University of London, Queen Mary

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 provides an introduction to basic political theory, a history of international politics and global governance, and to the structure of the global political economy. Students are given an opportunity to learn about the actors, structures, and politics of global health governance and international health policy. This includes 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 organizations and social movements in promoting global health equity. With these basic building blocks in place, the course examines the following contemporary health issues through a social and political lens: health financing and health sector reform; global pandemic threats and the securitization of health; the effects of armed conflict on health; and the influence of trade and business on health. The course also examines 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 includes 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. 

This course considers specific cognitive functions and properties of the human mind. The material covers perception, attentional processes, language and knowledge representation, memory mechanisms, problem-solving and expertise, and the relationships and links between processes. Studies from classical and modern cognitive psychology are provided throughout.

This course offers an introduction to encounters between civilizations, cultures, and societies in world history, based on examples drawn from the medieval, early modern, and modern periods. It seeks to develop understanding of patterns in world history and an introduction to approaches within the field of global history. It introduces specific case-studies, from the Arab conquest of the Muslim Spain and Chinese exploration of the Indian Ocean, through colonial encounters in Africa, America, and India, to the Balfour Declaration in 1917. Students discuss the meeting of civilizations, cultures, and societies in world history, covering examples from the medieval period up to the modern day. They develop a global perspective, form professional and informed attitudes, and consider the methodology of global history. 

This course introduces students to the core concepts, terminology, and technical apparatus of the structural parts of linguistics (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics), as well as the conceptual underpinnings of the discipline. Students learn about fundamental concepts such as contrast and distribution; structure; rules and representations; the cognitive basis of language, and how that is distinct from its social basis; and language universals and variation. They also learn how to solve problems of linguistic analysis using these concepts and the terminology and techniques of the discipline as well as how to use hypothesis testing to devise solutions to these problems.