France

This course introduces the debate about the state of democracy in Europe which is crucial to understand changes in today's politics. The course focuses on the most daunting challenges for Europe's democracy. The first part of the course discusses the theoretical foundations and the historical roots of Europe's democracy. The second part focuses on the current challenges including populism, authoritarianism, and technocracy. The last part envisions the future of democracy in Europe.

This course provides a historical and political introduction to modern Afghanistan. While it covers a historical timeline spanning from the late 19th century through 2021, it does not provide an exhaustive historical catalogue of events, but rather a genealogy of the political processes and factors that are pertinent to the evaluation of the processes of state-building and nation-building in Afghanistan through today. Covering the country's modern political history from its genesis during The Great Game and the birth of Afghan nationalism in the early 20th century, up to the occupations by the USSR and United States and their political consequences, the course attempts to identify the most salient patterns and trends about the country's political elites and institutions, as well as the interventions of foreign powers, all of which have affected the transformations of the state in Afghanistan.

This general sociology course systematically integrates gender studies to revisit the important questions of this discipline. The course examines themes of family, school, work, politics, health, and sexuality through the lens of gender while integrating a certain number of fundamental theories. It discusses gender sociology texts based on concepts examined during the lectures, considers the relationship between public policies and contemporary debates, and develops axes on which to read the social world through the prism of gender: paying attention to gender inequalities in their different constructions and how gender is integrated into different categories of thought.

This course focuses on contemporary art and architecture. Students examine the historical and cultural background of the contemporary art movement in the United States in the 1960s and discuss artworks and artists from this period as well. The course examines the relationships between visual arts, historicity, and issues both at the aesthetic as well as the socio-political level in order to revisit a history of contemporary art of the 20th century structured according to a succession of movements. It observes the distinctions that exist between West Coast art and East Coast art in the United States.