France

This course examines current environmental and climate change movements in Europe and the United States, including their background and their significance. At the same time, it utilizes these movements as a lens to understand the politics of climate change and social movements more generally. Specifically, this course investigates the main political ideas driving environmental and climate activism; analyzes the main features, forms, developments, and challenges of environmental and climate activism; discerns their impact and relevance in sustainability politics today; and introduces an understanding of social movements as key drivers of social change. The course provides a thorough understanding of climate and environmental activism: its origins, pathways, and diversity, as well as its relevance for sustainability politics in general. Through an interdisciplinary approach that draws on research and theories of social movement studies and environmental politics from several of the social sciences, there is an empirical focus on Europe and the United States, as well as links with other continents and global politics.

This course focuses on the early centuries of both Islam and Christianity which involved an intensive confrontation with Greek philosophy and often led to the emergence of rival sects and theological schools. The first part of this course covers the history of the emergence of these different approaches and the philosophy and theology implied by each, with a special focus on the branches of Islam. The second part of the course traces the history of these branches up to the present day, looking at them particularly in light of the advent of liberalism in the West with its separation of the public and private spheres; the cultural dynamics that emerged from colonialism, imperialism, and also decolonization; and finally, globalization and the resurgence of political theologies that seem to reject the modern idea of the nation-state.

This course teaches the fundamentals of econometrics, in particular regression analysis and statistical inference. It purposefully starts at a level that assumes no prior knowledge of statistics, econometrics, or programming. The course does not rely on advanced math, rather it uses practical learning to understand and interpret simple and multiple linear regressions and detect whether an analysis uncovers correlations or causality. The course teaches the use of R, a very powerful and widely used programming language, to perform data cleaning and undertake statistical analyses. Students carry out a small-scale research project using real-world data and regression analysis to reveal associations between various variables.

This course studies several periods of French architecture. The first part of the course covers Antiquity: classic architecture, origins in Greek civilization, Roman technique, and religious and utility buildings. The second part covers the Middle Ages: feudal society, Christianity, Roman & Gothic architecture, churches and cathedrals, and fortified castles. The third part examines modern times: Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, the invention of printing, the discovery of America, Protestant reform, the Renaissance, and Baroque architecture. Finally, the course covers contemporary times: neoclassicism, aesthetics, eclecticism, the Industrial Revolution, mass production, functionalism, post-war urban expansion, social housing, and Brutalism.

This course develops tools for analyzing the effect of social networks, the way that culture constrains and enables economic outcomes, and the effect that systems of power have the reproduction of economic inequalities. These tools are the foundation on which economic sociology seeks to explain, criticize, influence, and predict economic action. The first part of the course establishes three primary intellectual camps or “theories” of economic action: power, culture, and rational action. The second part of the course applies these theoretical approaches to address a series of contemporary economic questions and concerns.

This course provides an introduction to the statistical and econometric theory underlying surveys and counterfactual policy evaluations. Doing so, it sharpens critical appraisal of the very many surveys and policy evaluations found in public discourse, as data-driven evaluations of public policies are becoming commonly used to help societies choose how to organize unemployment insurance, the provisions of health care and education, etc. This course uses mathematical notation and proofs and engages with mathematically formalized material.