Ireland

This course gives an overview of the history of European unity and enlargement and focuses on the elaboration of EU foreign policy. Attention is given to issues such as the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the Common Security and Defence Policy, foreign aid, human rights, and terrorism.

This course reviews theory and research in social and organizational psychology with a view to developing research-informed appreciation of connections between the field of psychology and everyday life. The social psychology aspect of the course explores in detail social influence, social relations, and social thinking. It applies social psychology to understand how people perceive themselves and others, how people relate to one another, and how social psychological knowledge can be used to make a difference in people's lives. The second part of the course introduces the area of organizational psychology. The course introduces some key models for understanding organizational behavior; it considers important dimensions of how people make sense of themselves and their "fit" within work groups, to particular jobs, and to the organization itself; it explores real world implications of "fit" for career decision making, workplace socialization, workplace teams, etc.; and the course addresses issues of workplace stress and instances of deviance at work.

This course develops students' knowledge of French beyond an elementary level of competence. While the four skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing are covered, there is particular emphasis on improving oral and aural competence and extending vocabulary. The course deepens awareness and understanding of French society and culture. This course is delivered via small group teaching with classes having a maximum of 18 students. Students also have access to extra resources and materials via Moodle, the ALC's Virtual Learning Environment.

This course analyzes, at both a practical and theoretical level, the process of investment in financial markets. It introduces students to the various types of financial instruments in common use and to the economic theories that explain how they are priced. The types of securities considered include interest-bearing securities, equities, and derivatives (options, futures, etc.). The course first explores how financial markets operate and how securities are bought and sold. The trade-off between higher returns and more "risky" pay-offs is then discussed. The problem of determining an optimal investment strategy, given beliefs about the probability distribution of returns, is also addressed. Other issues considered include the informational efficiency of financial markets and the relative usefulness of fundamental analysis and technical analysis in predicting price movements.

This course provides students with an overview of anthropology, with an especial focus on cultural/social anthropology. Students examine the development of key concepts in the discipline, such as kinship and social organization, and ask what it means to think anthropologically. This includes considering how the development of human societies relates to other models of change, such as Darwinian evolutionary theory; whether there are universal features of human societies; and how one makes comparisons between different ways of understanding the world.

In this course, students gain a basic knowledge of inorganic chemistry. This includes a discussion of different types of molecular and solid state bonding, geometrical and steric considerations, and an introduction to the distribution of electron density and oxidation states. The solid state part of this course describes the structures of A, AB, AB2, and AB3 compounds and metallic, ionic, and covalent bonding in solid materials. In addition, X-ray diffraction as the key method of investigating the solid state experimentally is introduced. Trends across the periodic table are highlighted, and examples cited to illustrate the relevance of these concepts to applied fields, such as solar cells, batteries, and self-assembly.

This course analyzes, at both a practical and theoretical level, the process of investment in financial markets. The first half of the course explores how financial markets operate and how securities are bought and sold. The trade-off between higher average returns and more "risky" pay-offs is then discussed. The problem of determining an optimal investment strategy, given beliefs about the probability distribution of returns, is also addressed. Other issues considered include the informational efficiency of financial markets and systematic pricing failures, the role of behavioral biases, and the relative usefulness of fundamental analysis and technical analysis in predicting price movements. Students are also required to complete projects involving the collection and analysis of financial data.

This course introduces advanced students to a current strain of skepticism against the idea that morality should be spelled out in terms of context-insensitive and impartial duties and that duty, understood this way, must be of the greatest authority for human existence. The four themes of the course include an introduction to the debate about the supposed limits of morality as well as to the position that is usually the target of overdemandingness objections; a discussion of overdemandingness as a problem for forms of consequentialism; a discussion of the overdemandingness objection against Kantianism and contractualism; and a critical discussion of the foundations of the debate.

In this course, students analyze the effect of music composition in film. This includes the melodic and rhythmic elements as well as how they complement the accompanying visual work. This is done through looking at clips of film both with and without music and picking apart how it is both applied and withheld. The course also discusses the process of being a composer working on a film and the role they play.