Aarhus University

The course covers various theories and models of culture-cognition interaction within particular domains of human life, e.g. religion, science, play, work, environment, gender, and health. The course introduces theories of how cultural practices and ideas work to align norms, values, and behaviors among members of a given society. The course also introduces to qualitative and quantitative methods that are relevant for studying the link between culture and cognition.

The course introduces approaches and topics rooted in linguistics such as intercultural pragmatics (speech acts and linguistic politeness), sociolinguistics, intercultural semantics (cultural keywords and scripts), non-verbal communication, gender differences, as well as interdisciplinary approaches to understanding how identities and values are reflected and constructed through language and communication. It takes as a point of departure the idea that language is both a resource that enables communication and collaboration within a community, but can also act as a boundary between insiders and outsiders. In this context, paradigms to the study of culture, like the distinction between cultures as rooted in essences or functions and thus more objectivist or constructivist scientific worldview are also introduced and related to questions of the study of intercultural communication.

This course deals with concepts, theories, and practices of global governance. Its central focus is on the understanding and analysis of discourses and policies created by international organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank, or the International Monetary Foundation (IMF) in interaction with different state and non-state actors. the course covers how international legal regimes take form, operate, and influence actors at various institutional levels. Through case studies, the course analyzes practices of global governance specifically oriented towards solving societal, political, economic, and environmental challenges that require global collective action. Specifically, it explores how power relations and inequalities affect the practice of global governance. This course presents students with knowledge of global mechanisms (institutions, discourses, policies) created to address and manage the rising societal, political, economic, and environmental challenges of a global nature, with a particular focus on the Sustainable Development Goals formulated by the UN.

The course provides students with core knowledge of current discussions about theories of how cognitive processes are shaped by more broad bodily processes, specially those of the motor system. It focuses on the influence of bottom-up processes in the formation of emotions, and the relation to theories of the self. The course encourages cross sectional discussions about the relationship between our three main overarching topics: embodiment, emotions, and the self, as well as the implications for cognition, behavior, and decision making. Students learn the relevance of these topics for psychology by examining some specific clinical disorders in both psychological and medical research. Similarly, examples for the relevance of this intersection in everyday-life as well as for areas outside psychology are highlighted.

This course provides insight into three interconnected fields of inquiry: the study of Scandinavia and the larger Nordic region; the analysis of film and audiovisual media; and an understanding of how film reflects past and present transnational and transcultural relations in a globally interconnected world. The interdisciplinary course relates close readings of films to discussions of the larger socio-political and media-aesthetic context. This context is marked, among others, by the global circulation of ideas and cultural products, by the Scandinavian welfare state and issues of gender equality, migration and diversity, environmental concerns, and decolonization processes. The course responds to contemporary shifts in Nordic self-imagining and closely examine the ways in which film mediates notions of imagined communities at local, national, and regional levels. Students are presented to a variety of audiovisual material, including documentaries, feature films, TV series, web-based series and short films. Apart from internationally renowned Scandinavian film directors, the Nordic screen milieu has in recent years been very successful in producing transnational TV and web-based series that have travelled globally. Another recent development reflected by the course is the strengthened voice of contemporary film from Greenland and Sápmi (the traditional lands of the indigenous Sámi people on the northern Scandinavian peninsula) that has so far not necessarily been marketed or seen as “Nordic” but circulates as “Indigenous cinema.” This diverse internationally circulating body of contemporary film helps to explore and expand the notion of “Norden” to understand better the region’s ethnic and cultural diversity and its transnational connectedness as reflected by contemporary audiovisual media.

Contemplative practices such as mindfulness and yoga, silent retreats and pilgrimages have seen a significant rise in popularity in recent years, in part driven by a rapidly growing body of scientific literature on the purported benefits of such practices for the relief of the ills of modern life, such as stress, anxiety, depression, but also as elements in the enhancement of human resilience and capacity. A sustained, critical and practical engagement with this field using a broad humanities approach can offer students an unusually rich and concrete experience in combining scholarly and personal inquiry. Through a close engagement with contemplative practices as objects of academic study and debate, as social phenomena in contemporary society, and as lived practices, this course provides an opportunity to explore fundamental questions in the humanities; for example, about the nature and meaning of being human; about consciousness, cognition and experience; about the relationship between mind and body; about freedom and connectedness; and about the relationship between the humanities and the sciences. The course introduces a rapidly growing field of research with considerable public interest to which humanities research makes significant contributions. By exploring contemplative practices in context, in theory, and in practice, students have an opportunity to develop a critical ability for assessing scholarly and popular claims about the nature and purported effects of contemplative practices. Literature for the course includes both scholarly texts about contemplative life and practice and historical and contemporary texts from contemplative traditions, including from classical philosophy, Christian, Sufi, and Buddhist contexts, as well as modern forms, such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.

This course provides the analytical tools required to connect and address the historical, philosophical, and political dimensions in the climate crisis. The first part of the course explores the development of the idea of humans as global agents; an idea which has culminated in the notion of “The Anthropocene,” the geological epoch that ends the Holocene. It examines the conceptual and technological conditions that have enabled us to think in terms of a global climate crisis and the ways in which this history continues to shape how we think about solutions and futures in a world of climate change. Part of this is also to reconsider the relations between the human and the natural sciences in a situation in which the nature-culture distinction may have lost its meaning. The course then encourages an adjustment of human self-understanding in light of the proclamation of our time as the Anthropocene, raising ontological as well as ethical issues, which burst the time frames as well as our understanding of responsibility for climate change as we know it. It examines the consequences of the collapse of the nature-culture distinction and the distinction between earth history and world history, and explores alternative conceptual models of framing our current situation. The final part of the course develops further the political and ethical implications of the climate crisis. It discusses the relationship between the global climate crisis and economic inequality and investigates the political dimensions (is the future of the planet a form of world government – a climate leviathan?) and the ethical dilemmas (what are the responsibilities of individuals, between societies and across generations?). 

This course provides the knowledge and analytical skills in relation to significant aspects of contemporary Indian and South Asian society and politics in a local and/or global perspective. Based on one or more delimited topics within contemporary Indian and South Asian society and politics, the course identifies and applies various relevant theoretical and methodical approaches with a view to critically describing and analyzing political and social conditions. It includes searching for various types of materials in Hindi and other languages at an advanced level, and to assess these critically in their context.