Norway

This course offers analysis and discussion of the actors, institutions, and selected policy areas of contemporary politics in the UK. Students are given an overview of features that are characteristic of British politics, perceived within a broader comparative perspective. Context is added through lectures devoted to three specific periods – those of ‘Thatcherism’ (1980s), New Labour (1997-2010), and Conservative hegemony in the era of Brexit (2010s). Particular attention is devoted to theories and concepts from political science, such as the Westminster model, the majoritarian electoral system, and the union state.

The course provides a basic introduction to cultural and narrative criminology, neutralization theory, and studies of crime, war, and social harm inspired by discourse and narrative analysis. It discusses links between the different traditions and the background in social constructivist theory and methodological influences from the humanities.

This is a beginner’s course for international students. Students develop basic communicative skills in Norwegian. Students learn to make themselves understood both orally and in writing using basic vocabulary and basic grammatical structures. Examples of topics covered are talking about oneself and one’s family and hobbies. After completing the course, students are able to communicate about topics covered in the course. Students are able to express themselves coherently both orally and in writing. They are able to express thoughts and opinions about everyday topics. Their pronunciation is good enough to not disrupt communication. They are able to use and understand basic grammar covered in the course.

The course provides in-depth analyses of scientific knowledge (classical and recent, theoretical and empirical) about the relations between cognition, emotion, and language from the perspectives of psychological and developmental sciences. A large range of cognitive, emotional and language phenomena (typical and abnormal) as well as scientific theories and methods are examined.

This course introduces the field of digital methods for undergraduate students. It requires no coding or programming skills or prior experience with digital research tools. It centers on hands-on exercises and mini-projects to explore the potential utility and versatility of a broad range of tools (e.g., for issue crawling and mapping, data scraping, text mining, and visualizing data). The course teaches students to extract or scrape text and interaction data from the Internet, including important social media platforms, and to visualize and analyze these data in novel ways and with novel means. The course considerably augments the student’s range of means to access and analyze empirical material more generally: it is meant to generate competences which can be of use to complement and nuance virtually any social scientific investigation (in tandem, or not, with traditional methods). The course also touches upon more theoretical aspects and discussions associated with digital sociology and the use of digital methods, including theories about how (social) media frames and informs interaction, about the relationship between the digital and the social, and about the ethical implications and problems of digital research. Yet, it focuses on the development of technical skills and upon gaining familiarity with the software tools introduced during the course. The course involves extensive group work, including the final assessment which is completed as a group.

The course gives an introduction to gender equality in the Nordic context. It provides an overview of how the concept of gender equality has developed, and how it is implemented. The focus is on the period after the 1970s. Central themes in the course include: gender equality as a concept; work-life balance; Nordic masculinities; gender equality in an intersectional perspective; gender equality and the military; gender-based violence; gender equality as nation branding; gender and sustainability.

This course offers an introduction to Norwegian history, life, and society. Topics include: Norwegian history, geography, the political system, foreign politics, economics, the welfare state, religion, the judicial system, the role of the family in Norwegian society, Norwegian literature and language, Norwegian visual arts, culture, and identity. The course provides insight into Norwegian way of life and Norwegian identity seen in the light of historical, political, and cultural development.