Ireland

The course examines how values, social relations and institutions have changed in European societies. Are there similar trends in all or at least most European societies? Have European societies converged, i.e., become more similar over time, or are there persisting divergences and cleavages? The course identifies the forces that drive changes in values, social relations, and institutions in European societies and the structures that shape particular regional and country-specific responses. It deals with a variety of topics such as religion, gender relations, and friendship patterns. While the course does compare a few countries at one point in time, it tends to look at many European countries (and occasionally countries beyond Europe) for longer periods to identify common patterns and the main differences between them.

This course covers the topic of food to explore the history of Mexico and its diaspora from the time of the Conquest, with a particular focus on food as national and cultural identity as reflected in cinema and literature. It will also explore how food provides a multifaceted lens through which to examine issues such as food and poverty, food as a transnational site of both community and exclusion, and ecological issues, such as control of natural resources essential to food production and security. Students examine the topic of food as both a political issue and a source of creative inspiration through our analysis of texts, art, films and television series.

An understanding of physics is critical to address fundamental questions about our world and to innovate next generation technologies. This course presents an overview of the core physics concepts underlying many modern technologies. No prior physics knowledge is required. Students do not need calculus or advanced math for this course, but they should be comfortable, for example, adding fractions, using scientific notation, and with algebraic manipulation. Topics include energy and thermodynamics, gravity and relativity, waves, light, and optics, and quantum mechanics.
 

This course provides an introduction to the cell, its structure and functioning. Also the basis of genetics and inheritance are explored. Topics include (1) an overview of cell biology; (2) cellular organelles and the cytoskeleton; (3) how cells work- cellular respiration and photosynthesis; (4) the cell cycle and the key roles of cell division; (5) how meiosis and sexual life cycles provide biological variation; (6) an introduction into genes and inheritance from a Mendelian perspective; (6) the link between chromosomes, genes, and inheritance; (7) DNA and the molecular basis of inheritance; (8) how proteins are made from genes; (9) how genomes can inform our understanding of life's diversity; and (10) a brief introduction into basic genetic molecular techniques. 

Digital Business is rapidly evolving and today it should be regarded being a central resource in the pursuit of business objectives and strategies. As a result, the role of Digital Business in organizations needs to be re-evaluated to develop a sophisticated understanding of how it supports today’s organization to gain and sustain competitive advantage in the marketplace. Incorporating a generic Digital Business Framework, this applied course evaluates and discusses components of a comprehensive Digital Business strategy and investigates its impact on different industry sectors.

This course focuses on understanding organizations in terms of structures, shared beliefs, identities and practices, concepts of efficiency and power and the implications of these insights for how we intervene to change organizations. The course helps students build their understanding of organizing beyond simplistic, functional frameworks and provides them with the necessary sociological and psychological concept to help them make sense of why organizations act in certain ways.

This module is designed for those students who have successfully completed Beginner level in Spanish and aims toward achieving an B1+ level of fluency (CEF).

The imagining of history is such a prominent trend in popular culture that students need to be equipped to deconstruct representations of the past and to interrogate their own working assumptions about history imbibed from film and literature. This course explores three examples of how historical events and themes have been imagined in the world outside of professional historical scholarship. Students will examine how these subjects have been "brought to life" in film and literature. Students also have the opportunity to consider wider questions and problems which link together the three subjects addressed in the course. This is not a course designed to test the accuracy, in a narrow sense, of "historical fiction" in literature and film. Students rather examine the ways in which the past has been presented, interpreted, and re-interpreted in various genres; to uncover the assumptions or agendas that shaped creative decisions and the responses of audiences to genuinely popular representations of the past; and to reflect critically upon the qualities that make for a great work of historical imagination or reconstruction, qualities which cannot easily be replicated by the conventional methods of historical inquiry.

This is an introductory course to literature in Ireland in the English language. It gives students a general overview of literature in Ireland in the English language and a detailed knowledge of a limited number of specific texts. Students read a range of Irish literary texts with a particular focus on literature written since the Revival period that began in the late 19th century. It is divided into the following sections: contexts, poetry, drama, and fiction. Key texts include ones by W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, and Marina Carr. The course ends with a survey of Irish literature across a range of genres in the early part of the 21st century.

There are so many topics to explore: generic status; thematic inclusiveness; the incorporation of contemporary epistemology—and the ongoing ethical and environmental concerns that Melville raises. Students discuss the content of the "novel" and its shifting tones from the comic to the tragic, but there’s no end to the sense of things that the book raises. Students reflect on topics such as political dictatorship, obsession, absolutism, oil, modernity, etymology, capitalism, Christianity, slavery, and the roots of belief systems.