University of London, Queen Mary

In this course, students gain an in-depth understanding of what makes consumers buy some products and not others, how various psychological characteristics influence our consumer behaviors, how companies can best try to meet consumers' wants and needs, among other topics. Building on a general understanding of marketing, this course develops a useful, conceptual understanding of psychological theories relevant to the study of consumer behavior.

From boy bands to Valentines, our ways of expressing sexual love were first formulated in the Middle Ages. This course traces the early history of the language of love, through poetry and songs composed between the 12th and 15th centuries. With the help of English translations, students explore different types of poetry in various languages: Spanish, French, Catalan, Galician-Portuguese, and the Occitan language of southern France. They learn to analyze complex poems, and to understand and respect cultural differences, through a range of activities including creative rewriting of translations.

This course introduces students to the field of social geography, its theoretical perspectives and substantive concerns, centered upon an understanding of societies as products of uneven and always negotiated relationships of power. Drawing on a social constructionist approach, and using mainly UK examples, students consider intersecting constructions of social class, gender, race, and sexuality, and how these constructions both shape, and are shaped by space at a variety of scales. The course includes a field walk assignment designed to develop skills of critical observation and interpretation.

This course introduces students to a range of Victorian fiction. It addresses the content, form, and significance of the Victorian novel and how it develops amid the cultural, historical, and intellectual contexts of 19th-century Britain. It also examines the alternative form of the short story and considers what specific kinds of narrative and narrative effects this form enables. Authors to be studied may include Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Lewis Carroll, Wilkie Collins, Dinah Mulock Craik, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Vernon Lee, Margaret Oliphant, Bram Stoker, and William Thackeray.

This course explores the fundamental environmental units: ecosystems. Students use biological and physical science perspectives to examine the geographical distribution of ecosystems and to understand the principles and processes governing their structure and function. Students study the exchange of materials and energy between biotic and abiotic ecosystem components, focusing on water and carbon cycles. Students apply biogeoscience perspectives when interpreting how ecosystems change in response to internal system processes, environmental change, natural disturbance events and human activities.

This course delves into the process of language acquisition. The course looks at different models and theories that have arisen from the different schools of thought. It explores the different processes of first language acquisition and stages of development (phonological, lexical, syntactical), before moving onto the cognitive framework of language processing (parsing). The next area of focus is bilingualism and second language acquisition. Students are introduced to different forms of bilingualism and the issues raised in second language acquisition. They are also introduced to language in the brain, speech pathologies, and other communication systems.

This course requires students to put theory into practice by cultivating a sense of the history and theory of documentary alongside the chance to make a short documentary film. The first part of the course requires students to produce a short documentary film. The second part of the course charts the historical development of documentary filmmaking through the examination of a number of case studies ranging from the early 20th century to the present day, giving further opportunity to examine the inter-relatedness of theory and practice in the work of well-known documentarists.

This course examines cutting edge research into some of the hottest topics and most rapidly advancing areas in biology. Focusing on functional genomics and epigenetics in the context on development, cellular differentiation, disease, non-model organisms and gene-environment interactions. Emphasis on molecular mechanisms and state-of-the-art genomic technologies are underpinned by an understanding of the importance of computational biology in delineating genome function.

This course provides an introduction to applied medical ethics and law related to the development of new products in the field of bioengineering. It provides knowledge of the regulatory mechanisms of approval of products for clinical use in the UK, the EU and the US, risk management, and design processes.