Exeter College, Oxford University

In this course, students learn the foundations of neurobiology and neuropharmacology as it relates to stress, trauma, and mental illness. Topics include, for example, the impact of stress on epigenetics and the length of the telomeres causing early aging, the debate of whether genetic or environmental factors shape our mental health and contribute to mental illness, and the different approaches that mitigate the negative impact of stress on brain function.

Is politics possible beyond the nation-state? Will wars and conflicts ever become obsolete? This course introduces students to theories of International Relations (IR) and contemporary issues of Global Politics. It explores the historical and conceptual foundations of the field and investigates challenges currently shaping global politics. The course is divided into two main sections. Following a brief historical introduction to the discipline, students explore classical concepts and theories of IR, including power and anarchy (Realism), cooperation and human rights (Liberalism), norms and identity (Constructivism), followed by critical perspectives on global politics such as class and dependencies (Marxism), gender and the patriarchy (Feminism), and exploitation and orientalism (Postcolonialism). In the second section of the course, students investigate pressing global issues like terrorism, AI, and the climate crisis, which have fundamentally altered the conduct of international politics. The course concludes with a discussion of future (im)possibilities for global politics. 

This course introduces the theoretical and empirical research in behavioral economics and discusses how the use of methods and evidence in behavioral economics has changed both economics as a discipline and policymaking processes in the past few decades.

This course develops skills which enhance our interpretation, appreciation, and enjoyment of paintings. Lectures combine in-depth visual analysis with art historical understanding, imparting students with the skills and confidence to engage critically and creatively with paintings from a range of eras and places. Students incorporate other visual arts (sculpture, drawing, installation art, for instance), where these have been relevant to methods and histories of painting, as well as modern and contemporary strategies of display and exhibition-making. The course focuses on histories of British art and art collections in Britain (especially public collections accessible to students, in Oxford or London), though the course gives students a rounded understanding of painting made in prominent art centers, especially across Britain, Western Europe, and the United States.

This course explores the wonders of animal behavior and how the interaction between behavior and ecology has been shaped by natural selection. Students use examples of a wide range of behaviors, from simple innate responses to complex decision-making, while at the same time getting a comprehensive introduction to evolutionary thinking.

This course provides students an understanding of the biological bases of behavior and discusses some of our cognitive functions such as memory, learning, decision making, emotion, and the cognitive aspect under social behavior. 

The course examines the global history of migration and experiences of migration in the past. The first part of the course explores the reasons for individual and group migration, exploring the demographic context and impact of geographical mobility across different periods, and identifying different types of migration. Taking a long view of the history of migration, the course highlights the way shifting push and pull factors have shaped patterns of mobility in the past. With this demographic context in mind, the second part of the course examines migrant experiences since 1800 in more detail, considering how migration has been differentiated by class, race, gender, and age. By critically examining the sources, students recover migrant experience and consider both the subjective experience of migration and the ways in which migrant experiences have influenced national identities.