French

This course establishes fundamental knowledge needed to understand contemporary Iran. It analyzes political, economic, and cultural transformations which have guided imperial Persia from the beginning of the 19th century to become the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. The course systematically compares Iran and its regional environment with an emphasis on the Arab world and Turkey. It utilizes diverse disciplinary approaches, from social history to political economics, with a focus on political sociology.

This course explores the relationship between urbanization and globalization and considers global urbanization based on the discipline of geography and its tools. After providing conceptual bases for thinking and representing the urban, the course explores the spaces and forms of urban societies, as well as the practices and social dynamics that define urbanity. It then studies the logic of interconnection between cities, particularly on the economic and migratory levels. Finally, the course focuses on the government of cities and their major development issues. It highlights differing urban realities on each continent, examining the diverse urbanity of the South in particular. 

From the lenses of cultural studies and gender studies, this course examines how fiction throughout various eras has treated, whether directly or indirectly, questions of seduction, femininity, masculinity, and the meaning of virility. It explores the manner in which political and ideological disruptions have modified the figure of the seducer and vamp, and how this is presented in various cultural productions of stories, novels, poems, frescoes, paintings, opera, film, television series, and video games. 

This course focuses on the history of writing, storytelling, and books. It begins with the first signs of writing known to man, then explores the evolution of the creation of writing and what is known as a book today. The course studies the different methods used to create written works and includes guided visits to the printing museum. The first part of the course focuses on the global history of writing, and the second part of the course concentrates on the history and evolution of writing in France.  

This course focuses on Martin Heidegger’s thoughts on technology as they developed post-war and increasingly became part of the French and European landscape. It examines Heidegger’s thoughts as well as those of others that debated in the 1940s and 1950s, including Adorno, Horkheimer, Hans Jonas and Arnold Gehlen; and current thinkers like Giorgio Agamben or Harmut Rosa. The course provides a critical reflection on technology, modernism, and the notion of progress.