United Kingdom - England

This course considers a range of recent novels produced by Irish writers considering the relationship between writers and the state, north and south. Students explore what kind of difference literature can make to a society’s growing consciousness of itself. Issues to be addressed include modernity in an Irish context, sexuality, violence, the fantastic, religion and its aftermath,  the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, and the connections between literary production and the imagined "nation."  The course treats Edna O’Brien’s debut novel THE COUNTRY GIRLS (1960), as its founding text. O’Brien has said that the Archbishop of Dublin and Charles J Haughey (who was at that time Minister for Justice) characterized the book as “filth” that “should not be allowed in any decent home”. Her first three novels were subject to multiple public burnings. The course also considers works by writers such as Brian Moore, John Banville, Anne Enright, Kevin Barry, Niamh Campbell, Colm Tóibín, Eoin McNamee, Anna Burns, and Sally Rooney. 

In this course, students glimpse into the Mediterranean world, using real examples of Archaic sculpture in the British Museum as touchstones and maintaining an emphasis on first-hand inspection and close-looking through gallery visits and handling sessions. Moving beyond Greece, students consider the interconnected development of Archaic art across the Mediterranean, including Egypt, Cyprus, Anatolia, the Levant, and Magna Graecia, informing these discussions with new discoveries and scientific testing. Readings engage with current scholarly debates about periodization, gender, and polychromy in Archaic Sculpture. This course requires self-directed study and presentations in museum contexts, culminating in a final essay. All ancient texts are provided in both Greek and English. Numbers will be capped because of museum visits/handling sessions.

This course looks at the vast socio-economic changes that have occurred in China, the most populous and fastest-developing country in the world, a country that was a "blank sheet of poverty" in 1949 and is the second largest economic power in the world now.  

This course explores viruses and viral disease by examining viral structure and function. It explains how viruses subvert host cell function to generate viral factories. Citing examples such as the influenza and HIV viruses, students examine details of the pathogenic mechanisms used by viruses to cause disease. The course also covers the design of viral vaccines and their use in eradicating viral infections such as polio.

In this course students gain a deeper understanding of equality in moral and political thought. The first part of the course focuses on the idea of moral equality. What grounds all human beings’ equal moral status? What does it even mean to say that all human beings are morally equal? The second part of the course focuses on the idea of political equality. Specifically, it considers what the equal status of all citizens implies about how we should distribute power and make political decisions. Does a commitment to the equality of all citizens commit us to democratic rule? If the political decisions made in Community A significantly affect the members of Community B, should the members of Community B have a (democratic?) say in Community A’s decision? 

This course takes London, a global, multicultural city as our lab for exploring social science theories and methods. It engages with current social issues in the city, situating them historically and within wider national and global contexts. The course considers what a focus on a particular city, in this case London, can contribute to the social sciences, and conversely considers how social science concepts and theories can contribute to a richer understanding of cities and city life.

This course offers an introduction to encounters between civilizations, cultures, and societies in world history, based on examples drawn from the medieval, early modern, and modern periods. It seeks to develop understanding of patterns in world history and an introduction to approaches within the field of global history. It introduces specific case-studies, from the Arab conquest of the Muslim Spain and Chinese exploration of the Indian Ocean, through colonial encounters in Africa, America, and India, to the Balfour Declaration in 1917. Students discuss the meeting of civilizations, cultures, and societies in world history, covering examples from the medieval period up to the modern day. They develop a global perspective, form professional and informed attitudes, and consider the methodology of global history. 

This course introduces students to the core concepts, terminology, and technical apparatus of the structural parts of linguistics (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics), as well as the conceptual underpinnings of the discipline. Students learn about fundamental concepts such as contrast and distribution; structure; rules and representations; the cognitive basis of language, and how that is distinct from its social basis; and language universals and variation. They also learn how to solve problems of linguistic analysis using these concepts and the terminology and techniques of the discipline as well as how to use hypothesis testing to devise solutions to these problems. 

This course examines the impact of global change - broadly defined as the impacts of climate change and demographic change influencing global-scale changes in land use, environmental degradation and pollutant emissions - on physical and human environments in Africa and Asia with a specific focus (thread) on water supply. The course deliberately engages issues of climate injustice, equity, and adaptive capacity from the local to the global. A distinctive aspect of this course is its engagement not only with the hydrological science underlying the impact of global change on water supplies but also with the pathways and processes of water governance including transboundary issues that inform solutions towards more equitable and sustainable water supplies in a warming world. The course draws from case studies informed by active research programs in Nigeria, Niger, Tanzania, Bangladesh, and India.

This course looks at the life and lasting legacy of Alexander the Great. It begins with Alexander’s father Philip and the troubled relations he had with his son.  From there it studies Alexander’s rise to power in Macedon and his conquest of the Persian Empire; examining his army, strategy, and tactics - and those of his opponents. Students also look at what motivated Alexander throughout his short life and at the nature of the empire that he constructed.