United Kingdom - England

This course starts with an overview of mainstream and critical international relations theory which is then applied to real-world events. Students first think about how war and peace, order and disorder, prosperity and poverty are conceptualized in international relations. Using approaches from realism to post-colonial theory, the course discusses the role of the state in the formation of global politics in order to understand how globalization has in turn affected the role of states in global politics, particularly against the backdrop of populist nationalism and ever-growing global challenges. 

This intensive course enables students to understand and measure the process, impact, funding needs, and challenges of sustainable social entrepreneurship. Students learn about the growing trend of entrepreneurs looking to identify and bring about transformative societal change through their business activities. Students assess current approaches, profitability, challenges, and opportunities of social entrepreneurship, as both business owners and consumers seek to find sustainable solutions to complex social problems. Discover how social entrepreneurs develop creative solutions to address both local and global social problems and gain the tools to make an impact on the lives of others. The course increases awareness and understanding of the main challenges affecting the world, and how Social Enterprises can be a definite factor of change. The course focuses on team development; self-awareness for leading, persuading, and working with others; effective business planning; and communicating. The subject concentrates on social impact projects targeting areas such as the environment, inequality, poverty, education, future employment, etc. The course re-introduces key concepts that students may have studied in previous syllabuses in entrepreneurship, economics, and social science. It also develops more advanced themes that address emerging issues in business planning, finance, funding, and marketing literature specifically relevant to projects with a social impact. The course emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of social change and stresses practical business matters when addressing transformation via the formulation of a specific proposal/project that students deliver at the end of the term.

This interdisciplinary course examines the representation of London in a variety of cultural outputs from the Victorian to the contemporary period. In particular, it analyzes how writers and artists have expressed their perception of the city as a dark site of social tensions, mystery, crime, and detective work. Alongside representative literary texts (from Dickens and Conan Doyle to Ackroyd), the course makes room for a significant amount of visual material such as illustrations (Doré, Cruikshank), films (Hitchcock, Reed), television dramas (Ripper Street, Sherlock), and documentaries (Keiller, Ackroyd). It is also supplemented by visits to UCL Collections and other London Museums.

This course offers a theoretical and practice-based approach to exploring the nature of digital gaming. It is eclectic in scope and students are guided to make their own digital games and to critically reflect upon what their games are able to achieve. Students then explore the relationship between games, narratives, and stories, including the famous ludology versus narratology debate that characterized the birth pangs of game studies as a field. Can games tell stories? If so, what kind of stories are they most suited to telling? Next, students consider the distinctive but also varied practices that characterize gaming. These include counterplay, transgressive play, casual play, competitive play, speedruns, etc. Games are also considered as philosophical texts that can prompt us to rethink and question reality, agency, time, and our relationships with our in-game avatars. 

This course uses London to explore how contemporary cities are being theorized, experienced, and understood. Consideration is given to how cities are conceptualized in and through the context of globalization. The concept of "global cities" is to be contrasted with perspectives that emphasize the "ordinary" quality of cities, to allow students to engage analytically and critically with the complexities and diversities of urban life and experiences. A range of interdisciplinary themes within urban studies are employed to explore the diverse socio-spatial and cultural dynamics and practices both with respect to London and to students' home cities.

This course explores the creation, evolution, and subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union, as well as the emergence of a new Russia from the wreckage of the world’s first socialist state. Emphasis is placed on key political, social, and cultural developments, seen within the context of Soviet, post-Soviet and, more broadly, European history.

This course examines the history of Palestine and Israel from the 19th century until the present. Rather than studying Israeli and Palestinian history in isolation, the course explores the relationship between the two national groups and the emergence of the Israeli state alongside the prolonged statelessness of Palestinians. Some of the topics include: contrasting narratives of Palestinian and Israeli history, the constituents of identity in late Ottoman Palestine and the formation of Palestinian and Israeli nationalism, Hebrew culture and the Arab encounter with Zionism, the impact of the Mandate period, the Arab revolt of 1936-39, the 1948 War and the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, the political disappearance of the Palestinian question in Israel’s early decades, the rebuilding of Palestinian identity and institutions, and the fate of the two state solution.