University College London

This course analyzes developments in Russian literature after Stalinism, covering major literary texts and events in Russian cultural history from 1953 to the present, with a brief look at the period immediately preceding the post-Stalin era. Each week is devoted to a particular text or author, but certain themes recur throughout the course, including: emigration and exile; the boundaries between published and unpublished literature; experimentations in literary form; the effects of ideological and political change on literary production; and writers’ involvement in (or withdrawal from) politics.

The course introduces students to the main theories and concepts in International Relations. In particular, this course covers debates such as liberalism, (neo)realism, Marxism and critical theory, constructivism and new-constructivism, gender and IR, postcolonial approaches to IR, ethics in IR, and the role of theory in IR.

Throughout history, representations of the Apocalypse or "end of the world" have evolved with the times, reflecting the changes occurring in the natural world, societies, politics, and beliefs, as well as our understanding of the world and of our place within. Taken individually, each of these stories or images mirror a society at a specific time but, together, they also illustrate the evolution of our thought-systems, philosophies, moral values, and spiritualities. Today, at a time when global environmental and health concerns are growing, and in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, apocalyptic representations are still permeating many discourses, from the arts to politics and economics, from gender to science, AI and the physical world. Using the exciting perspectives opened by the theory of the Anthropocene, this course presents an overview of some of the original apocalyptic tales, and the work of key artists of Western apocalyptic fiction, art, and architecture.

This course explores the relationships between science, technology, and democracy, and the changing role of the State in science and technology (S&T) in our societies. Students explore science and technology policy issues and look at wider challenges, such as efforts to improve public engagement in decisions about science and technology, initiatives to encourage more responsible research and innovation, and debates about the apparent rise in fraud and misconduct in science and concerns on the part of some scientists that many published scientific findings may be false. The issues explored in this course are critical to citizenship in a modern science and technology-based democracy. 

Mental disorders, such as depression and schizophrenia, are prevalent across the globe, significantly impacting individuals and communities. This course explores both the understanding of mental disorders and the psychological treatments used to address them. The first half of the course introduces students to the clinical presentation, etiology, and diagnostic frameworks of various mental disorders, and these disorders are examined through multiple perspectives, including developmental, sociocultural, neurobiological, and psychodynamic approaches. The second half of the course explores a range of psychological treatments, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Psychodynamic Therapy, Humanistic Therapy, and other therapeutic approaches, focusing on their application to specific mental health conditions. Importantly, this course involves research methods in psychology, mental health, and psychotherapy. 

This course cover three important ideas in classical physics – Newton’s Laws of Motion, Newton’s Law of Gravitation and the Wave Equation. After considering analytical solutions to each, students look at computational solutions using the Python programming language (no background in coding is necessary) and touch on ideas such as dynamical systems and chaos. Students also look at solutions in different coordinate systems which give rise to familiar ideas such as Kepler’s laws of planetary motion and the inverse square law but from a first principles approach.

This course provides an introduction to epistemology and metaphysics. Topics to be discussed include the nature of knowledge, scepticism, the existence of God, whether theism is rational, why the universe exists, free will, personal identity, and the metaphysics of race.

This course focuses on the intersection of climate crisis, energy demand, buildings and the wellbeing of people. Students are introduced to key concepts and Open Access data and tools for modelling and analyzing building energy demand and occupant wellbeing at a large scale. Students learn to synthesize knowledge across disciplines to develop and evaluate strategies and comprehensive plans for sustainable urban living.

Few chapters in all of history are as dramatic—both tragic and spectacular--as modern Jewish history. The apparent success of Jewish emancipation was challenged by popular and religious non-Jewish opposition, and efforts among Jews to control or turn back such changes. No matter what, Judaism and Jews did not stand still. Antisemitism gained traction as reactionary utopia, along with the persistence of traditional prejudice and discrimination. Against this background there arose a variety of Jewish ideologies, including: Modern Orthodoxy, Reform Judaism, Zionism, Territorialism, Variants of socialism, "Ultra" orthodoxies, and National extremism. 

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Jewish life changed radically, and European Jewry came close to being totally wiped out in the Holocaust. Since the late eighteenth century, Jews had sought new ways to think about and live in the modern world. Numerous individuals of Jewish origin took the lead in attempting to understand the changes wrought by modernity—including: Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Theodor Herzl, Bertha Pappenheimer, Emma Goldman, Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin, Susan Sontag, and Philip Roth. 

This course is about India from the 15th to the mid-18th centuries. This was a period of sometimes slow or subtle, occasionally cataclysmic, but often palpable transformation, and students examine the ways in which what people believed, where and how they lived, their relationship to the state and its power, and how they expressed themselves was changing. Although the course focuses first and foremost on India, by placing its history in its global context throughout this course, the class scrutinizes the emerging notion of a "global early modernity."