English

This course provides a comprehensive introduction to Mathematical Logic, serving as a toolkit for clear thinking and a foundation for advanced studies in philosophy and sciences. We will begin with the basics of argumentation and traditional syllogistic logic, then move to the core of modern symbolic logic: Propositional Logic and First-Order Predicate Logic. Students will learn how to analyze the syntax and semantics of these systems and construct formal proofs. The course also covers essential mathematical tools such as basic Set Theory and mathematical induction. Furthermore, we will explore the frontiers of logic, including an introduction to Type Theory, the connection between logic and computation, and the relation of logic with computation and modern Artificial Intelligence.

This course examines the foreign relations between the People’s Republic of China’s and the Third World during the Cold War. The course will place a particular emphasis on the following topics: China’s position in the Cold War, the role of ideology, decolonization and the response of the Cold War powers, and the political economy of the Third World during the Cold War. A particular emphasis will be placed on Sino-African relations and less so on Latin America.

This course brings together several professionals in audiology, deaf education, cognitive psychology, and mental health to outline the role of psychology in understanding music. Students learn how different disciplines within the field of psychology can be applied to the study of music. Several topics are explored from basic auditory neuroscience exploring how we perceive aspects of music such as melody, harmony, and rhythm to how music has personal meaning in the context of memory and emotion. Students explore questions like, Why do certain songs get stuck on repeat in my head?’ How does music evoke strong emotions? Is music special: does our brain process music differently to other auditory stimuli? The course discusses what we mean by music, the basic elements of music and how the brain processes these elements. The course looks at how we appreciate music, the evolutionary function of music and whether we are born with an innate musical ability. The course considers contributions from developmental and cognitive psychology, and what these can tell us about how we process music. Finally, students look at music in clinical populations by reviewing case studies where musical ability or perception have been implicated and discussing the efficacy of music therapy in various clinical groups. 

This course is an introduction to race and colonial studies. Why do ideas about race feature in social relations today? What structures of knowledge do ideas about racial difference rely upon? How do historical projects of race-making come to be refashioned in contemporary social life? This course engages with such questions by examining the provenance of race and its defining role in the formation of colonial modernity. It provides an overview of key theoretical approaches and methodological debates in the study of race, racism, and colonial formations across various disciplines and intersecting sites of modern power.

The course examines the theory of financial decision-making by firms and examines the behaviour of the capital markets in which these decisions are taken. The topics covered are the theory of capital budgeting under certainty in perfect and imperfect capital markets, sources of funds, basic theory of capital structure and the cost of capital, company dividend decisions and financial markets and institutions. This course covers the same topics as FM215. Thus, both FM211 and FM215 are equivalent content-wise. However, compared to FM215, this course puts less emphasis on the underlying statistical theory and relies less on the use of mathematical methods. Nonetheless, the course is quantitative in nature, and familiarity with mathematical and statistical methods taught in first-year courses will be assumed.

This course introduces a computational approach to the sociology of ideas. It is structured around a classic research question in the social sciences requiring the collection of data relevant to the circulation of bodies and ideas between France and the USA in order to study these datasets and produce insights relevant to the research question. The educational objective of the course is to immerse students in the practice of research in computational social sciences through a variety of tools presented in class. It does so while maintaining a shared object of study. This year, the course studies Franco-American academic and intellectual exchanges since 1945. French scientists and intellectuals have long benefited from the hospitality of American institutions. These exchanges have led to an intense circulation of knowledge, the transformation of both U.S. and French academic scenes and the achievement of lasting results. They have transformed American universities to some extent, and, to a greater extent, they have affected French institutions through both brain drain and reverse brain drain. Yet, unlike larger diasporas (Chinese, Indian, or post-Soviet), the Franco-American scientific exchange has never been systematically studied. This course fills this gap by devising a methodology to study three dimensions - Mobility: French academics in the U.S., American academics in France; collaboration: Franco-American partnerships; and influence/attraction: French ideas on American campuses, American ideas on French campuses.

This course introduces students to the forces that made, upheld, and unmade empires in modern global history (c. 1780-present). The course approaches empires in a global historical perspective, looking at them as frameworks of power and resistance, and identifying connections and comparisons. Transformations in world order is a central concern. The course begins with imperial expansion, resistance and independence movements during the global period of revolution and global war in the 1780s. It traces the growth and consolidation of formal and informal empire through conquest and trade in the 19th and 20th centuries in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Pacific, examining how changing conceptions of identity, race, nation, and belonging intersected with modes of political and economic power. The course also examines the impact of European imperial expansion on the empires of Asia and their transition from empire to nation-state in the international society of the 19th and 20th centuries. 

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the complex geographies of gender roles, relations and identities and different type of feminisms in the global South. As well as exploring the theoretical approaches to gender and development thought, and especially different types of feminist thought, the course also examines a series of axes of diversity in relation to people’s lives in the global South. It examines changing social and economic aspects of development on women’s and men’s (and where research exists on trans and non-binary) lives in relation to household transformations, population mobility, poverty, employment, sexualities, gender-based violence, and development policy and practice.