Ireland

This course provides basic reading knowledge of Middle Egyptian and its hieroglyphic script. After coverage of the basics in the first few weeks, most of the course is devoted to reading and understanding "set texts," which students prepare in advance of each session. The set texts, which form the basis of the exam, includes the Story of the SHIPWRECKED SAILOR ("Papyrus Leningrad") and extracts from funerary stelae and other works in Middle Egyptian - among these, the Story of Sinuhe.

The Celtic languages remain the media of communication to a greater or lesser extent in communities scattered on the western fringe of 21st-century Europe, in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany. These are the survivors of a history traceable over two and a half thousand years encompassing, at one time, nearly the whole of western Europe and much of central and eastern Europe. The modern Celtic languages interact in various ways with the societies in which they are embedded, the official and unofficial institutions of those societies (government, legislation, industry, etc.), and with the wider cultures of the countries where they are used. This course introduces students to the study of the Celtic languages in these contexts and the sociolinguistics of the Celtic languages, and considers the ways in which they are endangered as languages of the lives and thoughts of the people who use them. Students also examine ways in which their existence and status can be strengthened and expanded, through language planning, looking also at the cases of Cornish in Cornwall and Manx in the Isle of Man, where, though technically dead languages, vigorous revival movements work to prove that news of their demise was premature.

The course engages the study of ethics in sport as field of academic enquiry in a cross-curricular way with a variety of methodological approaches. It seeks to recognize and critically examine the varieties of ethical traditions, and appreciates the internal diversity within those traditions, in their historical and contemporary manifestations. The course engages with the various methods required for assessment of the media including historical, philosophical, social, and cultural analyses.  Sport in contemporary society has been described both as an expression of the highest human and social values, and as a legally secured parallel world of the elite pursuit of victories and medals. On the one hand, as a sphere of physical self-realization, social formation, and of moral training in fairness, it is seen as an area with standards of excellence that can be closely aligned to ethics. On the other hand, individual sport stars and the institutions of organized sport have been subject to multiple inquiries and critiques: for example, on doping, corruption, sponsorship, and the power of mentors and child protection. The concluding element deals with some of the most pressing ethical issues in the media today.

This course examines political, social, and cultural developments in Ireland during the early modern period within a narrative and thematic framework, starting with Tudor political reform and continuing through to the Act of Union in 1800. Principal topics of the class include the impact of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation; the wars and rebellions of the 16th century and the demise of Gaelic Ireland; colonization and "civilization" of Ireland by the English and the Scots; Confederate Ireland and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms; the Cromwellian and Restoration land settlements; the War of the Three Kings; the Protestant Ascendancy and the Penal Era; the impact of the American and French revolutions; the rebellion of the United Irishmen; the formation of "Irish" and "British" national identities; Irish migration to continental Europe; and Ireland and Empire.