Utrecht University

In this course, the Utrecht University Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) perspectives are used to reflect on and analyze a concrete societal topic or challenge. During this course, students become acquainted with the methodology used in various disciplines that are part of the PPE community. Students acquire basic knowledge of the quantitative, qualitative, and argumentative methods used in the PPE disciplines and to combine these insights in the generation of an interdisciplinary conclusion. In line with the learning objectives, the course is divided into two parts: (1) disciplinary methodological grounding, and (2) interdisciplinary integration. The first part focuses on introducing students to methods from the four PPE disciplines. The central objective is to enable students to interpret results yielded by the different methods. They know which method is most suited to answer their research question about a PPE topic or challenge. They can answer questions such as: What does a survey tells us about the just treatment of asylum seekers? Do archival findings enable critical reflection on contemporary environmental challenges? Are statistical analyses well suited to determine the causes of populism? They are not expected to be able to apply each method. Students that use particular methods in their home discipline are expected to actively share their insights with their peers. The second part of the course builds on this foundation. Students are introduced to opportunities and challenges of integrating insights from different disciplines. Students walk through the three steps toward interdisciplinary outcomes: (A) perspective taking, (B) discovering common ground, and (C) Integrating Insights. Perspective taking focuses on the ability to develop multiple disciplinary perspective separate from another. This multi-disciplinary perspective is an essential first step in interdisciplinary research. In the context of this course, students assess how the results of different PPE methods contribute to understanding of a challenge or topic. After establishing insights, students are expected to see how findings from different disciplines relate to one another: discovering common ground. Do disciplines share the same assumptions about the society? Or does one discipline conceptualize society as a collective, such as a nation, and another a loose collection of individuals? Do these conceptions clash or enrich each other, and how? In short, how do the different PPE perspectives relate to another? Finally, integrating perspectives is about taking together the different insights and their relations to answer the research question.

This course offers students an opportunity to conduct research with primary source material and write an original research paper. Students' perspectives on violence are enhanced through the introduction of a micro-sociological, actor-oriented approach. It puts three related categories of violent actors (soldiers, guerrillas, terrorists) center stage. It embeds historical interpretations of their experiences in the broader debate on the differences and similarities of regular and irregular ways of waging war. A close look at the immediate experiences of extreme violence by the fighters involved points at disturbing similarities between soldiers and terrorists. Students consider the difference between regular and irregular warfare and whether we are guided by specific ideas of violence born of the Western nation-state. Using historical case studies from modern history students conduct an in-depth study of soldiers, guerrillas, and terrorists and the experience of organized violence in regular and irregular warfare by the fighters involved. They learn to historicize and criticize the common view of warfare by concentrating on the experiences of its most common actors. Under the supervision of a lecturer, students learn to determine a personal stance in existing historical debates, and to contribute to increasing our knowledge and understanding of the historical backgrounds underlying modern issues. Students choose their research topic on the basis of the actor-oriented literature discussed in the first four weeks. They familiarize themselves with demarcating their research, formulating a research question (with possible subordinate questions) and relating this to specific introductory literature.

In neuroscience and psychology, the biological approach to behavior and psychiatric disorders is of substantial importance. In recent decades new classes of psychoactive drugs have been developed for the treatment of disorders like depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. Further developments in neuroscience and fields like genetics hold the promise that progress in the discovery of new medications will become faster and more innovative. This course covers the most important classes of psychoactive substances (sedative-hypnotics, anxiolytics, stimulantia, anti-depressants and antipsychotics). It also discusses the recreative use of drugs and the principles of tolerance and possible dependence (addiction). The course covers the pharmacological properties of each substance, their working mechanisms, and their clinical application, if applicable. The course is suited to students interested in brain and behavior as well as students planning to work in mental health care or with the interdisciplinary treatment of psychological, psychiatric or somatic (e.g. pain medications) problems. The course uses literature that covers both scientific backgrounds and clinical applications.

This course offers an introduction to the study of comparative constitutional law. The course focuses on the central issues of constitutional law across five jurisdictions – the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands. This guarantees an insight into both common law and civil law systems, federal and unitary states, and parliamentary and presidential systems. The course follows the logic of the principle of separation of powers and examines in particular the roles and functions of the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government in these systems. This approach permits one to understand the differences and similarities between national systems, evaluate their characteristics and appraise the impact thereof on the operation of the legal systems concerned. The topics covered in this course revolve around the following themes: introduction to comparative constitutional law and method; key constitutional features, systems of government and the notion of sovereignty; federalism, unitarism, and decentralization; legislative branch, parliaments, election systems, and lawmaking; executive branch, governments and heads of state, and their relationships to parliaments; judicial branch, courts and judicial review; human rights protection EU and ECHR law in national legal orders (UK, France, Germany, NL).

This course explores the complex relations between Europe and the United States from the late eighteenth century to the present. It starts with the founding of the American Republic during the Atlantic Revolutions of the late eighteenth century. While the “first new nation” tried to distance itself from Europe during the nineteenth century, cultural connections remained and new ties were forged by immigration and trade as the United States emerged as the agricultural and industrial power house of the world. This course examines how, in becoming a global power during what has been dubbed the “American Century,” the United States determined the fate of Europe during the First and Second World Wars and the Cold War and emerged as an international ally, an important trading partner, and an irresistible, yet controversial, reference culture for European society. The course also explores the rising debate about consequences of geopolitical changes in a post-American Europe. Students learn academic concepts such as transnational history, globalization, Americanization, anti-Americanism, and cultural exchange. This course offers an essential framework for the understanding of the exchange of peoples, goods, economic models, ideas, and cultural patterns that defined the Atlantic World.

This course is a linguistic introduction into three aspects of the structure of Spanish: the sound structure (phonology), the internal structure of words (morphology), and the internal structure of sentences (syntax) in relation to its meaning (semantics). These three aspects are studied in the light of modern linguistic theory. Students get insight in how universal aspects of human language surface in Spanish, and how Spanish linguistic structure differs from the structure of other languages. After completing the course, students have: knowledge and analytical skills concerning the phonological, morphological and syntactic characteristics of Spanish; knowledge and analytical skills in order to carry out an internet search targeting certain morphological or syntactic phenomena in Spanish; academic skills to write a short research report; academic skills to include references in accordance with the guidelines of the APA, by making use of RefWorks; initial insight in the Spanish language needed for any professional use of Spanish, including teaching and translation.

This course equips students with the skills to recognize, select, and employ some of the key social science theories used in sustainability science. The first part of the course introduces the students to the study of society, and of society's interactions with nature, thus also demonstrating the specificity of a social scientific perspective on sustainability. The second part of the course examines a range of socioeconomic processes of change in nature-society interactions, thus introducing a different, but often complementary ways to conceptualize change toward sustainability. The course is taught through interactive lectures and tutorials, and makes ample use of real world examples and case studies. The students can expect to be engaged in a diverse range of learning activities which include concept mapping, small group discussions, writing exercises, and hands-on critiques of their own implicit assumptions about nature and society.

This course provides an introduction to the contribution of the behavioral sciences to criminal law. The main focus of the course is on forensic mental health assessment and reports and on treatment of mentally ill offenders. The psychiatric and social-psychological influences on criminal law procedures are examined. An international comparison of forensic mental health is made.