United Kingdom - England

Asset price in discrete time, random walks, conditional expectation, elements of discrete-time martingale theory, the binomial asset pricing model, option pricing in discrete time, and -time permitting- discrete time term structure models and/or discrete time portfolio theory.

The course foregrounds some of the most topical territory in art history and cultural studies today: how to deal with the Imperial past? As such, this course builds on the more global approach taken in Year 1, but it also provides an in-depth theoretical lens to examine the inter-relationship between visual culture and colonialism (especially in the context of the British Empire). Students explore the way the colonial past continues to influence contemporary art and the socio-economic landscape today. Students investigate notions of race, identity, national self-determination as well as the broader inter-connected ideas of Britishness, Black-ness and Other-ness. An understanding of these issues is vital for students to engage productively with the contemporary artworld. This course therefore explore exhibitions and artworks that are currently on view.

In this course, students are introduced to theoretical and political questions about students with learning difficulties and disabilities, including students with severe and profound learning difficulties. After looking at competing models of disability, the course examines questions about health, human dignity, respect, rights, equality, dependency, creativity, and inclusion; and students explore how people with disabilities value their lives and how to assess their testimony about living with a disability. The course includes philosophical and sociological theory, the politics of disability, and numerous examples of first person testimony.

This course is an introduction to ways of thinking about technology, using historical, sociological and philosophical perspectives. The course starts with lectures and seminars on fundamental questions: what is technology? Is technology socially shaped? Do artefacts have politics? What are the common mistakes in thinking about technology? The course then addresses major themes (industrialization and division of labor, technological lock-in, gender and technology, non-Western technology and maintenance) and key theories and models (Marx, Foucault, Heidegger). The course ends by addressing provocative questions such as: can machines think? Can machines be ethical? Do machines evolve?

In this course, students learn about contemporary archaeological and anthropological perspectives in the study of material culture. Questions that come up include: why the summer solstice is celebrated at Stonehenge; how houses differ across cultures; why we give each other gifts and wrap them; and how clothing gives us identity? Studying human-object relations from a range of perspectives, students explores the role of materiality and the consumer society.

This course surveys a number of key debates in the very broad literature on electoral and political behavior in democratic states.  Topics include how citizens think about parties, politically salient groups and political issues, including how citizens make vote choices, the mechanisms behind differences in turnout and participation across different individuals and over time and levels in political knowledge.  The course provides a comparative examination of political behavior in democratic contexts, but because of the historical development of the research literature in this area, there is greater weight placed on the US relative to other countries. 

The course covers in depth the chemistry of three major classes of biologically important molecules; carbohydrates, peptides and proteins, and nucleic acids. In addition, the course provides an introduction to molecular imaging and covers methods for labelling of biomolecules with fluorescent dyes and radionuclides.

This course examines key concepts and approaches in film and television studies. Central ideas in the development and practices of these disciplines – such as auteurism, genre, national cinema, realism, representation, and ideology – are examined through close readings of scholarly texts, and the analysis of case studies and examples drawn from the history of film and television. In doing so, this introduction to film and television studies engages with questions of the distinctive place of these media – as popular and artistic forms – within culture and society.

From boy bands to Valentines, our ways of expressing sexual love were first formulated in the Middle Ages. This course traces the early history of the language of love, through poetry and songs composed between the 12th and 15th centuries. With the help of English translations, students explore different types of poetry in various languages: Spanish, French, Catalan, Galician-Portuguese, and the Occitan language of southern France. They learn to analyze complex poems, and to understand and respect cultural differences, through a range of activities including creative rewriting of translations.

This course introduces students to the field of social geography, its theoretical perspectives and substantive concerns, centered upon an understanding of societies as products of uneven and always negotiated relationships of power. Drawing on a social constructionist approach, and using mainly UK examples, students consider intersecting constructions of social class, gender, race, and sexuality, and how these constructions both shape, and are shaped by space at a variety of scales. The course includes a field walk assignment designed to develop skills of critical observation and interpretation.