University of London, Queen Mary

This course focuses on three German-language thinkers of global influence: Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud. Students encounter some of the main ideas of each thinker, including the understanding of history as class struggle (Marx), the philosophy of language and the death of God (Nietzsche), and the idea of the unconscious (Freud). Further thinkers working in these traditions (for example: Rosa Luxemburg, Sarah Kofman, Herbert Marcuse, Melanie Klein, Erich Fromm) may also be considered. German studies students study the German-language texts in the original language.

This course explores how economic theory can help us to design and evaluate public policy. The main focus of the course is to study basic notions, models, and results of public economics. Primary attention is given to the expenditure side of the economy, especially to externalities, public goods, social choice, and local public goods. The course takes examples from environmental and tax policy as well as the analysis of projects and inequality. Students take a modern microeconomics approach to tackle inefficiency problems in public economics.

This course focuses on the role of the government in the economy. It provides an understanding of the reasons for government intervention in the economy, analyzing the benefits of possible government policies, and the response of economic agents to the government's actions. The course covers social insurance and tax policy, and related issues, such as inequality and budget deficits.

This course introduces students to the study of how states make foreign policy decisions. It considers the social, material, institutional, and political contexts for decision-making, and how individual leaders' cognitive and psychological traits influence the choices they make. It thus forms a bridge between the study of leadership, domestic politics, and international relations.

This course explores the turbulent development of the United States from its inception in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence through to its ascendance as an industrial and imperial world power in 1896. Students explore the history of this young nation from the writing of the Constitution, through contests over democracy, slavery and the Civil War, to an era of mass immigration and industrial capitalism. Throughout the module our studies will be guided by four themes which were central to the building of an American nation and which continue to divide opinion today: expansion, race, capitalism, and democracy. Students gain an understanding of different approaches to studying American history and demonstrate an ability to marshal historical knowledge to make a convincing case in favor of their own critical interpretation of the past.

This course examines the history of Palestine and the people who lived in it, from the spread of Christianity, through the Islamic period, and until the beginning of Western domination in the 19th century. The story of the land is told from the bottom up, focusing on peasants and the urban non-elites, and to encompass the diversity of the ethnic and religious groups who made Palestine their home.

Through a detailed examination of a number of recent and contemporary French films, this course fosters an understanding of the network of forces that have shaped French film production since major changes to cultural policy were implemented in France by the socialist Mitterrand administration in 1981. Students profile some of the ways in which French cinema reflects and interacts with French culture and society, and evaluate this in the light of social, political, and cultural shifts in late 20th and 21st century French life. The course is research-based and requires a significant commitment to independent study.

This course explores the practices and techniques related to both script adaptation and original scriptwriting. Their inter-relationship is an important step for students wishing to establish their scriptwriting skills above a foundation level. Both types of scriptwriting are given equal weight as topics and assessed accordingly. Students gain the ability to adapt a pre-existing text (a prose short story) into a film script; an understanding of the practice and techniques of script adaptation; the ability to write an original script that is not based on a pre-existent script; an understanding of the skills and techniques required for original scriptwriting; and the ability to work the format and discipline of scriptwriting to a suitable level.

This course covers amino acids, the fundamentals of protein structure, isolation and purification of proteins, modification of proteins, and methods of determining protein conformation. It also covers the basics of enzyme catalysis and kinetics with specific case studies. Other topics include ion transport, and other transport proteins, and the utilization of proteins and soluble cofactors to generate and store metabolic energy. Students learn the basics of metabolism in glycolysis and the citric acid cycle, as well as ATP synthesis and membrane bound electron transfer in mitochondria. Chloroplasts in plants and algae, and molecular motors, such as muscles, that consume metabolic energy are also covered. 

The course offers practice in digital film making. It is a practice-based film making course teaching narrative fiction.