French

This course traces the evolution of the image. It focuses on the various functions of images and how the medium enables communication in a unique manner. Beginning with early cave drawings and following the use of the image through the Renaissance, various wars, and other historical milestones, the course examines the power of the image as a tool through which humans communicate.

This course explores the following various concepts are studied: physical organization of databases, indexes, evaluation of queries, query optimization, transactions, concurrency control, database failure and recovery, nested SQL, integrity constraints.

After completing this course students are able to: understand most uncomplicated speech in varied domains (television, radio talk, lectures) and take notes; initiate, sustain and close a general conversation with a number of strategies appropriate to a range of circumstances and topics such as topics related to curriculum, to other courses they are taking, news of the world; perform simple but connected discourse, simple narration, or descriptions; write simple letters, short papers, summaries, and to take notes on familiar topics; be understood by interlocutors not accustomed to dealing with non-native speakers; name, identify, and analyze key events of French history (between eighteenth and twentieth century); analyze extracts from French literature relate development of modern dance in France; identify, illustrate, interpret, and manage professional situations where the French corporate culture is involved. The course is based on the development of skills and strategies that enable students to successfully handle most uncomplicated oral and written tasks, and social situations they may be confronted with in daily life in France or in French-speaking countries. The course focuses as well on a panorama of French culture. This panorama is presented in four different modules: history of France, French literature, emergence of modern dance and its interaction with painting, and corporate culture. The main activity is to perform oral and written communication tasks individually, in pairs, or in a group. Prerequisite for this course is a beginning level French course.

This course covers the fundamental knowledge in different disciplines of earth sciences with a focus on the main elements of the geology of the Southwest of France, the history of its formation, and its evolution. Students learn fundamental knowledge on different scientific disciplines of Earth and how to recognize, characterize, and analyze autonomously the formations and structural geology.

This French language workshop seminar supplements the primary French language lectures. Here, students work on oral presentations and written productions. Students are required to take both the Fre nch lecture and the French workshop.

This course details the birth of the modern Chinese republic. The course begins at the end of World War II and the construction of the populist Chinese republic. The course analyzes and understands various political movements in china, such as the movement of 100 flowers. Furthermore, students learn about Chinese policy, both nationally and internationally and the repercussions of these policies.

This is an optional independent research project. Students are required to research in French on a topic, in relation to Bordeaux or the Aquitaine region. Research topics may include political and administrative institutions, economy, architecture, history, arts, tourism, gastronomy, scientific field, or ecology. Students meet individually with a tutor every week and interview a local specialist of the chosen subject.

This course focuses on the main movements of ancient skepticism: pyrrhonism and new academy. It studies the fundamental concepts and reasoning of skepticism, their evolution, as well as criticism addressed to skeptics by their opponents.