Utrecht University – University College Utrecht

This course offers an introduction to the history of the Middle Ages. The course focuses on the history of Europe between 400 and 1500, as well as regions in the Byzantine and Islamic world.  Material evidence (written, visual, architectural) of how people of all social standings lived, worked, and interacted is examined. While predominantly focused on European developments, the course also considers other regional trajectories, notably of Byzantium and the Islamic world, exploring the Middle Ages as a period of connectivity, transformation, and innovation.

This historical introduction course concentrates on two branches of philosophy: ontology or metaphysics, and epistemology thus exploring the development of Western thought. A wide range of notions are dealt with, e.g. substance and accident; existence and being; subject and object; idea, knowledge, and certainty; causality, necessity, and freedom. 

The course examines several approaches to key players – director, curator, patron, architect – through case studies, site and/ or virtual visits, analyses, review-writing, and a practical exercise in curating. Part I departs from the concept of museum script to consider the agency of curatorship. Part 2 considers forms of agency exercised by modern patrons in public museums. Students research an aspect of curatorship for their term paper.

This course offers a comprehensive overview of key issues in the study of international migration and immigrant integration. A dynamic approach that follows migrants’ journey from their origin countries to their receiving societies and examines the interethnic relations that develop therein is taken. The course is structured around three main themes: theories of immigration and immigration governance; categorization of migrants; integration outcomes and policies. A combined multidimensional perspective (comparing the integration of immigrants and their descendants in various domains of life, including the education system, the labor and housing markets, the neighborhood, politics, etc.) with a cross-national lens (comparing classical immigration countries and more recent immigrant-receiving countries) and a multilevel and multi-actor analytical framework (considering immigrants in relation to both their home/sending and host/receiving countries, and the networks of actors with which they interact, such as families, ethnic communities, government agencies, local administrators, NGOs, etc.) is used. The course has a strong empirical focus: it critically analyzes and discusses empirical studies that test theoretically derived hypotheses in various contexts. The perspective adopted is primarily sociological but insights from other disciplines such as human geography, political science, social psychology, economics, and anthropology are used.

After completing this course students can:

1. explain the major concepts of human and animal physiology, development, and evolution.
2. describe the contemporary issues related to these general biological topics.
3. obtain basic skills in, scientific writing, oral presentations,  group work, and laboratory work. 

Content

This course focuses on the many intriguing aspects of human biology. Examples from the animal kingdom are used to illustrate the context of human physiology, development, and evolution. The course builds upon secondary high school higher level biology. The textbook functions as basis however additional content is added throughout the course. The main topics discussed and studied are:

• Human and animal structure (morphology and anatomy) and function (physiology).
• And, related to the above-mentioned topic, investigating how evolution accounts for diversity of animal body forms and strategies that animals use to cope with their environments.

In addition, general academic skills are trained through a variety of assignments.

The program is divided in three content units:

Unit 1. Homeostasis, Hormones and Adaptation. Based on textbook chapters 40-44. This includes

• The structural organization of the animal body at tissue, organ, and organ system level
• Chemical signaling in animals
• The digestive system
• The circulatory and respiratory system
• The excretory system

Unit 2. Animal Diversity, Reproduction and Development. Based on textbook chapters 22, 24, 32 and 34 (partly), and 45-46 (completely). This includes:

• Animal reproduction
• Evolution, animal diversity and animal development

Unit 3. Defense and Neural Integration. Based on textbook chapters 47-50. This includes:

• The innate and adaptive immune system
• The neural system and neural integration
• The sensory system
• Movement in animals    

This course examines Black (Afro-diasporic) music and its impact on society in America and Europe. It reveals how Black Music functions as a form of cultural politics, a philosophy, and a way of building identity and community. It shows how Afro-diasporic musical production has been a central force in political movements and social transformations from interwar anti-colonial activism to Civil Rights campaigns, which has continued in the recent #BlackLivesMatter movement. This course engages with genres of music such as blues and spirituals, jazz, gospel, afro-futurist pop, and hip-hop. This course situates these genres in their historical context, listens to and performs them, and shows how the music – both individual pieces and whole genres - makes political and philosophical claims. This treatment of music serves as a form of critical thinking and engagement with scholarly traditions that give primacy to textual work. The course combines readings, historical case studies and biography, and music listening and making. It therefore enacts and models radically interdisciplinary approaches that connect text-based and embodied learning.