Ireland

This course focuses on how Europe was defined through war, military occupations, civil conflicts, and peace agreements in the 19th and 20th centuries. Drawing on examples of various conflicts, students discuss several major questions: How did international and civil conflicts shape European culture and politics? Why was the 20th century so violent? How did Europe become divided into “right” and “left,” and “East” and “West”? How are these conflicts and political extremes remembered or forgotten today?

This course provides a firm understanding of physical concepts and processes, and students apply concepts learnt to recent advances in our understanding of science in general. Under the headings of physiology, diagnosis and therapy, and on scales from the cell through macro-organisms to the environment, students learn ways in which biological and medical phenomena may be better understood from a physics viewpoint. 

This course is based on the idea that there are other ways of approaching the study of brain structure and function beyond the conventional focus of parsing cognitive, affective, and other functions using standard tools such as brain imaging. Much research has been conducted at the intersection of the brain, other disciplines, and society at large. These topics vary greatly, but include the impact of the brain sciences on the courtroom to understanding the nature of the brain’s response during aesthetic experience, or the neurobiology of poverty, and the effect adversity on development. The course broadens and deepens students’ understanding of the cognitive and brain sciences as they impact on the individual and their place and interaction with development, family, and society at large. 

Social Entrepreneurship is a rapidly growing area in Ireland and internationally, as businesses can no longer operate in isolation from social, environmental and political challenges.  When considering climate change trends, economic inequality, and political instability, arguably, those challenges, are existential and urgent. This course develops a critical awareness of major issues, opportunities, and problems associated with social entrepreneurship in Ireland and internationally. Students examine the theoretical underpinnings of social entrepreneurship and social venture development and analyze patterns of social entrepreneurial behavior. Students work with theory, cases, and their own social entrepreneurial projects to identify how social entrepreneurship can respond to and even drive social-economic-political change.