University of London, Queen Mary

This course navigates across European art movements, highlighting an intensive exchange and collaboration between German and Russian artistic and intellectual circles involved in the radical avant-garde practices after the First World War and the October Revolution (1917-1930). Covering debates on the artistic strategies of intervention in society, politics, everyday life, mass media, and urban planning, each session focuses on a theoretical response to a specific problem and a case study of artistic practices across various media and forms, including fine art, architecture, cinema, literature, and theatre.

This course analyzes the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on mental health in society. There have been consequences of the pandemic for mental health in the human population. Considering the potential scale of this problem, there is growing need for medicine to integrate knowledge from related subjects, such as psychology, criminology, psychotherapy, and neuroscience, to precisely understand the mechanisms of ill health. This course brings together the discoveries of science with the life stories behind diagnoses to clarify the mechanisms that drive mental health symptoms. In the book, The Myth of Normal, Dr Gabor Maté makes the claim that society is built on a hidden assumption of generational trauma. Trauma disrupts the connection between mind and body. This psychophysiological problem can be diagnosed by doctors as physical and mental health conditions. While diagnostic labels help individuals understand mental health problems to an extent, the individual remains a member of society and its many challenges. Therefore, this course draws upon research taking place at the Wolfson Institute of Population Health to understand resilience in the context of different challenges, such as adolescence, socioeconomic deprivation and war. The course illustrates the mechanisms by which life experiences impact the mind, including the impact of the pandemic on the disconnect between mind and body.

Through visits to ten of London’s most important institutions, this course examines the development of how institutions curate culture from Renaissance "cabinets of curiosities" to the modern "white cube" gallery space. The course equips students with the historical, theoretical, and practical knowledge necessary for studying culture through institutional collections. Students analyze the techniques and practices museums use to collect, organize, and display their objects; consider the messages these institutions send through their architecture, patronage, and methods of display; and they delve into some of the most important issues affecting cultural institutions today like decolonization, repatriation, and social impact. Aside from the introductory class, the course takes place off campus, with seminar groups visiting a different institution in each meeting. 

This course provides an introduction to the comparative politics of the US and the UK.  Attention is given to similarities as well as differences, and the course uses comparative analysis to throw light on the political systems in both countries.  Occasional reference is made to other countries. The course is structured around four themes: ideologies and foundations, institutions, political actors, and policy.

This course is a basic introduction to the dynamics of time-dependent data. The course starts by discussing the type of data to be analyzed. Apart from typical single number time series such as temperatures or stock prices, students also consider the evolution of geospatial variables, 3D, and text data. This is followed by the basic Exploratory Data Analysis in the context of time-dependent data. The course will then provide insights on how time-dependent data can be analyzed based on real world examples and applications. Areas of applications that might be considered are speech, stock market evolution, music, geospatial data such as MRI scans, and medical time series data used in diagnostics.

This course charts the rise and fall of the USSR, from the Russian Revolution of 1917 to the collapse of Soviet Communism in 1991. Students meet familiar characters, including Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev. But they are also introduced to the ordinary people that called themselves Soviets. The course covers themes including ideology, gender, sex and sexuality, race and anti-racism, religion, and multi-nationalism. Students travel from Moscow to Siberia, via the Caucasus and Central Asia, exploring the Soviet Union through a variety of primary sources, including political writings, party resolutions, newspapers, letters, memoirs, agitation and propaganda, and material history. 

International criminal justice is at a crossroads. On the one hand, we now have an unprecedented ability to prosecute individuals accused of torture, genocide, and crimes against humanity both domestically and internationally, emblematic of the extent to which these kinds of prosecutions have become normalized over the last seventy years. On the other hand, more and more countries have raised concerns about the efficacy and fairness of international criminal prosecutions, arguing that they are selective or neo-colonialist, biased, or myopic. This is exemplified by the complex status and reception of the International Criminal Court, alternately lionized and criticized. This course introduces students to these debates and examines the legal and philosophical underpinnings of international criminal law and justice. 

This course will provide students with an introduction to some basic political theory, a history of international politics and global governance, and to the structure of the global political economy. Students will then be given an opportunity to learn about the actors, structures and politics of global health governance and international health policy. This will include learning about global actors such as WHO, the Gates Foundation and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria; as well as the role of civil society organisations and social movements in promoting global health equity.

With these basic building blocks in place, the course will examine the following contemporary health issues through a social and political lens: health financing and health sector reform; global pandemic threats and the securitisation of health; the effects of armed conflict on health; and the influence of trade and business on health.

The course will also examine health inequalities within the local area of East London  - a part of London which includes both some of the most deprived households in the country, as well as one of the biggest financial and banking hubs in the world. This will include a field trip, as well as a global health 'treasure hunt' in the British Museum.

This course introduces students to a wide range of texts (literary, visual, and academic), concepts, ideas, theories, and practices, both historical and contemporary, and the skills they need to analyze them. The course is divided into two 5-week blocks, devoted respectively to reading literary texts, visual cultures, cultural theory and politics, and linguistics. 

What does the future world of work look like? This course critically evaluates contemporary trends in the changing world of work. The course focuses on these trends with a view to understanding their implications for work, employment, and society. Some issues explored in this course are automation and AI, emotional labor, flexible working, the platform economy, climate change, regulation and the role of the state, and globalization.