Utrecht University

Strategic management studies why some firms are more successful than others.  As such, this course integrates knowledge and skills gained from prior studies on marketing, management, finance, and accounting. This course focuses on the key theoretical ideas and concepts of strategic management and how to apply them in practice and on business-level, corporate-level, and global-level strategy by analyzing strategic options available to multi-divisional, multi-national firms. In drawing on these tools, students adopt a general management point of view by analyzing strategies in light of the total enterprise.  Moreover, because of the limitations of applying static analysis in the real world, the course underlines the dynamic nature of effective strategy formulation and implementation. This shifts the emphasis from generic strategies of cost leadership and differentiation based on industry analysis (i.e., Porterian approaches) to strategies that managers should develop for resource and knowledge building, entrepreneurship, leadership, innovation, and learning. A key focus in the course is on firm-specific unique resources and competencies and their deployment for improving company performance. The purpose is not to inflict new theories but to enable students to apply their accumulated knowledge to address real-world business problems. This discussion-based course draws heavily on case analyses, simulation, and experiential exercises to develop a deeper understanding of strategic management.

Course goals

This course introduces students to the study of gender in its intersection with other important topics such as race, sex and sexuality, religion. Students will thus become familiar with a selection of important concepts and theories from Gender Studies within the context of the Humanities. Furthermore, they will be able to apply these concepts and frameworks in the analysis of concrete social and cultural phenomena (i.e. media objects, artistic representations). 

    
Learning objectives:
Students will be able to:
 - identify and explain how gender, in its intersection with other categories of difference play a role in societal power imbalances;
- develop a critical vocabulary to engage in gender analysis on the basis of key theoretical debates in the field;
- work in a team, collectively develop critical arguments and identify concrete examples and case studies that illustrate/support/challenge said theories;
- engage in a nuanced analysis of complex social, media, arts and cultural events;
- improve their critical thinking skills, academic writing skills, as well as communication skills;

Content

This interdisciplinary course teaches you how gender (also: sexual difference), ethnicity, class and sexuality affect identities and subjectivities, and play a role in the production, consumption and interpretation of cultural artifacts. Learning to look through the lenses of 'gender',  'ethnicity' and ‘sexuality’, you will experience how cultural and social scientific approaches have to be combined in critical analysis (‘intersectionality’). You will be trained in how to use various interdisciplinary approaches when it comes to the gender, ethnicity/race and sexuality sensitive analysis of different cultural artifacts, genres and media: literature, history, film and other forms of popular culture, language and the new media.

The anthology 'Doing Gender in Media, Art and Culture A Comprehensive Guide to Gender Studies, 2nd Edition, edited by Rosemarie Buikema, Liedeke Plate and Kathrin Thiele was developed for this course. A red thread running through the book and the course are 'woman warriors': women who struggle for equality and contest and challenge societal norms. Examples range from Simone de Beauvoir to Lara Croft, from Sarah Bartmann to Phoolan Devi. The book can be bought at Savannah Bay (Telingstraat 13, Utrecht). The course is both devoted to different theoretical frameworks, approaches and methodologies such as Gender, Postcolonial and Queer Theory as to particular issues and topics such as the question of representation in terms of gender, race and sexuality, feminist art and aesthetic theory, and secularism and multiculturalism.
 

This course deals with the integrative regulation of processes by hormones, in particular the regulation of energy, growth, stress, and reproduction. Basic principles are discussed first, such as homeostasis, hormonal axes, feedback mechanisms, biochemical structure of hormones, and structure and function of their receptors. Then the functional anatomy and histology of the endocrine organs are discussed, followed by the discussion of hormones that play a role in metabolism (including gut hormones and adipocytokines) and during growth, stress, and reproduction. During this course, specific attention is given to academic skills such as analyzing a scientific research paper and writing a scientific paper.
 

This course focuses on the relationship between welfare state development and social change, in the past and the present, in the Netherlands and abroad. It addresses the origins of the welfare state, its various components and their organization, and its transformation in our time in relation to processes of social change.

One of the tools required in order to successfully interpret a medieval Celtic text, is to know as much as possible about the circumstances under which it was produced. This historicist approach is common in the field of Celtic studies. In the first four lectures of this course, students are given a brief overview of medieval Irish literature; medieval Irish history; medieval Welsh literature, and medieval Welsh history. After this, important concepts and themes relating to medieval Welsh and Irish history and literature are examined, compared, and contrasted. This is done by reading background literature, and by closely analyzing texts relating to a particular weekly topic, for example the king, the hero, the role of women, the role of the poet, the saint, and children.

This course explores the edge of fundamental gene research as well as the contemporary practices in a clinical setting. The aim is to ascertain what remains unknown and what information is currently missing, allowing us to form a plan for the future of genetic testing and genome screening. Attention is paid to the ethical choices that arise with these new developments. These are personal choices such as “Do I want to know it if they find something unexpected?” but also societal choices such as “Should we offer everyone genetic screening as a preventive measure, also when there are no medical indications to do so?” The course discusses the possibilities and the desirability of genetic testing and screening from a fundamental scientific point of view, taking into account that the nature of genetic information can be complex and uncertain. The course requires students to have knowledge of complex relations between genetic information and the (dys)functioning of the body, and molecular processes surrounding gene expression and gene regulation, as a prerequisite.