French

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Western world of the early Middle Ages underwent centuries of transformation marked by new political structures, the adoption of Christianity, and a renewed social organization. This course offers an overview of the early European Middle Ages, prior to the Gregorian Reform and the Crusades, and examines political, social, economic, and cultural aspects while introducing the historical sources that allow us to reconstruct this period.

This course covers etching, aquatint, and soft varnish techniques, as well as other more elaborated techniques. During the sessions, each technique discussed is accompanied by a demonstration. Students work with a predefined theme throughout the semester and present a project that highlights the techniques discussed during the semester.

This course presents, from a comparative perspective, the Basque language: a European language that does not belong to the Indo-European family, in its typology, the history of the language, etc. The linguistic system is compared to the neighboring Romance languages ​​(Catalan, Castilian, French, Occitan) and Latin. The course focuses on the descriptive linguistics of Basque which address the history and sociological aspects of the language, as well as its phonological system, dialect variation and standard, declension and the case system, syntax, ergativity, verbal system, allocutivity, etc. It addresses historical landmarks, synchrony and diachrony, the phonological system and diachronic variants, morphology, the question of number, marking and meaning, inflectional language, agreement (noun phrase and verb), morphosyntax of the noun, the role of word order and postpositions, the verbal system, and lexicon.

The extensive independent study field research paper produced by the student is both the centerpiece of the intern's professional engagement and the culmination of the academic achievements of the semester. During the preparatory session, IFE teaches the methodological guidelines and principles to which students are expected to adhere in the development of their written research. Students work individually with a research advisor from their field. The first task is to identify a topic, following guidelines established by IFE for research topic choice. The subject must be tied in a useful and complementary way to the student-intern's responsibilities, as well as to the core concerns of the host organization. The research question should be designed to draw as much as possible on resources available to the intern via the internship (data, documents, interviews, observations, seminars and the like). Students begin to focus on this project after the first 2-3 weeks on the internship. Each internship agreement signed with an organization makes explicit mention of this program requirement, and this is the culminating element of their semester. Once the topic is identified, students meet individually, as regularly as they wish, with their IFE research advisor to generate a research question from the topic, develop an outline, identify sources and research methods, and discuss drafts submitted by the student. The research advisor also helps students prepare for the oral defense of their work which takes place a month before the end of the program and the due date of the paper. The purpose of this exercise is to help students evaluate their progress and diagnose the weak points in their outline and arguments. Rather than an extraneous burden added to the intern's other duties, the field research project grows out of the internship through a useful and rewarding synergy of internship and research. The Field Study and Internship model results in well-trained student-interns fully engaged in mission-driven internships in their field, while exploring a critical problem guided by an experienced research advisor.

This course studies the main steps of the French-German reconciliation and cooperation, and their impact on the European construction and transatlantic relations. The emphasis is not only on the bilateral dimension of this relationship, but also on the international one. A large role is given to the post-Cold War era and to the different Franco-German initiatives which came about during the development of the European Union and continued through the failure of the European Constitution. At the heart of this course are the visions and the philosophies which are often quite different of President Macron towards Germany. The course discusses the role of the “Franco-German couple” in the European Union and how the visions and philosophies are often very different in terms of European integration.

This course provides an introduction to the sociology of religion to shed light on current issues. After an historical review of the emergence of a sociology of religion and a presentation of the main works that structure the discipline, the course discusses various issues, including social integration and the religious phenomenon, religious identity, militancy, religion in the public sphere, individualization of beliefs, and the place of religion in the political sphere. Each theme is embodied by a topical issue (e.g. the notion of “radicalization”, church militancy in the United States), which is studied in the light of the work available to date. The theoretical dimension of the course are also supported by the presentation of empirical studies.