Ireland

What is queer art and who makes it? Has there always been queerness in art? This course looks at art-historical practices from a variety of historical, geographical, and social contexts, to explore how queerness, same-sex desire, or “homosexuality” have been represented, and how these representations changed over time, at intersections with their sociopolitical contexts. While the course has a predominantly contemporary focus, it begins with an examination of historical examples of same-sex desire in art before the 19th century. It looks at the modern developments brought by the Enlightenment and scientific progress which first invented and categorized “homosexuality” as a medical category and deviance, prompting 19th century artists to develop an elaborate language of coded homoeroticism. Following this historical introduction to the course, the focus shifts to a thematic approach: it covers a broad range of distinct practices and reflect on many different meanings of queerness, including: the US gay liberation history and the AIDS epidemic; thriving spaces of queer cultures such as waterfront and nightclubs; Irish, Polish, and Jewish queer artistic practices; and gender binary-defying practices of two-spirit Indigenous Americans and Indian Hijras. The course also looks at queer exhibitions and exhibiting queerness in various international contexts, and explores instances of explicit or implicit censorship of same-sex desire in art institutions. The course features a visit to an exhibition.

This course is unique in its focus on the core challenges facing our increasingly 'smart' cities, from their operational functions and planning through to management and control. The course reflects the changes that technology is making to the operation of, and our understanding of, the city, and gives students the technical and theoretical skills needed to make a difference to the cities of today and tomorrow.

This course asks whether the welfare state is justified, how extensive it should be, and what level of inequality and/or poverty is acceptable in a just society. Thus, the course examines the main theories of distributive or social justice in contemporary analytical political philosophy. Distributive justice is about the fair distribution of burdens and benefits in a society and some of the main approaches to this issue that we look at include liberal egalitarianism, libertarianism (left and right), luck egalitarianism, and relational egalitarianism and republicanism. The course also looks at some of the critiques, alternative approaches and applications of these theories, to areas like health and education.

This course provides students with a solid grounding in various aspects of software engineering process related to building large software systems. The course covers various aspects related to building software systems ranging from the use of software lifecycle models, to project management, to large-scale software architectures. Specifically, software lifecycle models, including variations of the waterfall and spiral models as well as extreme programming and agile, are introduced along with concepts that are relevant to the specific model stages. These concepts include domain analysis, requirements and specification analysis, testing and debugging, and version control. Moreover, strategies for managing large software projects and their contracts as well as project teams are presented and contrasted.

This course introduces one of sociology's sister disciplines, social anthropology, which is also referred to as cultural anthropology or ethnology. This course has a theoretical and an applied dimension. In the theoretical portion it introduces classical and modern examples of anthropological theory ranging from B. Malinoswki and C. Levi-Strauss to C. Geertz and J. Diamond. The applied portion uses a variety of examples and field studies ranging from geographically closer regions such as Northern Ireland, the Basque country, and South Tyrol, to more "exotic" regions and examples.

This course is a detailed study of selected topics from the Archaic period, c.750-490 BC. It focuses on the origin and development of socio-cultural phenomena in the Greek world, from South Italy to Asia Minor. Topics include the development of new political systems such as tyranny, the origins of law and literacy, the formation of the polis, warfare and empire, as well as social issues such as the symposium and slavery.

This course makes connections between national and international policies and discourses on migration, asylum, race and ethnicity, and the experiences of the people whose lives are affected by them. The main context is Ireland, but it also includes perspectives and experiences from Europe and beyond, connecting Ireland to a broader world.

One of the big challenges in psychology is to understand how elements of the nervous system, such as neurons, can cooperate to produce high-level operations like perceiving, thinking, acting and consciousness. This course introduces students to biological psychology by way of studying the link between the brain and behavior. Students gain an understanding of how the brain is involved in everything we do; whether it be recognizing faces, getting a good night's sleep or remembering where you left the car keys. The course consists of: Historical Perspectives and The Big Questions; Measuring Brain and Behavior; The Developing Brain; Movement & Action; Sensation and Perception; Executive Functions; Sleep & Dreaming.

In contemporary cinema and media studies, few concepts are invoked as often the ‘the digital’. Despite our familiarity with the term, the issues associated with it are complex and part of a much longer relationship between media, technology, and production practices. To address these issues from a theoretical and practical perspective, this course explores a range of topics related to digital aesthetics, data, bodies and performers. Across the course, students engage in related practical tasks that provide an experiential form of understanding and encourage embodied reflection on the topics under focus. The tasks offer students increased awareness of the range of easily accessed digital tools, and instill increased confidence when it comes to incorporating such tools into practice-based work.

In the high and late middle ages, monarchs and urban governments across Europe enacted laws dictating what people could wear, what hairstyles they could have, what they could eat, what types of hawks they could hunt with, as well as creating a range of other restrictions on visual display. This course examines why. What was the purpose of these ‘sumptuary’ laws (as historians have named them)? What conditions led to their enactment? How did they differ across time and space? What types of people were regulated and who was allowed to dress as they pleased? Through weekly seminars, students interrogate these questions of the original sources and select a subset of sumptuary law to examine in their essay.