French

This course offers an introduction to the major questions in the history of modern and contemporary art in the West, based on a historical and artistic panorama ranging from the Renaissance to the end of the 19th century. It addresses several themes and questions, including what art history is; what roles figure, movement, and nature play in representation in the West; what an artist and an art critic is; what place the museum and the market occupy in our relationship to art; and what the terms "modern art" and "contemporary art" mean. The course identifies the descriptive and critical terminology developed in France and abroad to comment on artistic productions, as well as the history of terms within the art world. It also mobilizes the fields of general knowledge in art history and archaeology to document and interpret an artistic production and an archaeological object.

This course practices the methodology of textual analysis using an anthology of texts of different genres from the 16th to the 21st century. 

This course considers the relationship between the noir genre and social criticism, particularly from the perspective of the Situationist International group which was active between 1957 and 1972. It compares texts from the Situationist International and several novels by Jean-Patrick Manchette, in particular Ô DINGOS! O CASTLES! (1972), one of the first novels of the writer, very marked by situationist themes (critique of architecture, play, merchandise); THE LITTLE BLUE OF THE WEST COAST (1976), which marks a shift towards a more perceptible formal research while continuing the critique of daily life alienated; and THE POSITION OF THE PRONE SHOOTER (1981), where social criticism seems to take a back seat in favor a return to the violent and very refined action novel.

This course investigates minorization, how it relates to categorization and differentiation, and to what extent minorization plays a role in mass violence and colonial situations. It introduces the concept of minorization, one of the fundamental questions in sociology for understanding the issues of today's society yet missing from the French university catalog, and its place in academic debate.

This course examines a controversial issue: the history of slavery in France and the United States from the 17th to 21st centuries. It first focuses on the history of two cities at the heart of triangular trade, Bordeaux and Charleston, and the way in which their elites thought and translated into their lifestyles, in their urban spaces and, today, in their museums, this historical fact over time. The course then considers how the American and French slaves, unwilling actors in the history of slavery, for their part, thought and translated their history, but also their emotions, in particular through writing. The autobiographies published between the 18th century and the 19th century are an appreciable complement for the researcher even if they raise the question of the subjectivity of their authors and their status as sources. Finally, the course questions the way in which French and American literature, including that dedicated to youth, thinks about and translates the history of slavery through specific examples. The publication of historical novels relating to these lively questions having always been consciously accompanied by civic and moral objectives and the formative function of literature for youth being undeniable, the course investigates if French and American publications think and translate in the same way this part of our history and, above all, whether they transmit the same values. 

While questioning the relevance of the concept of the "Iranian world," this course provides fundamental knowledge in the political sociology of contemporary Iran and Afghanistan, from a comparative perspective. The course considers together the political, economic, and cultural developments of these two states over a long period, from the fall of Isfahan in 1722, under the blows of an Afghan invasion, to the fall of Kabul in 2021, via the Anglo-Persian war of Herat in 1856-1857 and the concomitant upheavals of 1978 and 1979. Methods of comparative politics are combined with those of connected history to better understand the "Iranian world" as a whole, as well as each of its two major components, highlighting their differences as much as their similarities. The comparative study of Islamic currents of thought in the two countries forms an important part of this course. This includes a focus on the Arab world, as well as the Indian subcontinent. Finally, while the course focuses on Iran and Afghanistan, it also includes Tajikistan, the only other state where Persian is the official language. The course includes a visit to the Guimet Museum.

This course is specialized for international students. It offers a contemporary history of political ecology in France, from the mid-19th century to present day. The course covers how the environmental issue has gradually become more and more political and cultural over the years, and how historiography has tended to favor the hypothesis of a delay in the emergence of this issue in France, in contrast to the situation in the United States. After recalling the main historical milestones (the creation of national parks in the United States, the National Trust in Great Britain), it looks at the first forms of identifying and safeguarding areas identified as "natural," using the example of tourism and the protection of remarkable sites. The course discusses how this process developed and amplified in the twentieth century, as industrialization and urbanization increased, with experiments such as allotments and debates on the return to the land; and finally, in the last third of the twentieth century, intellectual and popular movements took up environmental issues (Friends of the Earth, Larzac movement) and helped place them on the public agenda. The course reflects on the convergences and tensions as seen from the cities or from the countryside, by linking two historiographical traditions: urban and environmental history, and rural and agricultural history.

This course examines images and photography to understand the role perspective plays in interpretation and meaning.

This course examines the dynamics of contemporary racism in France through a knowledge of long history. It traces the genealogy of racism as it is expressed, both in the processes at work and in the debates that run through our society. To achieve this, the seminar focuses in particular, but not exclusively, on the legacy of our colonial past in terms of the expression of racism. This focus is directly linked to the lively debates that have arisen since the late 1990s as French society questions its colonial past. The seminar also develops the ability to reflect on the issues raised in a complex and problematized way.

This course offers a journey through the history of cinema through the prism of the notion of auteurs. It discusses when we start talking about filmmakers and directors, how they have established themselves over time, and when the director becomes an author. The course returns to the texts and films which marked the major stages of this history. Far from accepting this terminology as a fact, it discusses and retracing its history through American and European cinematography, demonstrating to what extent this history has contributed to shaping our contemporary understanding of cinema and cinema categories still widely used by the industry and institutions. Alongside the lecture course, the tutorial sessions focus on author-filmmakers who have favored improvisation work with the actors or alternative ways of considering the classic sequence between writing a script and work of the direction during filming. It examines how everyone finds themselves unique within a true cinematographic tradition inherited from the theater. This perspective makes it possible to go beyond the categories of documentary and fiction. This course notably address the works of Mike Leigh, Lionel Rogosin, Marguerite Duras, John Cassavetes, Maurice Pialat, Nicholas Ray, and Jean-François Stevenin, as well as the contemporary works of Abdelatif Kechiche, Rabah Ameur Zaïmeche, Tariq Teguia, Jean-François Stevenin, and Charles Hue.