Ireland

This course examines the housing crisis as a central social justice challenge in contemporary cities. Focusing on issues of supply, affordability, and homelessness, with particular attention to Ireland, the course explores the economic and political dynamics of housing markets and the reasons these markets often fail to meet social needs. Drawing on social scientific concepts and empirical evidence, the course analyzes how governments and societies value, regulate, and provide housing. Emphasizing housing as a fundamental human need, the course adopts a social justice perspective to critically assess current conditions and develop creative, realistic solutions aimed at building more equitable and socially just cities.

This course examines the constructed images and historical realities of some of the most important peoples in the ancient world, other than the Greeks and the Romans. The three main directions of the course are: (1) an analysis of the concept of ‘barbarian’ in the Classical world; (2) an examination of selected Greek and Roman sources on Northern barbarians, especially Celts and Germani; (3) a study of these same peoples ‘from within’, i.e. based on archaeological and linguistic evidence. The course investigates the role which the so-called ‘barbarians’ of northern Europe played in ancient history, from the earliest documented contacts with the Mediterranean during the Early Iron Age, to the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century AD.

This course introduces students to social theory in medical sociology. It does this by exploring sociological factors that impinge on health status, health chances and health care. It looks at concepts of health and illness, the social context of health and illness as well as changing patterns of health and illness, and the social organization of both formal and informal health care. This also includes a critical analysis of formal Western biomedical approaches to health and health care. A number of theoretical positions are considered ranging from Functionalist, Marxist and neo-Marxist perspectives through to Postmodern, Realist and Critical Realist perspectives and the relevance of these in medicine and health care. These are applied to key substantive areas covered in the course.

This course explores sociocultural, legal and political framings and debates around what constitutes drugs -licit (e.g., alcohol, caffeine) and illicit substances- (e.g., cannabis, cocaine), factors that facilitate drug availability and use in society, drug policies, policing and control, drug-related intoxication and pleasure, drug use and crime, etc., situating these and other related themes within the local and broader societal contexts. It critically examines the nature, extent and impact of drug supply and drug taking and intoxication in Irish society and internationally and how each society responds and reacts to alcohol and other drug taking and those who take legal and illegal drugs/substances.

This course introduces and engages in contemporary scholarly reflection on critical animal studies, posthumanism, and ecotheology. Students engage with theological perspectives on the definitions of “humanity,” “animality,” and “creatureliness.” They explore a number of theo-ethical topics in this area from animal conservation to food. Recent questions in ecological ethics swirl around “the question of the human” and “the question of the animal.” Theological and ethical concepts that define human beings as unique, with souls created imago dei, in the image of God with dominion over the planet are critiqued as being morally complicit with species decline, animal suffering, and habitat loss. On a planet undergoing the sixth great wave of animal extinction, this critique is no small matter. This course discusses how we understand the human in relation to other nonhuman creatures that occupy the planet. Students consider animal ethics, the blurry lines between wild and domestic, human and nonhuman, living and extinct, veganism and vegetarianism, human and posthuman and ask how these conversations cause us to rethink theological understandings of “creatureliness” and “creation” and “kinship.” The course asks how definitions of what it means to be “human” are already entangled in our theo-ethical and ecological concerns.

People seem to be increasingly concerned with security. There is a marked perception that insecurity is on the rise, and that the world has become an extremely unsafe place. Security policies like predictive policing, urban surveillance, border control, and antiterrorism have grown in technological sophistication and legitimacy, and are increasingly debated in electoral campaigns, among policy makers, and in the press. And yet, crime statistics show unequivocally that we have never been safer. How do we explain this discrepancy, and how do we analyse critically society’s concern with security and surveillance, as well as the solutions proposed by different actors to solve such concerns? This course explores what security and surveillance teach us about our society, its fears, and the way different categories of people think about and act on (in)security both online and offline. It discusses case studies such as urban insecurity, digital surveillance, border control, and citizen initiatives to increase security, and explore the causes and consequences of such practices in our society. It reflects on whose (in)security matters and why, and assesses whether practices such as predictive policing, CCTV cameras, face recognition technologies really work, for whom, and how. Students think about what it means to live in a Big Brother society – where a lot of what we do is subjected to surveillance – and explore sociological insights on surveillance and security.

This course examines the historical construction of the “tropics” as both an ecological reality and an ideological concept central to Western thought. Adopting a global perspective, the course explores how European and later North American interpretations of tropical environments shaped colonial expansion, economic development, and enduring social, racial, and cultural inequalities. This course explores the multiple dimensions of this history from a global perspective, emphasizing the creation of a unified and coherent bioclimatic zones that amalgamates parts of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania. After discussing the concept of ‘tropicality’ – the European gaze on non-European environments – the course covers critical aspects of that amalgamation, including colonialism, resource extractivism, and intertropical species transfer and acclimatization. The last part of the course focuses on two urgent contemporary issues, namely climate change and decolonization, seeking to discuss the future of the ‘tropics’.

This course examines how the Internet works and how everyday online activities generate data that are collected, analyzed, and monetized by digital platforms. It explores key issues related to data privacy, security, ownership, and control, addressing questions about how personal information is used and how individuals can protect themselves online. The course provides practical knowledge and tools for understanding Internet infrastructure, data tracking practices, and strategies for managing one’s digital presence with greater confidence and awareness.

This course is designed for complete beginners with no prior knowledge of Spanish. It introduces the fundamentals of speaking, listening, reading, and writing, while also exploring a key cultural topic in its linguistic context.

This course examines the role of human psychology, human thought and behavior, in the climate and biodiversity crises. It explores how we got where we are, what it is about human thought and behavior and the structures and systems created that produced these crises and inactions. The course covers how the Climate Crisis is affecting human health, behavior, and well-being as well as the ways these effects are unevenly distributed across the world and the implications of this inequity. Finally, this course covers what psychology has to offer in terms of solutions and how to leverage our understanding of human thought and behavior to enact climate justice.