French

This course covers a variety of audiovisual tools, exploring their history, inventors, and effects on society. The first part of the course covers networks and long-distance communication, focusing specifically on the telegraph, telephone, and telecommunications. The second part covers fixed and animated images, specifically the camera, the photograph, and cinema. The third part of the course explores sounds and image machines: the phonograph, radio, and television. Finally, the fourth part of the course focuses on digital media, primarily the internet. The course utilizes a global lens, but especially explores these topics in France and the United States.

 

This course is an introduction to archeometry, its areas of expertise, problems, methods, and practices. Archeometry is the vast field of applications of the physical, chemical, biological, and geological sciences to art history and archeology, which aim to know the location of the remains, the ancient techniques and processes, the age of works and human occupations, the use of objects of the past, and their state of conservation. Several methods of numerical dating, observation, and characterization of materials (organic and inorganic) are presented, some of them in detail, in order to give the student sufficient theoretical and practical knowledge to be autonomous and critical of methods, techniques, and results. The course is based on numerous case studies.

This is a tutorial course that supports the lecture course HERITAGE AND MUSEOLOGY. It focuses on the process of museum exhibits and their contents.

This course surveys political theories from classical to contemporary times. Students discuss a wide array of works about the individual and community by philosophers from Plato to Foucault and relate them to contemporary situations. The emphasis of the course is on how the ideas and theories of these philosophers haven shaped history, especially French history.

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.

From 1815 to 1914, the United Kingdom dominated the world. This course focuses on highlighting the sources of this power and their consequences, both internal and international. It will attach importance to the environmental dimension of the British heyday (origins of the industrial revolution, energy transition, pollution, etc.) as well as to its cultural translations (liberalism, imperialism, literary and artistic movements).

The focus of this course is on what sociology can inform us about work. Topics covered include: what does work give to the worker; what does “worker” mean; what happens when the worker has no work. Work is an activity that takes place in a material and organizational context which sets up a certain number of constraints that orient action and influence the process of cooperation, decision-making, and the assigning of responsibilities. The course examines individual and collective conditions of production and the meaning it gives to the workers. This context is used to better understand the contemporary debate surrounding work and employment. Course sessions are organized thematically in order to explore the different facets of work. Each theme is based on empirical sociological research. These presentations provide students with the opportunity to look at the practices of sociologists as they study what work means. The different cinematographic representations which show work are also studied side-by-side with the sociological research.