BSRS 2011

Course 1
Climate change narratives:language use in the circulation of climate knowledge

Course leader

Trine Dahl, Professor, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH), Department of professional and intercultural communication

Deputy course leader

Kjersti Fløttum, Professor, Department of Foreign Languages, UiB

In collaboration with

Gisela Bøhm, Professor, Department of Psychosocial Science, UiB

Trond Martin Dokken, Senior Researcher, Uni Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research

Helge Drange, Professor, Geophysical Institute, UiB

Elisabeth Eide, Associate Professor, Department of Information Science and Media Studies, UiB / Oslo University College, Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science

Jill M. Walker Rettberg, Associate Professor, Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, UiB

Andrew Salway, Researcher, Uni Digital

Invited guest lecturer

Michal Krzyzanowski, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Linguistics and English language, Lancaster University County College, United Kingdom

Short course description

Climate change is a major global challenge which affects both advanced and less advanced economies. The complexities and uncertainties of climate change are presented, circulated and interpreted in a large variety of text and talk. Thus, the circulation of knowledge among scientists, media, politicians, activists and the general public constitutes an additional challenge.

In the communication of climate change, language may seem to represent a limitation. However, language is also a resource, which may be used or misused in the circulation of the many different climate change ‘stories’.

This course will focus on how the IPCC and other research-based organisations present climate change knowledge and on how this knowledge is received, interpreted and responded to in both mainstream and social media, in political and NGO contexts as well as by the general public. Different perspectives from different parts of the world (in a global North versus global South perspective) will be included.

Full course description and syllabus here (PDF)

Course 2
Emerging normative regimes

Course leader

Thorvald Sirnes, Associate professor, Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, UiB

Deputy course leader

Rasmus Tore Slaattelid, Associate professor, Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, UiB

In collaboration with

Roger Strand, Professor, Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities, UiB

Invited guest lecturers

Anne Norton, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania, USA

Sudipta Kaviraj, Professor, Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies, Columbia University, USA

Shijun Tong, Professor, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China

Short course description

As a consequence of new economic, political and cultural relations of domination on a world scale, we may ask whether the global context of normativity is changing.  To a considerable degree the specific European and North-American historical experiences and lessons have functioned as the context within which the most important global normative questions have been defined.

The Westphalen peace, the French revolution, the Jewish question, the German question and second world war, etc., produce a frame of reference for normative critiques, debates and struggles. However, the new global position of China and India may be indicators of a rupture. Therefore, we want to explore the historical experiences and events that define the normative questions within these emerging regimes.

Full course description and syllabus here (PDF).

Course 3
Fundamentals of law in globalisation

Course leader

Joanna Beata Banach-Gutierrez, Post doc., Faculty of Law, UiB

Deputy course leaders

Andrew Patricio Cavalcanti, Post.doc, Faculty of Law, UiB

Kine Knutsen Angeltveit, Assistant Researcher, Faculty of Law, UiB

In collaboration with

Bjarte Askeland, Professor, Faculty of Law, UiB

Linda Gröning, Postdoctoral fellow, Faculty of Law, UiB

Katja jansen Fredriksen, Doctoral fellow, Faculty of Law, UiB

Jørn Jacobsen, (Read more), Postdoctoral fellow, Faculty of Law, UiB

Karl Harald Søvik, Professor, Faculty of Law, UiB

Magne Strandberg, Researcher, Faculty of Law, UiB

Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde, Professor, Faculty of Law, UiB

Birthe Taraldset, Doctoral fellow, Faculty of Law, UiB

Rachel Sieder, Senior Researcher, Chr. Michelsen Institute

Tina Søreide, Senior Researcher, Chr. Michelsen Institute

Invited guest lecturer

Eric David, Professor, Faculté de Droit, Campus du Solbosch, Belgium

Short course description

Changing structures of legal regulation becomes a core aspect of the current globalisation of society that is quite often determined in terms of internationalisation of law. Thus, legal norms are not only established at the national, but also at the international level.

The research course on Fundamentals of Law in Globalisation is aimed at stimulating some interdisciplinary debate on fundamental principles and concepts of law, in the context facilitating more general discussions on the progressing internationalisation of law, at the global level.

The course is focused on some specific thematic areas, these are: criminal justice, including also elements of international humanitarian law; regulation of the economic field by means of law; tort law and the evidence law; in addition to a broader debate on the mutual relations between law, culture and constitutions.

Full course description and syllabus here (PDF)

Course 4
Gender and globalisation: Theoretical and methodological challenges

Course leader

Ellen Mortensen, Professor, Centre for Women’s and Gender Research (SKOK)

Deputy course leaders

Gaudencia Mutema, Postdoctoral fellow, Centre for Women’s and Gender Research, UiB

Marit Tjomsland, Associate professor, Faculty of Psychology, Research Centre for Health Promotion (HEMIL) (Master Programme on Gender and Development (GAD)), UiB

In collaboration with

Kari Jegerstedt, Postdoctoral fellow, Centre for Women’s and Gender Research, UiB

Cecile Ødegaard,Postdoctoral fellow, Faculty of Psychology, Research Centre for Health Promotion (HEMIL) (Master Programme on Gender and Development (GAD), UiB

Synnøve Bendixsen, Postdoctoral fellow, Centre for Women’s and Gender Research, UiB

Invited guest lecturers

Anne Hellum, Professor, Department of Public and International Law, Institute of Women’s Law

David L. Eng, Professor, Department of English, University of Pennsylvania, USA 

Teemu Ruskola, Professor of Law, Emory University, USA 

Short course description

This interdisciplinary course will explore how globalization processes affect how we conceive of gender today. Concepts of gendered, sexual, ethnic and religious identity, which traditionally have been understood within the context of the nation-state, are now being subject to radical redefinitions due to the global spread of finance capital, new technologies, and the transnational migration of people, cultures and customs.

This course will address issues of gender and identity from the perspective of citizenship, migration, democracy, human rights, armed conflict and military intervention and the reproduction of uneven power relations between the North and the South.

The course will also address issues related to women’s right to use, access and control of natural resources, by approaching development from a gendered and rights-based perspective.

Students will be introduced to both theoretical and methodological challenges involved in gender-related research on these issues, from theoretical/philosophical, juridical, anthropological and sociological perspectives, using various feminist/gender and postcolonial theories.

Full course description and syllabus here (PDF)

Course 5
Norms and language

Course leader

Ingunn Lunde, Professor, Department of Foreign Languages, UiB

Deputy course leader

Ana Beatriz Chiquito, Associate professor, Department of Foreign Languages, UiB

In collaboration with

Miguel Angel Quesada-Pacheco, Professor, Department of Foreign Languages, UiB

Aleksandrs Berdicevskis, Doctoral fellow, Department of Foreign Languages, UiB

Martin Paulsen, Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Foreign Languages, UiB

Invited guest lecturer

Gasan Gusejnov, Professor of Classical Philology, Moscow State University 

UiB Guest teacher

Lin Bernard NKa, PhD student in French, IF, UiB

Short course description

This course has a global scope and seeks to gain an understanding of how languages exist and coexist in different societies.

Central perspectives include the notion of norm in the development and maintenance of a standard language, the power structures which influence such processes and the fate and conditions of minority languages. We discuss attempts to enforce, modify and regulate norms and the institutions, organisations and individuals involved in such endeavours.

We further zoom in on norm negotiations, assessing the variety of ways in which linguistic norms are discussed, challenged or accepted in verbal interaction between human beings.

Finally we bring up questions of norms related to oral language, literacy and the creation of alphabets. The course draws on current research in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and cultural studies.

Full course description and syllabus here (PDF)