United Kingdom - England

This course deploys literary-critical thinking and attention to literary forms in order to interrogate the narrative of the ‘raw material’, and the histories that have emerged from it. From vital materialist accounts of the agencies and powers of nonhuman things, to Marxist analyses of the hidden labor that produces the ‘raw’ material before it can even be said to exist, students consider the ways in which the Victorian invention of raw materiality contributed to violence, environmental destruction, and ideologies of domination over the earth and its species. 

This course involves studying the ethical aspects of various principle issues in contemporary world politics. It introduces students to a number of ethical difficulties surrounding identifying and applying ethical principles to aspects of world politics, such as war and human rights. Students begin by asking to what extent moral action is possible in international politics. As such, the course starts by analyzing theoretical approaches to the place of ethics in world politics and then moves to consider specific issues such as war, human rights, and the politics of the human and torture, for example.

This course explores the interdependencies between natural systems and human disease in a time of rapid environmental change. Acknowledging diverse and changing perspectives on health and the environment across history and cultures, students are introduced to emerging concepts and issues in this field, fundamental approaches to assess evidence for causal relationships between environment and disease as well as begin to develop an understanding of the complex socioecological systems within which remedial action can be taken.

This course offers students the opportunity to study the American commercial film industry since 1945, with an emphasis on the changes to the Hollywood mode of production in Hollywood's "post-classical" period, i.e., the decades since the collapse of the studio system in the 1950s. Individual films and filmmakers are considered in principal relation to the institutional, economic, and stylistic changes occurring at that point on Hollywood's historical evolution. Where appropriate, reference are also made to relevant historical context during this period of enormous social and political upheaval and momentous cultural change in the United States. 

The course provide an introduction to concepts and principles of remote sensing. It will include 3 components: 1) radiometric principles underlying remote sensing: electromagnetic radiation; basic laws of electromagnetic radiation; absorption, reflection and emission; atmospheric effects; radiation interactions with the surface, radiative transfer; 2) assumptions and trade-offs for particular applications: orbital mechanics and choices; spatial, spectral, temporal, angular and radiometric resolution; data pre-processing; scanners; and 3) time- resolved remote sensing including: RADAR principles; the RADAR equation; RADAR resolution; phase information and SAR interferometry; and LIDAR remote sensing, the LIDAR equation and applications.

The course provides an introduction to the politics and economics of European integration. It draws upon theories of international relations, political economy, and governance to assess the origins of the European project and the politics of market integration after 1945. Students analyze the EU’s evolving institutional framework by charting the constitution-building process and mapping the distribution of executive, legislative, administrative, and judicial functions over time. The course then explores the expansion of EU power and legal competence in key policy fields over the past two decades. It begins by considering the history and theory of economic and monetary union, as well as the causes and consequences of the Eurozone crisis. The course also explains the rapid development of the EU as an internal and external security actor in the post-Cold War era through cooperation in asylum and immigration policy, and foreign, and defense policy. It ends by reflecting on the scale and pace of the EU enlargement process and the wider political implications of the EU’s democratic deficit. 

This course provides students with a grounding in classical and cutting-edge interdisciplinary social scientific theories of work and empirical developments in the study of how people and organizations relate. It helps students develop a strong set of critical analytical and conceptual frameworks and applies them to a series of contemporary issues in the organization of work, labor markets, and economic life. Critical social theories are used as a means by which commonplace understandings of work can be unpicked and unpacked to better capture and represent the experience of changing workplaces and careers. Applying different theoretical and conceptual frameworks in different empirical contexts, the course focuses specifically on the varied range of forms and locations in which work takes place, including work inside and outside the home, the gig economy, health and social care, the digital economy, migrant labor, and unemployment as they are experienced in social-psychological terms across lines of class, ethnicity, age, and gender.

The course introduces and critically analyzes the major IR theoretical traditions. Because of the complexity of world politics, assumptions (i.e., criteria for thinking about what and how to study world politics) to guide our study are needed. The different traditions – or "-isms" – provide these assumptions and offer a set of different lenses through which to explore world politics. The course, through practical application of theories, explores the ways in which the main theoretical traditions compare and contrast.

Understanding consumption and consumer behavior is an essential part of the marketing process and key to the long-term success of any organization. This course focuses on the processes through which individuals or groups acquire, use, and dispose of products, services, or experiences. This course explores a range of approaches to consumption and consumer behavior, encouraging students to critically evaluate their relative merits. Accordingly, insights are drawn from a range of disciplines including psychology and economics, science and technology studies, sociology, cultural theory, and anthropology. In addition to exploring the significance of consumer behavior for commercial organizations, the course demonstrates how consumption is positioned as both a problem for and solution to a number of contemporary social and policy challenges.

This course surveys current developments in curating art, examining expanded definitions of curating (in museums and independently post-2020); and the evolving local, global, and digital landscapes for curatorial work and activity today.
With a project-oriented focus, this course equips students with the contextual knowledge as well as the entrepreneurial skill to plan, develop, and deliver a curatorial project as well as situate it in a rapidly changing landscape. Topics include (but are not limited to) the curator as auteur, facilitator, mediator, and project manager as well as contemporary curatorial approaches and research methodology. Project-based learning throughout the course examines: initiating and defining curatorial projects; sourcing artworks in private collections for object-based exhibitions; building connections and relationships with contemporary artists; expanding exhibition formats and sites for curating (including "pop-ups"); writing curatorial statements and press releases; working in a sustainable and accessible way; fundraising and budgeting; marketing and publicity; and working with digital networks and platforms.