IRELAND

The writings included in the canon of the New Testament have been composed by different authors over a relatively long period of time. Translated in countless languages, the stories and ideas found in the New Testament have played a major role in shaping socio-political, ethical and religious discourses across the centuries and in different cultures and have been a constant source of inspiration in art, music, and literature. Students learn about the most relevant scholarly approaches to the study of the New Testament and its background in Second Temple Judaism and in the Graeco-Roman world. They examine the variety of literary genres and the diversity of sources and traditions, which contributed to the development of early Christianity and to the formation of new religious and cultural realities in the Graeco-Roman world, and are introduced to the history of interpretation of the New Testament in antiquity and in contemporary culture. 

Every object has stories –shaped by human uses– to tell. This course explores how visual and material culture offers a distinctive window for understanding the past by choosing specific artefacts from the ancient Mediterranean, reconstructing their "biographies" and using them as a prism for thinking about wider social issues. Using both iconic and lesser-known objects, the course focuses on themes such as image and text; religion, power and ideology; warfare; funerary rituals; daily life and its fictions; and gender and sexuality.

Why study criminology? It deals with one of the major social issues of our time- crime and punishment. The study of criminology introduces students to some key elements and thinkers of the Western intellectual tradition. Philosophers and sociologists have informed the development of various theories on criminology and why people commit crime. Familiarity with such theories and thinkers is an important part of one’s general legal education. The materials for the course are sociological in nature. There are no cases or statutes to be studied or analyzed. However, the criminological theories examined are related back to the Irish criminal justice system to determine the relevance of these theories to crime in Ireland.

This course introduces students to the study of child health and wellbeing through the presentation and critical examination of some contemporary topics in the field. These topics are based around two key themes: (i) risk and resilience and (ii) children’s perspectives on health & illness. Lectures provide a stimulating, interactive context in which to consider theoretical, research-based, and applied perspectives from psychology and related disciplines.

Turbomachinery is an essential technology for delivering the power and propulsion needed for society, particularly in rapidly developing economies. This course integrates the fundamental principles of fluid mechanics and thermodynamics in order to analyze compressible flows and high speed turbomachinery. The course instills students with an awareness of different power and propulsion applications and the importance of high efficiency energy conversion devices to minimize environmental impact, both in a national and global context. The course provides an understanding of the unique issues associated with transonic flows and basic tools to analyze these. That understanding underpins a detailed treatment of design calculations for high speed turbomachinery, including aerodynamic performance, instability, losses, and structural limitations on performance.  The course covers the most important types of turbomachines; centrifugal compressors, radial turbines, axial compressors, and axial turbines. Students also gain an appreciation of the manufacturer and user perspectives, such as costs, safety, durability, flexibility, and noise.  

This course explores contemporary theatre and performance in English, staged primarily in western contexts, including, Ireland, the UK, the U.S., and Europe. The course connects performance practices with their contemporaneous and historical contexts: political, aesthetic, theoretical, social, and cultural. By doing so, it acquaints students with historical trends in theatre and performance, paying particular attention to the ways in which aesthetics and politics have been investigated through diverse practices of theatre-making. Watching live and mediated performances, students conduct analyses of theatrical works and develop arguments about their meanings.

This course argues for the importance of animals in the history of human society and culture. It examines the evolution of human and animal relationships, the role of animals in agriculture and society, animals in war, conquest, and empire, and the interconnected histories of human, animal, and environmental health. It analyzes the historical construction of the categories of "human" and "animal," and its implications for medicine, science, and animal rights. Themes examined include a history of domestication, animals as vectors of illness and plague in the Middle Ages, the Scientific Revolution and animal experimentation, the discovery of America and the Columbian Exchange, the emergence of animal rights in the 19th century, and animals, extinction, and climate change in the 20th and 21st centuries. 

Coastal regions are some of the most dynamic on Earth, not least because human and natural processes act in tight connection to each other. This dynamism poses one of the great societal challenges of the 21st Century. Building upon a basic, foundational knowledge of ocean and coastal processes covered in relevant courses within the first and second year ("Spaceship Earth" and "Physical Geography: Dynamic Earth"), students gain wide ranging theoretical and practical skills required to address those challenges. The lectures and seminars take students on a journey that highlights how the natural processes operating within estuaries and on coasts are a function of external factors (past and present climate, geology, human influences) and feedbacks in which the landforms themselves affect the operation of processes that shape the landforms. Equipped with this knowledge, and several examples from around the world, students put their knowledge into practice. A day field trip and practical exercise challenges students to apply what they have learnt to real-world coastal management problems. 

Project management and leadership skills are relevant to all people throughout their professional and personal lives. Many people think that only "senior" people in an organization or society are leaders. This course emphasizes on leadership skills that everyone can acquire. These leadership skills are directly relevant to daily life as a student and to all careers. Students focus on real life practical problems and how to address them. They work in teams when addressing typical problems project managers face. Students also become familiar with Microsoft Project (or similar package) as a tool to help in project management.
 

This course examines information systems and the social context of information and communication in organizations. Consideration is given to information systems requirements and design, information processes and flows in organizations, and the character of formal information systems and informal communication patterns. Emphasis is placed on contextual design principles of contextual inquiry and communication in computer-mediated communication and computer-supported cooperative work.