of the medium. The course offers knowledge to students who want to work with film in academic and/or other professional contexts, such as in film production, cultural work, or in various journalistic contexts. Prior basic knowledge of film history, film/media theory, and academic writing is recommended.

This course examines aspects of the cultural history of magic with a focus on the period of the witch-hunts in early modern Europe. The course explores how conceptions of magic, witchcraft, and trolldom changed over time; how they were put to use in philosophical reflections, demonological manuals, legislative texts, and oral traditions; and how these ideas became social realities. From the 1500s, combating witchcraft with legislation and judicial prosecution became an important concern for authorities all over Europe. Witchcraft trials consequently became a nexus between law, theology, and the culture of the common people. In this course, students address the cultural and social basis of this development, and review a selection of Norwegian witchcraft trials. The course also introduces later redefinitions of magic expressed in modern occultism and Neopaganism.

This course is an intermediate to advanced level molecular biology course, which focuses on structure and maintenance of genomes, as well as gene expression. The course discusses topics including major methods used in molecular biology; principles of genome organization and dynamics; how genetic information is stored and expressed; and the main mechanisms of gene regulation. The course requires students to have met specific prerequisites in order to enroll in the course.