Social Change and Civic Health (10 credits) Dr. Kieran Keohane

Description: This course explores social change and civic health through the groundbreaking reformulation of questions of public health and public policy in the context of globalization pioneered by the English epidemiologists Marmot and Wilkinson who persuasively elucidate the link between the emerging social forms of globalization and the social health gradient, interrogating such key terms as ‘quality of life’ and ‘well-being’, and implicitly raising for us the question of to the extent to which Ireland’s current socio-economic model is particularly pathogenic? The course also utilizes the critical interpretive paradigm developed by the German neo-Hegelian Axel Honneth, and his ongoing debate with the Marxist-Feminist Nancy Frazer, the so-called ‘Recognition / Redistribution debate,’ within whose terms disorders of the collective body politic appear as expressions of mis- or mal- recognition on the one hand or (or and / or) of material distribution on the other, as well as Durkheim's work on Moral Education.

Delivery: The seminar is open to all students affiliated with the National Social Sciences Platform –NSSP. The module will be taught at UCC. It will be delivered in the form of Four x One-Day intensive seminars, supported by online resources (Blackboard). Wednesday October 22nd , 2008 9.30am – 6.00pm; Wednesday November 12th 9.30am – 6.00pm; Wednesday November 26th 9.30am – 6.00pm; Wednesday, December 10th 9.30am – 6.00pm.

Civilisation and Globalisation: The Rise and Dynamics of the Modern World in the Context of Civilisational Analysis (10 credits) Professor Arpad Szakolczai

Description: The course will provide a guide for understanding the processes that gave rise to the modern global world in which we all live, and which seem to define its dynamics, perhaps even seal its fate. It will proceed by reconstructing the internal logic of the long-term historical developments of which the modern world is the outcome, but will also situate these processes on the broadest possible horizon in space and time. Therefore emphasis will be placed on the rise and fall of civilisations over the course of history, a comparative analysis of Western and non-Western civilisations, and the comparative anthropology and mythology of cultures.

Delivery: The module will be delivered in the form of Six x One-Day intensive seminars. Students must attend a minimum of four of the six seminars, including the first. Dates: October 21st 2008; October 28th, 2008; November 4th 2008; November 11th 2008; November 18th 2008; November 25th, 2008.