University College London

In this course, students explore German history from the Reformation to the present day. The course covers major events in early modern times, including the Reformation and the Enlightenment, but the main focus is on the 19th and 20th centuries. Students engage with a variety of topics, including nationalism and nation-building, revolution and reaction, industrialization and urbanization, changing gender roles and social structures, empire at home and abroad, mass politics and culture, Germans’ roles and experiences in two world wars, Nazi racism and genocide, and Cold War division and unification. The common threads throughout are Germans’ persistent experimentation with defining "Germany" and the consequences for those variously included and excluded according to gender, class, religion, race, politics, and other categories. 

This course is designed to deal with a variety of topics in epistemology – the philosophical study of knowledge. The curriculum varies from year to year. Topics include theories of knowledge; theories of justification or warrant; skepticism; contextualism; and sources of knowledge: perception, memory, introspection, testimony.

This course provides students with a thorough understanding of core techniques of quantitative economics and econometrics and their application to test economic theories and measure magnitudes relevant for economic policy and other decisions, as a foundation for subsequent study of quantitative topics, and as one of the key elements in the professional training of an economist.

This course deals with some important metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical questions by looking to philosophers from the ancient Greek tradition. 

The Nordic countries have often been regarded as model societies, famous for their high levels of economic prosperity, social equality, and political stability. Students discuss the historical roots of this distinctive Nordic experience and how it has changed since the end of the Cold War, as the Nordic countries have needed to adopt to new regional, Europewide, and global developments. The historical introduction is followed by a thematic examination of contemporary Nordic societies in a comparative perspective, looking at the varied legacies of the Nordic model. Topics include Nordic foreign and security policy, domestic politics and the rise of the populist right, immigration and integration, crime and justice, gender equality, environmentalism and Nordic co-operation. It should be noted that a focus on the Nordic countries also provides a new perspective on some of the most important developments affecting the whole of Europe over the last 30 years. 

This course offers a critical introduction to United States history from the end of World War I to the present day. It is made up of four thematic sections which focus on: the state and political development; gender and sexuality; the US and the world; and race and ethnicity. The course focuses on historiographical questions that occupy scholars and interrogate change and continuity in political and social ideology during the 20th and 21st centuries. 

What is Judaism? Since Judaism has a history spanning more than three millennia and all five continents, it inevitably means different things to different people. The academic study of Judaism tries to answer the question by focusing on Jewish practice, tradition, and history with a variety of perspectives: The definition of Judaism: is it a religion, culture, or ethnicity? Is it monolithic, essential, and static, or rather diverse, hybrid, and dynamic? What are the texts and practices that define Judaism? What are the central concepts of rabbinic Judaism? How does rabbinic legal text and reasoning work? What are the places and shapes of Jewish worship? How do tradition and modernization make their mark felt in the history of Judaism, from Antiquity to the present day? How does Judaism interact with other religions? Which are the contemporary ways of connecting with the Jewish tradition?

This course shows students that nature and politics are totally intertwined. This is the case in two ways. First, the natural world has been shaped and governed by human action for thousands of years. Second, humans themselves are part of nature, always being shaped, changed, limited, and enabled by the non-human (or more-than human?) world. Since all human action and the intimate entanglements between the human and non-human world are suffused with power relations, they are, by definition, deeply involved in politics. This course delves deeper into the implications of thinking about nature through a political lens. Students are introduced to ideas about the ways the natural world relates to nationalism, colonialism, power, violence, belonging, spirituality, ethics, care, time, food, and embodiment. 

 

This course focuses on the basics of infrastructure as a complex system, giving priority to the interdependencies across infrastructure, and how these links result in macro infrastructure properties, such as resilience, security, and adaptability. Challenges for infrastructure including climate change are elaborated in the context of infrastructure as a system of systems. Exciting opportunities from digitalization, decentralization, democratization, decarbonization, etc. are exposed, highlighting the connectedness of nature, society, and engineered systems. It is essential for future engineering leaders to appreciate how their sectoral systems create stakeholder value and deliver critical services in the context of infrastructure as a whole, and how these values and services change over time. The course also provides an overview of transdisciplinary approaches and methods for the analysis and visualization of infrastructure, equipping students with the skills to communicate challenges, opportunities, and recommendations to improve outcomes from infrastructure throughout its lifecycle.

Climate Intervention describes a set of ideas to cool the planet by increasing the amount of light the Earth reflects. The leading proposal is Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, an idea which aims to mimic the cooling effect of major volcanic eruptions, which research suggests would be fast, cheap, and imperfect. This idea offers the potential to arrest global warming and potentially greatly reduce the risks of climate change but presents a host of challenges, risks, and ethical questions. We could stop climate change early, but should we? This course provides students with the context to understand this controversial, emerging issue, the space to develop an informed opinion, and to develop the skills to express their view persuasively.