French

This workshop is for students at the C1/C2 level of French. It improves written, oral, listening, and text skills through studies of specific themes. The course looks first at traditional notions of culture and civilization, then redefines the new societal challenges which are crucial and omnipresent, looking at social and political events to analyze their trajectories in today's world. Students learn to understand critical texts, analyze societal questions, present on varying viewpoints, and debate on diverse subjects.

This course, the sixth in our intensive summer language program sequences, with its continuous course FR60, is roughly equivalent to the sixth quarter of lower-division French language instruction and an upper-division French composition course on students’ home campuses. FR6 and FR170 provide students who have completed the better part of a university-level second-year French course or its equivalent the opportunity to expand and improve their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills, as well as expand their cultural knowledge of the French and Francophone world. The course is based on a presentation of advanced intermediate-level forms of grammar, an expansion of students’ working vocabulary, and practice of oral and written communicative skills, with a particular emphasis on their writing skills. Placement in this course is determined by students’ previous experience and the results of a language assessment taken prior to arrival. Textbook and Course Materials for the course include: RÉSEAU: COMMUNICATION, INTEGRATION, INTERSECTIONS, by J.M. Schultz and M.P. Tranvouez,. The FR170 course reader includes : LE CODE NOIR; Louis de Jacourt, TRAITE DES NÈGRES ; DÉCRET D’ABOLITION DE L’ESCLAVE ; Assia Djebar, L’AMOUR, LA FANTASIA ; Mohammed Dib, L’ARBRE À PAROLES; Andrée Chédid; Rimbaud, LE DORMEUR DU VAL; MC Solaar, LA CONCUBINE DE L’HÉMOGLOBINE. Grammar, vocabulary, and cultural topics are discussed, including art, literature, cinema, vernacular French, multicultural society, Francophilia and Francophobia, and France’s role in the European Union. Students engage in class discussions, write summaries, dialogues and essays, in addition to group and individual oral presentations.

This is a history of contextual thinking. Thus, although the chronological structure of this course allows us to discuss the main developments in economic theory from the marginalist revolution (1870s-90s) to the end of the 20th century, it places these developments in the general context of ideas and, above all, in the social and political context that promotes or hinders the spread of competing approaches to economics. Particular attention is paid to the historical conditions in which policies are in agreement or contradiction with the findings of economic science. Efforts are also made to draw parallels between contemporary debates on economic policy and the way in which these same debates unfolded in the previous century.

This course examines the philosophy and sociology behind television series, as well as the reception of these shows and political and sociological ramifications of TV series, primarily in France and the US. The first part of the course focuses on critical approaches to media, philosophy, social science, and the reception of different forms of media. The second part of the course examines the series THE KILLING, GAME OF THRONES, THE WIRE, THE STATE, FAUDA, THE HANDMAID'S TALE, THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, UNBELIEVABLE, MARE OF EASTTOWN, FARGO, and WE OWN THIS CITY. These series are investigated for their philosophical implications of dominance between humans, activism, and reactions to conflict. The final project involves the philosophical and social analysis of a TV series of the student's choice.