English

This course sheds light on the history of Liberalism through a comparison between Britain and France. It builds a step-by-step history of liberal movements, liberal ideas, and their contradictions, both through British political history and French history, to provide a better understanding of both historical debates and today's issues regarding the notion of Liberalism in context. The course questions the view of Britain as a country of successful liberalism and France as one of failed or incomplete liberalism. It addresses Liberalism and anti-liberalism at the crossroads of political history, intellectual history, and political philosophy.

The course is divided into three parts: the first part addresses the Chinese political economy in the time of reform and opening out. Topics include some of the momentous shifts in China's socio-economic order from Maoism to the present day, with a particular focus on the rising and declining social groups and the distribution of power resources across society; the key stages and (re)orientations of Reform and Opening; economic policies with an eye to the social and political tendencies and tensions that it encapsulates; Chinese socio-economic landscape of today in a critical discussion of notions such as state capitalism and China model; and the diversity of Chinese development through a focus on the contrasts between several competing regional models. The second part addresses Chinese culture and religion. Topics include cultural foundations of ancestor worship and its contemporary practice; the meaning of guanxi (relationship) and its application and transition in Chinese society; the Five Relationships, the core of Confucian ethics; the culture of Shanghai, including themes such as nostalgia and consumerism, as well as the value system and lifestyle of Shanghainese; and an introduction to Chinese policy of religious freedom, to the historical background and contemporary situation of Chinese folk religion, and to the phenomenon of mass conversion to Christianity in China. The third part focuses on Shanghai studies as a means to offer a distinct localized illustration of the Chinese experience.

This course introduces theoretical concepts of personality, that is, people's behavior under influence of internal and external forces. Topics: significant 19th- and 20th-century theorists who have contributed to the history and development of personality theory, examining how their theories were shaped by the period in which they lived, and assessing the utility of these theories today. The theorists studied include Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Carl Gustav Jung, Eric Erikson, James McKeen Cattell, Hans Jurgen Eysenck, Albert Bandura, George Kelly, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maglow, and Francis Hsu. 

The fear of conspiracy functions as a recurring motif in many American cultural forms including novels, film, television, certain genres of music like hip-hop and rap, graphic novels, and social media. After considering early articulations of conspiracism in the US, this course focuses on 20th and 21st Century mediations and figurations of conspiracy fears and theories. The course considers conspiracism through key events that have unsettled epistemic certainty and fuelled hermeneutic activity, including the assassination of JFK, 9/11, the election of Barack Obama, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

This course looks at key social movements from the 20th and 21st century and the ways in which culture and cultural expression have been central to representing social causes, communicating concerns, and engendering public support for social change. It examines how technologies have changed the shape of cultural expression, often defining the texture and possibilities of activist practices. The course explores a wide range of cultural practices and their relationship with activism including the visual arts, performing arts, and music. It draws from examples across time and geographic locations.