EXPAND YOUR EDUCATION THROUGH INTERDISCIPLINARY COURSES TAUGHT IN ENGLISH
The Office of General Education, Archives, and Culture, together with the Office of International Relations, invites UDP students and international students to take part in a renewed selection of interdisciplinary courses taught in English, offered as part of UDP’s General Education curriculum.
These courses are part of UDP’s commitment to global, cross-cutting, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary education. Through them, students will engage with contemporary issues from local and global perspectives, strengthen their participation in academic conversations in English, and interact with peers from different academic, cultural, and international backgrounds.
These courses are not designed as exclusively disciplinary courses, nor are they simply language courses. Their purpose is to expand students’ educational experience through topics that are relevant to today’s world, participatory methodologies, and learning environments that bring together different areas of knowledge.
This course selection allows students to practice English in meaningful academic contexts, while offering both UDP and international students a shared space for academic exchange, global learning, and interdisciplinary conversation.
For UDP students, these courses also offer a first concrete experience of what it is like to take a university course in English. This will allow them to gain confidence, strengthen their academic skills, and better prepare for future exchange experiences abroad.
To encourage student participation, the following support measures and facilitators will be available:
Taking an interdisciplinary course taught in English allows students to broaden their university experience, strengthen academic communication skills, and connect their education with an increasingly international academic and professional field.
Professor Guillermo Ramírez (Chile) has an MBA from Cambridge University and Masters in Economics & Public Policy. Over 15 years of practical business experience in a broad range of strategic leadership roles, managing commercial and technical teams with multiple stakeholders within dynamic matrix structures such as BHP (Mining Industry). Extensive experience in Commercial Development, Supply Chain, Contract/Project Management, Strategic Planning and Sales & Marketing. Broad experience within multiple industries and institutions (University of Cambridge President for its Society Cambridge Business association) and startups (from idea to successful exit phase) sitting in the board, in addition to being a University Professor (Chile ́s Top 5), providing a unique triple Corporate-Startup-Academic business perspective to evaluate challenges and achieve objectives.
In this course, the student will learn about the characteristics of the biggest multilatinas, how they have built their domestic and international competitive advantage, and they will identify which are the challenges and innovations to achieve the sustainability of their superior economic performance. Themes that will be touched upon are: How do multilatinas create competitive advantage? Driving forces behind business development in Latin America, Internationalization strategies, Innovation and entrepreneurship in Latin America.
This subject is taught in the first and second semester each year.
Claudia Gonzaléz (Venezuela) is an Economist with a Master’s Degree in Political Science and International Relations. Claudia has worked for the foreign affairs departments of Australia, Canada, and Sweden, but also at a national level in Chile as a Ministerial Advisor. Her areas of expertise include gender, migration, trade and development within the realm of international cooperation and diplomacy. In her current position at the Swedish Embassy in Chile she oversees sustainability, innovation and gender equality initiatives with Swedish companies in Chile in different industry sectors. Claudia is originally from Venezuela, but she is also Chilean and has lived in the country for the past 9 years.
The course program is designed to provide students with the tools to understand and analyze the concept of Sustainable Development (SD) and the environmental, social and economic effects it has in governments’ agendas. The role of International Organizations and how different countries engage on this subject. In the last part of the course, students will be encouraged to apply the theory to specific Case Studies.
This subject is taught in the first and second semester each year.
Alejandro Rossi has a PhD from UC Davis in Spanish on Designated Emphasis and Human Rights Studies, as well as expertise in the field of Native American Studies. He has an extended experience as peer reviewer, received several fellowships, grants, presenting papers at conferences on indigenous topics from diverse perspectives from Chile and other countries. The course’s main objective is to read and analyze seminal works by authors from indigenous communities in Chile and the Americas to reflect on the colonization process and the imposition of the values of Modernity on the indigenous populations and territories that we inhabit today in the Hemisphere. We aim to recognize and value the worldviews of a range of Indigenous Communities (Mapuche, Quechua, Mayan, Zapatism, Mohawk, Anishinaabe, among others), with the intention of enriching and expanding our own perspectives about the world. To do this, we will specifically problematize the ideas of class, race, gender, and territory in order to comprehensively understand the diverse worldviews that meet and dispute in our 21st-century global societies.
This subject is taught in the first and second semester each year.
Scarlet Elgueta (Chile), Astronomer with PhD from The University of Tokyo, Japan, with a strong focus on spectroscopic observations, particularly of variables in the infrared bands. She is a scientist with a strong need to share/exchange knowledge with different people from diverse backgrounds to teach them about the universe in a practical and every day, hands-on way.
This course will help you defining reality requires the acknowledgement of the most inherent dimensions. We sense the passage of time by observing the movement of the sun up in the sky, providing us the notion of day and night. Such natural (and obvious) observations imply the realization of the basic three “units” that describe what we have been observing throughout the history of humanity. Those units are: Mass, in this simple case, the Sun that moves a certain distance (Length) in Time (a day). This lecture aims to review the methods that astronomers and other scientists have used to estimate distances in the Universe. From the very unimaginable quantum lengths to the immeasurable edge of our observable Universe. Allowing the student to reach a full realization of our place in the Universe, and understand how, from our very tiny spot, we’ve been able to reach extremely accurate measurements employing the scientific method.
This subject is taught in the first semester each year.
(ES) About the lecturer
Nicolas Talloni is a social scientist with a Ph.D. in Resource Management andEnvironmental Studies from Northern British Columbia, an M.A. in PoliticalPhilosophy, and a B.A. in Sociology. His academic and professional path has beenshaped by a transdisciplinary approach to complex socio-environmentalchallenges. His work seeks to bridge critical theory with applied practice,contributing to just and sustainable transformations.
Course Overview
This course explores the scientific foundations, technological responses, andsocio-political dynamics of climate change in an interconnected world. Studentswill examine the causes and consequences of climate change through the lens ofsystems thinking and socio-ecological frameworks, drawing on interdisciplinaryevidence from the natural sciences, engineering, and social innovation. Usingglobal and comparative case studies, students will engage critically with climate-related challenges across sectors such as agriculture, marine ecosystems, publichealth and urban infrastructure with an emphasis on integrated climate solutions,including technological innovations (e.g. renewable energy, smart cities, climatedata modeling), policy frameworks, and citizen-led responses — with attention totheir socio-political contexts and ethical dimensions. Through collaborativeprojects and active learning methods, students will explore local and internationalpolicy responses, integrate gender and human rights perspectives, and reflect onemerging narratives of hope and sustainability.
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About the lecturer
Valeria Navarro Rosenblatt is a historian with a PhD in History, whose academic work focuses on United States history, migration, and transnational processes in the Americas. She teaches in the area of societies and citizenship, integrating historical analysis with global and cultural perspectives.
Course Overview
This course explores the United States as a nation shaped by successive waves of international migration, examining how migrants have influenced its social, cultural, political, and economic development from the late nineteenth century to the present. Beginning with contemporary debates on migration, the course moves historically to analyze key migratory moments and the conditions that produced them, situating U.S. migration within broader global contexts.
Through a transdisciplinary approach that combines history, global studies, and cultural analysis, students critically engage with migration policies, political discourse, moral debates, and lived experiences of migrants. Particular attention is given to stereotypes, exclusions, and competing narratives surrounding the idea of the United States as a “nation of immigrants.” Using historical texts, audiovisual materials, and public narratives, the course encourages students to reflect on the myths, silences, and realities that continue to shape understandings of migration and citizenship today.
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About the lecturer
Ximena earned her Master’s degree in Museum Anthropology from Columbia University in 2016 as a Fulbright Fellow and completed her undergraduate studies at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. In 2024, she was awarded a PhD in Cultural Heritage from the University of Birmingham. Her research focuses on the interplay between memory, migration, and identity, as well as the construction of national narratives across diverse media. Ximena has extensively utilized oral history to delve into collective and personal memories, shedding light on the lived experiences of various communities.
Course Overview
This course offers a broad, engaging, and rigorous introduction to feminism as a global historical, political, and cultural movement. Students will explore the diverse origins of feminist thought across different regions of the world, examining how social, economic, colonial, racial, and cultural contexts have shaped feminist struggles and ideas over time. Moving beyond a single narrative, the course highlights multiple feminist traditions and currents while emphasizing their points of convergence, tension, and debate. The course also engages with current global feminist debates, encouraging students to critically reflect on how feminism operates today in different political and cultural contexts.
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About the lecturers
This course is taught by Constanza Jorquera Mery, an analyst in International Policy and Affairs, holding a PhD in American Studies (International Studies specialization) and a Master’s degree in International Studies (Universidad de Chile). Her work focuses on international relations, East Asian studies (China, Japan, and the Korean Peninsula), security and defense, peripheral thought, and feminist approaches to foreign policy. This course includes a COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) module in collaboration with Leiden University’s Global Citizenship and Transformations programme, specifically in the Social Citizenship and Migration pillar taught by Prof. Amalia Campos-Delgado, Assistant Professor of Law & Society at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society at Leiden University. She is member of Mexico’s National System of Researchers (SNI, Level I). She holds a BA in Anthropology, a MRes in Sociocultural Studies from El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, and a PhD in Politics from Queen’s University Belfast.
Course Overview
The course explores the concepts of security, border control, human rights practices, actors, narratives, discourses, media coverage, and policy responses by states and non-state actors regarding the securitization of human mobility, providing a comprehensive overview of these interconnected issues. This course will motivate students to achieve a deeper insight into tensions between states, multilateral institutions, political forces, and social movements over the dynamics of crucial immigration-related issues that have transformative effects on representation, decision-making, human rights, and democracy.
(ES)
About the lecturer
Alejandro Rossi has a PhD from UC Davis in Spanish on Designated Emphasis and Human Rights Studies. He has an extended experience as peer reviewer, received several fellowships, grants, presenting papers at conferences on indigenous topics from diverse perspectives from Chile and other countries and teached several courses at UDP on Artificial Intelligence in applied projects and research in the academic field.
Course Overview
In this course students will develop AI literacy and practical fluency in generative AI for inquiry, academic writing, and creative production. The course builds prompt craft, verification and citation workflows, ethical, copyright-aware practice, and creative experimentation to foster critical thinking and creative making in AI-mediated research and writing. Students will step into evidence-based research with AI, learning to scope a topic, probe multiple sources, and weigh benefits, limitations, and ethical dilemmas. Students will build a portfolio of three text or multimodal pieces, experimenting with prompts and revisions while writing brief reflections on authorship, originality, and ethics. The course end with a Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology where teams craft a creative project that leverages AI responsibly, detailing their workflow end to end and sharing the outcome in a focused, audience-ready presentation.