Maastricht University - Center for European Studies

This course examines current events and the way they are covered in a variety of media outlets around the world, looking at framing, bias, stereotypes, context, story structure, and placement. Through lectures, discussions, a field trip, and class presentations, students analyze why news is reported as it is around the world and in the process become discerning media consumers better able to filter the noise and make decisions for themselves. The first half of the course is spent with lectures and discussions that examine the way news is covered around the world and why variations exist. The final half is devoted to student presentations on current event coverage. The presentations employ a "town hall" approach in which groups of students lead discussions on the issues and their coverage to classroom peers, being graded not just on content but audience engagement and participation. Topics of Discussion: Fake News, The Four Theories of the Press; News Values; News and Feature Story Structure; Media Effects and Communication Theory; Journalists and Media Organizations; Media Gatekeepers; Sources; Culture, Bias and Stereotypes; Language, Framing and Context; Legal Issues; Power and Economic Issues. Presentation Topics: Ongoing and breaking stories in the news.

This course enables students to understand the basic physiologic principles that underlie visual and auditory perception. The course introduces the sensory systems that are responsible for vision and hearing in humans. Central topics include the nature of the stimulus (physical attributes such as amplitude and frequency, and perceptual attributes such as intensity and color), the transduction process (the transformation of a physical stimulus into a neural signal leading to a subjective experience), the functional neuroanatomy of the human sensory system (the organization of sensory neurons into functional maps, columns, and pathways), and mechanisms for object perception (the organization of sensory features into meaningful percepts, for example, a face in a crowd or speaker at a loud party). Finally, the course introduces psychophysical and neuroscientific methods designed for measuring perception.

In this course, students are introduced to the innovative field of developmental neuropsychology. The anatomy of the brain and relevant brain functions are introduced at the beginning of the module. Through case studies, students explore the fundamental research and the most recent advances in the field. Students attempt to find solutions to the questions presented by researching various articles and group discussion. Cognitive development is typically measured by changes or improvements in cognitive processes. In this course, processes such as language, reasoning, and memory, etc. are explored in terms of their developmental trajectory and how this trajectory relates to changes in the maturing brain. Students examine how these developmental changes can be measured by various neurological methods (e.g. fMRI and EEG). The field trip included in the course focuses on the importance of neuroscientific research methods and forms a unique and practical insight into the subject matter. Midway through the course the students construct a research proposal regarding developmental neuropsychology in subgroups and present this proposal. Prerequisites for this course include at least one intermediate level psychology course. It is recommended that the students have an interest in the development of the human brain and cognitive development. An interest in scientific research and methods is also recommended.

Social Neuroscience is a new and rapidly growing field of research. It is an interdisciplinary field that asks questions about topics traditionally of interest to social psychology, economics, and political science using methods traditionally employed by cognitive neuroscientists, such as functional brain imaging. The course discusses functional MRI research within the following topics: self-reflection, emotion regulation, perceiving others/mirror neurons, intersubject/hyper-scanning designs, and moral judgment.  Students gain insight into the neural correlates of social behavior and acquire knowledge about designing a functional MRI study.

In this course students acquire knowledge about: Public Health law in international, European, and domestic settings; the nature of law, and broad legal principles behind the law's contribution to public health; the way that different types of procedures are used to regulate the public health (e.g. medical committees and officials, criminal law, privacy, public interest arguments, etc.); other normative considerations relating to framing public health responses; how public health responses operate. The course also trains students to: read and understand legal documents (particularly treaties and European legislation, and guidance documents and codes of practice); understand how legal and ethical arguments are constructed at different points in relation to public health, particularly how human rights decisions are made at the European Court of Human Rights; apply these insights to “live” public health issues. Students are also trained to: consider the difference between life science, medical, political, legal and ethical judgments; consider how each type of judgment is constructed; consider how different judgments are given authority and enforced in society. Finally, through this course students are able to: construct effective, logical, and evidenced arguments to influence political decision-makers; consider how far discussion can be useful in the creation of normative arguments and responses; develop effective skills in presenting arguments.

This course examines disturbed, strange, unadjusted, and abnormal behavior. Students review prevalent clinical case studies and the resulting research on topics such as anxiety disorders, eating disorders, addictions, mood disorders, and psychotic disorders. Questions that are repeatedly discussed include: What does the clinical picture look like? What are the diagnostic criteria? When does normal become abnormal? How often does this disorder arise? How does such a disorder develop? What can be done about it? The goal of these questions is to understand why one person develops the disorder while another does not, how scientific research can reveal the causes of disorders, and insight into the mechanisms that maintain the disorder. Students become familiar with various forms of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy as well as theories on etiology, empirical findings that support or contradict the theory, customary treatments, and the effectiveness of those therapies.

What causes jetlag? Why do you feel like having a cup of soup? How come smokers are so hooked on their cigarettes? These and other questions are discussed during the course Body and Behavior. This course mainly studies biological explanations for behavior based on themes such as sexuality, eating and drinking, sleeping and waking, medication, movement, and addiction. Knowledge of the biological basis of behavior is essential for psychologists. The most important structure for explaining human behavior is our brain. However, establishing a link between electrical and neurochemical activities in our brain to behavior is no easy task. You need sound knowledge of neuroanatomy (how parts of the brain are in connection to one another), neurophysiology (how brain cells operate), and neurotransmission (how brain cells communicate). During the first few weeks of the course, special attention is paid to the (further) development of this basic knowledge. Students learn that knowledge of the biological basis of human behavior does not only come from research on humans, but also on animals. Finally, research methods used by psychologists to study the biological basis of behavior is touched upon. Today, psychologists are able to carefully study the structure and function of the brain using these methods. The most important methods are discussed and the pros and cons are compared.

The course is about Dutch art – with an emphasis on painting. Ever since the Middle Ages the Netherlands has played a pivotal role in the history of European art and culture. Dutch and Flemish artists were the first to use oil paints, the first to visually document the lives and cultures of ordinary people, and the first to produce art for a free market. Painters such as Van Eyck, Brueghel, Bosch, Rubens, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Mondriaan are counted among the great masters of history. Their art embodies qualities that are believed to be typical for the country, such as a devotion to truthfulness, attention to detail, and love of textures. But there were many more artists whose works are still considered among the most important in history – if only because they were the first to notice the mundane things nobody else had paid attention to, such as the beauty of a still-life or the wonders of a cloudy sky. From the late Middle Ages through the Renaissance and the Baroque to the modern era, Dutch artists have tried to come to terms with ever-changing principles and conceptions regarding the world around them and have been constantly improving techniques to visualize it. The results of their efforts are the subject of this course. The course mostly follows a chronological order. In the first lecture the (religious) significance of art in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Baroque are introduced. In the following lectures students are given an overview of the development of Dutch art from the Middle Ages to the modern era. The course includes field trips to various museums in Amsterdam, the Hague, or Arnhem to view the original works.

This course focuses on the major groups within the animal kingdom, what defines them, how they are organized and how they are related to each other. Students examine the specific adaptations of certain animals in more depth. The question "What is an animal?" is considered as is the issue of how animals are grouped and related to each other. This is done in the context of the major phyla, their defining morphological, anatomical and physiological features and the sorts of adaptations and behaviors that they exhibit. Students examine certain adaptations such as bright coloration, feeding or parental care in greater depth, using particular animal groups as a source of examples.

This course invites students to explore the history of the Netherlands and Belgium guided by literary texts reaching back to the seventeenth century and moving to the twentieth century (using English translations). From the fight for independence against Spanish oppression into the Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish culture when the Netherlands became a European superpower, through the changes of industrialization in the nineteenth century, on into the twentieth century with Modernism, Fascism, the German occupation in World War II and the ensuing times of the Cold War. The selected texts for this class, written by leading Dutch and Flemish authors and recognized as being part of World Literature, provide an authentic view of the history and culture of the “low countries” within the European context. Starting with Vondel and his dramatized discussion of cultural and religious struggles in the seventeenth century, followed by a portrait of Holland in the nineteenth century, the literary journey reaches the realms of decadence at the turn of the century. The turbulent events of the twentieth century and the effect they had on the “low countries” is then explored from Dutch and Flemish perspectives, including comic book-art, a movie viewing, the depiction of the Maastricht region in fiction and vice versa views from the United States with Williams Carlos Williams and Joseph Heller. Artistic concepts and writing styles from Symbolism to Post-modernism are central elements of the class discussion, together with the continuing presence of the Dutch and Flemish past. The class comes with a day-long academic field trip to the UNESCO World Heritage city of Bruges in Belgium, exploring and tasting one of the European capitals of Decadence.