Ireland

This course focuses upon Supernatural literature and film from the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Students study novels by authors such as Ira Levin, Shirley Jackson, Jay Anson, Paul Tremblay, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Koji Suzuki. Selected films from a variety of national contexts are also featured. Students are introduced to the work of key critics and theorists dealing with the supernatural as a literary and filmic form and are encouraged to consider the ways in which classic supernatural themes and tropes have been updated to reflect contemporary anxieties, social mores, and cultural preoccupations. Students reflect upon the ways in which supernatural literatures from a range of global cultures (the USA, Wales, Spain Japan and England) might differ in their approach to depicting the otherworldly and the uncanny. The ways in which past national and personal traumas (and sources of guilt) can be refracted through supernatural narratives is also considered, and issues pertaining to faith, identity, and modernity are discussed.

The course focuses on the natural world and our relationship with it. It offers an in-depth exploration of topics in environmental geography, focusing on the biological, chemical, and physical processes that sustain life on Earth, human impacts on these processes, and strategies for mitigating environmental damage. Students engage with concepts of sustainability, conservation, and environmental policy. Topics include biodiversity loss, water, air and soil pollution, climate change, land modifications, environmental technologies, environmental policies and management decisions. By fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills, the course prepares students to contribute positively to environmental conservation, policy development, and sustainable management practices in various sectors.

In this course, students address the question of how political institutions affect economic development.  Students examine three core sets of institutions - state, nation, and regime – examining their character and development in both historical and contemporary perspective.  Students look at how democratic nation states emerged in the West, comparing this to the experiences of contemporary developing countries. They consider the major theories on how these institutions impact on development and what empirical evidence they have about this relationship.

Students study memory systems, language comprehension and production, thinking and reasoning, problem solving, decision making and creativity as well as examples of applications of the contribution of these processes in understanding real-life applied situations (e.g. driving; food choices; navigating the environment; etc.). The applied settings also relate to perception and attention. Students learn how to describe the memory systems and demonstrate an understanding of speech and language production and comprehension. They explain thinking and reasoning and their fallacies. This course teaches students to describe and critically evaluate the contribution of cognitive psychology in explaining real-life situations. 

This course provides an overview of key issues in the triangular intersection of gender, religion, and colonialism. While aiming to bring together the literature Western and non-Western contexts on these debates, the course introduces the students the key texts in feminist theory, feminist religious studies, masculinities and religion, and postcolonial and decolonial feminism from a critical interdisciplinary perspective.

In this course, students explore the intersection between land use planning and environmental sustainability within the context of urban and rural development. Through a multidisciplinary approach, students study the principles, theories, and practical applications necessary for promoting sustainable land use practices in contemporary settings. The course explores the factors influencing land use patterns and methodologies to assess the environmental impacts of land use decisions, including climate change, biodiversity, and natural resource impacts. Through international case studies and policy reviews, students compare existing land use policies and develop strategies for integrating sustainability principles into land use planning, while exploring strategies to engage diverse stakeholders for equitable and inclusive decision making.

This course is an introduction to meat science. The course covers meat in the context of the human diet, the structure and composition of meat, and meat quality attributes. The impact of pre-slaughter factors on carcass and meat composition and on the sensory and nutritional quality of meat are explored. The impact of post-mortem factors, including aging and packaging of meat, on meat quality attributes, particularly color, flavor and texture, are studied. Students learn how selected meat products are manufactured.

This course introduces some key themes, concepts, and debates in urban geography. In particular it focuses on the concept of urban regeneration. Taking a critical view of urban regeneration, the course first considers the emergence of these tropes out of concerns about de-industrialization and dereliction brought about by the restructuring of the global economy following the 1970s recession. It then focusses specifically on the urban impacts of globalization, in particular how cities in the developed world have managed the shift from industrialism to post-industrialism. Next, the course examines regeneration from a number of perspectives. Finally, the course reflects on the extent to which urban regeneration remains a relevant approach in the post-crisis period characterized by austerity urbanism and growing precarity. Particular attention is given to the circular nature of processes of urban growth and decline and how regeneration efforts include and exclude particular social groups and identities.

The extremes of human experience have been contemplated by Eastern and Western thinkers beyond traditional philosophic categories of logic, epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics in a movement we refer to as "existentialism". In this course, students explore Western existential philosophers such as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir, Sartre, and Heidegger, as well as existential aspects of Asian philosophies such as Buddhism, Daoism, and the Kyoto School writings of Nishitani Keiji. Students also read the works of existential literary figures, such as Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Camus, Oe, or Kawabata.