English

This course examines big ideas in sociology that help to explain the key changes and challenges facing contemporary societies. It covers social change, power and conflict, inequality, identity, risk, individualization, and networks. 

This course offers a survey of the rise and fall of successive French imperial systems, from the creation of an American New France in the seventeenth century until the crisis in France's African sphere of influence today. Adopting a global perspective, it focuses on the role of external and local constraints – from rivalry with the British Empire to various types of indigenous resistance – rather than internal expansionist impulses in shaping the course of French imperial history. Special attention is paid to the role of racial distinctions, in a comparative perspective with other European empires. Topics covered include the collapse of the early modern and Napoleonic empires, the liberal reinvention of empire, colonial governance, and decolonization.

This course introduces the theory of performance, analyzing how an understanding of performance in everyday life, and in culture, gives a context for the study of performance in theater. Students learn basic tools of performance analysis, to develop the practice of analysis in practical sessions, and to discuss lecture materials in small group teaching. The course offers an introduction to ways of examining, reflecting on, and critically evaluating the phenomenon of performance in a highly technologized and globalized world.

This course examines the study of international relations in an era of globalization. It covers the historical background, key concepts and theories, case studies, and contemporary developments in the study of world politics.

This course offers a theoretically and methodologically informed analysis of culture, art and literature drawing on sociology and anthropology. Students are introduced to key sociological and anthropological concepts which facilitate the interpretation of art-works as both reflective of society and potentially transformative – whether literary, cinematic, musical, or whatever sort – including liminality, play, and social performativity. Effectively, these suggest that by creating imaginative spaces of narrative and symbolism, art can consider elements of society, and variously re-think and re-evaluate them, or even critique them.

This course offers an in-depth exploration of the sociology of radical left parties, analyzing their historical trajectory, the evolution of their organizational strategies, and their impact on the contemporary political landscape. It examines how these often marginalized parties have managed to gain power in various socio-historical contexts, as well as the dynamics that led them to occupy dominant political positions, only to often return to more marginal roles. Throughout the different sessions, the course addresses the social, organizational, and ideological foundations of the radical left, studying their relationships with protest movements as well as with extreme and moderate left, centrist, and right-wing political parties. The course also covers the contemporary challenges faced by the radical left, including the environmental crisis and the management of national economies that are deeply integrated into international financial markets. By examining concrete examples of parties that gained power in the early 21st century in Europe and Latin America, the course considers the reasons for their rise, and, in many cases, their return to the margins of power.

The course equips students with an understanding of engineering approaches to advanced biomedical imaging. It strongly focuses understanding the physical processes that occur between a particular imaging modality and the biological material being investigated. This course introduces the physical concepts of advanced medical imaging via lectures focused on specific imaging modalities. Lectures cover various imaging techniques to provide an advanced understanding of the physics of the signal and its interaction with biological tissue; image formation or reconstruction; modality-specific issues for image quality; clinical applications; and biological effects and safety. This course uses state-of-the-art emerging imaging modalities in research and engineering approaches to advance such techniques to the clinic.  

Cosmology traces developments in the mythological and natural-scientific study of the universe in its complex history. This course presents these developments as they have been interpreted from biblical, theological, and philosophical perspectives, and the conditions under which they have been understood to conflict or converge with cosmologies from the natural sciences, particularly since the 16th century. It explores how specific cosmologies emerged and in turn impacted on theology, science and culture, in astronomy, thermodynamics, emerging universe models, evolutionary theory and the return to narrative in the natural sciences. It includes implications for anthropology: the human person as created in the image of God (imago Dei); as embodied and free, contingent and subject to frailty and failure (“sin”); as "steward" of creation; and as inhabitant of the earthly cosmopolis. 

This course is an introduction to theoretical and practical components of weaving kete. Students learn to weave kete and critically examine traditional techniques, along with modern day applications.

In this course, students are introduced to current philosophical debates about the nature of mind and its place in the natural world. Prominent theories of the mind are considered with particular attention paid to their capacity to capture the first-personal, the apparently private, and experientially rich nature of mental life.