Ireland

What are the trends in both globalization and development? How is our understanding of both globalization and development changing in light of the recent global economic crisis and ongoing systemic weaknesses? Students investigate the trends that are going to shape the world in the coming decades: increased interconnectedness, crises in existing economic, political, and social institutions within nations and internationally; increasing pressure on natural resources; huge demographic shifts; and a shifting in the economic and geo-political balance of power, specifically the rise of China and India, with a secondary look at Brazil. The focus of this semester is on the economic sociology of globalization and development. The second semester focuses on culture and globalization and development.

The course focuses on the historical development of the global economy, from earliest times until the 21st century. Students look at key phases in the development of global economy, in particular waves of integration and disintegration, and the role played by key factors, such as climate, geography, disease and technology. Success in this course depends on a willingness to read voraciously.

In this course, students study literature produced in the context of settler nations, focusing in particular on writing and visual art from Canada, Latin/South America, Australia, and New Zealand. Students look at writers and artists of settler descent as well as indigenous and immigrant narratives and how each of them negotiate issues of place, race, and belonging. Texts include poetry, novels, and short fiction, as well as theoretical engagements with settler colonialism, landscape painting, and histories of migration.

In this course, students study how Shakespeare’s plays have travelled around the world in stage productions, literary adaptations, and films during the 20th and 21st centuries. Students consider how many of these adaptations combine aesthetic and political concerns and agendas and how they incorporate elements of literary, dramatic, and cinematic traditions from around the world. Students also learn how the stage productions, film, and animated versions, and literary adaptations on the syllabus might be illuminated by current theories of translation, globalization, nationalism, and appropriation. In addition to the films, productions, and rewrites of the plays on the syllabus, students also are asked to read some scholarly articles and/or book chapters on each of the adaptations as well as relevant reviews, interviews, and artist biographies. Students are asked to read or re-read each of the four Shakespeare plays (Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet) that most of the adaptations covered is based on.

This course examines global postmodern and contemporary art from the 1950s to the present day. It discusses transformations in media, authorship, spectatorship, display, and distribution, along with globalization of art through art markets, biennales, artistic networks, and museum franchises. Students learn about key developments such as Pop, Minimalism, conceptual art, performance, computer art, and the Social Turn, with particular emphasis upon how these have been interpreted, expanded, and challenged by artists outside of Western metropolitan centers in, for example, Brazil, China, India, Ireland, Japan, and Oceania. In addition to the themes and contexts of postmodern and contemporary art, students engage with relevant debates concerning economic and cultural globalization, transcultural exchange, Indigeneity, and postcolonial politics. 

Students engage in basic everyday interactions in Irish; learn how to introduce themselves in Irish and give some details about themselves and their background; build on their conversational skills and vocabulary; and obtain a basic understanding of Irish grammar and phonetics.

This course presents a thematic introduction to Irish art, architecture, and design in its broader international context. Subjects are connected across periods and styles – the focus not on presenting individualized summarized histories but rather considering how aspects of Irish visual history are connected and have evolved over time. Lectures include the identification of key works from Irish art and architecture, addressing fine, applied, and popular art-forms. Throughout the course, Irish visual history is discussed in its artistic, social, and cultural contexts together with its place in a broader international perspective.

Students learn how to apply various standard methods (separation of variables, integrating factors, reduction of order, undetermined coefficients) to solve certain types of differential equations (separable, first-order linear, linear with constant coefficients); give examples of differential equations for which either existence or uniqueness of solutions fails; compute the exponential of a square matrix; and use either linearization or the Lyapunov theorems to check the stability of critical points for a given autonomous system.

Recognizing that forced migration represents one of the key societal challenges of our times, with an average of one person being displaced every two seconds, this course uses a multidisciplinary approach to provide a theoretical, practical, and experiential understanding of the different causes and impacts of forced migration globally and a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of historical and contemporary issues in the field.  

This course explores the Roman world through the material culture of this vast and varied empire. It covers the full geographical extent of the Roman Empire examining subjects such as transport, technology and communication, urbanization and rural settlement, the economy and resources, religion and ritual. Regional case studies of Ostia and Portus, the Eastern Empire, and North Africa will all be included and allow an examination of how local communities were able to express their own regional identities.