University College London

This course focuses on how race and ethnicity have been conceptualized over time, putting them into historical and contemporary context. It explores how race and ethnicity intersect with other social structures such as gender, class, and religion that affect advantages and disadvantages, inclusions and exclusions, and the ways individuals and groups challenge racialized and ethnicized inequalities. 

This course tackles a central political and social issue of our times: the role of emotions such as hatred, anger, patriotism, shame, and offence in our politics and society. Students investigate questions such as, what is the social and moral value – or disvalue – of these emotions? When are these instrumentally beneficial, and when are they corrosive of our democratic culture or society? Informed by contemporary work in psychology, ethics, feminist philosophy, and political philosophy, this course explores a range of emotions. 

A broad-sweep survey across of Greek literature. All readings are in translation. Topics included vary slightly from year to year. Authors and genres covered may include the following: Homer; lyric poetry; Herodotus and Thucydides; Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides; Aristophanes; Plato and Aristotle; Hellenistic poetry; and ancient prose fiction. The course provides basic information and a chronological and thematic framework and is intended as an introduction to ancient Greek literature and theoretical approaches to literature. 

This course deals with some of Aristotle’s most influential ideas. Students begin with one of his ethical works, the NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, and then move on to his metaphysics in the CATEGORIES. Students then look at Aristotle’s ideas about nature, causation, the infinite, place, and self-motion in his PHYSICS. Throughout the course, students consider questions of interpretation, try to understand how Aristotle’s ideas fit together and engage with his views and arguments critically.

This course starts with a historical overview of computer simulations in science and engineering and an introduction to the challenges and opportunities in connecting simulations, theory, and experiments. Students address the core concepts essential to understand and interpret computer simulations in science and engineering, including the fundamentals of statistical physics, interaction potentials, Monte Carlo simulations, equation-based simulations, and the concept of coarse-grained simulations and enhanced sampling techniques. 

This course explores the making of a modern metropolis: London in the 20th century. Using the city as a classroom, students take a social and cultural approach to London’s history. The course attends to differences in the urban space, thinking about the dividing line of the Thames that separates the city North and South, or the East/West divide. They consider the multiplicity of lives lived in London, as shaped by structures including gender, class, race, and age. Students study some of the major events of this period including suffrage campaigns, two world wars, mass migration, and decolonization. They also think about how the public history of the city has been constructed through museums, walking tours, podcasts, documentaries, fiction, and film.

This course surveys research methods for science and technology studies and across the social sciences that contribute to the generation of new data. Students study a diverse range of methods and learn to understand the strengths and weaknesses of particular methods for investigating particular questions. Students are introduced to the theory and practice of qualitative and quantitative methods. Topics include research ethics, research design, face-to-face interviews and focus groups, surveys, content and discourse analysis, and ethnography. 

Students learn fundamental theories and methods of database systems: what they are, how they are developed, and how they function to achieve their purposes. The course exemplifies these constructs with contemporary database technologies and students learn how these technologies are exploited to build effective information systems of different scale.

The aim of this course is two-fold: to take a retrospective view to trace the evolution of media sociology, and a prospective view to assess current challenges confronting sociological analyses of the new media paradigm – monopoly-owned and user-driven digital platforms – the business models which underpin them, including algorithmic journalism, and their perceived "surveillance" effects.

This course examines geography education, past, present, and future. Geography in schools is the focus, with some other educational contexts considered. The course offers a space for students to reflect on their own geographical education, considering how and why geography education varies. Students are encouraged to think about the potential of geography in education, as the world changes.