Ireland

This course explores microbiological concepts relevant to agricultural, environmental, and food applications. Examples relate microbiological theory to the production and spoilage of foods and fodders, water quality, microbiological regulation of nutrient cycles, animal and plant health, and biotechnology. Students are introduced to common microorganisms and consider growth, classification, genetics, survival, and control by sterilization, disinfection, immunization, and antibiotics. As part of the theoretical and practical aspects of the course students gain experience with microbiological laboratory methodologies such as microscopy, sterile technique, and the isolation and identification of pure cultures.

The Great Hunger or An Gorta Mór (1845-52) was the single most transformative event in modern Irish history and proportionally one of the most devastating famines to occur anywhere in the modern era. This famine led to the loss of one million lives and the emigration of two million refugees from a population of eight and a half million. The humanitarian crisis of the late-1840s and early-1850s marks the creation of a global Irish diaspora and a lasting memory of social change. This course explores key debates surrounding the famine and its resonances across Irish and global history, tackling topics including the role of government relief, epidemic disease, mass displacement, and the social revolution which fundamentally reshaped Ireland.

This course begins with the rise of Brian Boru, who became Ireland's most famous high king, to his fall which occurred at the iconic battle of Clontarf in 1014. Students explore how Irish society and kingship changed in the aftermath of Clontarf as a result of inter-provincial warfare and the changing role of the church. The second half of the course examines the causes and implications of the English (or Anglo-Norman) invasion of the late 1160s, perhaps the single most formative development in Irish secular affairs. Students study the interaction of cultures in its aftermath and the Irish opposition to English rule that saw the emergence of England's ongoing Irish problem through later centuries. The course closes with the most serious challenge to English power in medieval Ireland: the Scottish invasion (1315-18) led by Edward Bruce, brother of Robert Bruce king of Scots.

This course teaches linguistic and intercultural skills, contemporary cultural issues that present a societal challenge in its linguistic context, and metacognitive skills and strategies in the German language.

What is myth? How do myths deal with fundamental human concerns about who we are and the world we live in? What is the relationship between myth and religion? This course is an introduction to the major myths of the classical world using the full range of primary source material: literary, artistic, and archaeological. This course is offered in semester 1, and the course GREEK AND ROMAN RELIGION taught in semester 2 builds on it. Both can also be taken as a year-long course.