France

The rise of cities in the British Isles since the modern era has fostered the development of a collective culture linked to spatial markers, material objects and forms of expression. Forged in a history of conflict, this culture is defined through rituals, works of art, monuments, oral, printed, and audiovisual narratives. This course explores the specificity and diversity of cultural forms and practices whose context, breeding ground, object, and methods of expression are urban spaces and urban life. It approaches the articulation between cities and cultures through the prism of the social, political, and cultural history of the United Kingdom in the 20th century through cultural productions and practices such as cinema, visual arts, literature, music, and leisure. It introduces the approaches of cultural history, sociological analysis, and the history of forms. The course is structured around key topics, including identities, conflicts, expression, democracy, protest, spaces, time, class, art, memory, representation, history, rituals, tourism, hauntology, and psychogeography.

This course introduces the current and past issues at stake in the political, legal, and cultural relations between religions and states. A subject of recurrent debate and controversy in France, laïcité (or rather, secularism) is rarely treated critically, dispassionately and from an international perspective. Such is the focus of this seminar. Depending on the areas covered, the course discusses more generally about “laïcité” (in the case of France) or “secularism” (in the case of Anglo-Saxon countries). The course is interdisciplinary, drawing on historical, political, legal, and sociological approaches. It also focuses on comparative approaches in Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. 

This course involves the study of the physiology and development of the different organs and reproductive systems of plants, as well as how researchers study these processes. It includes lectures, lab work, and section work. The course examines the life cycle of plants, the use of arabidopsis thaliana as a model organism, and the methods of studying development such as transgenic plants, mutants, and reverse genetics. It also studies the organization of the shoot apical meristem (SAM) and the effects of mutations on its function, as well as how the SAM becomes the floral meristem and the development of the reproductive organs of flowers. The course finishes with a look at the root apical meristem.

In a process of progressive construction of knowledge, fields, sources, and methods of the history of contemporary worlds, initiation to the history of the 19th century constitutes an essential first step. From the end of the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, this course demonstrates how the 19th century was primarily the century of the construction of nation-states. The affirmation of the principle of nationalities and the right of peoples to self-determination was achieved through multiple crises, revolutions, and military conflicts and new continental balances emerge. The 19th century is also that of the dynamics and tensions of industrial revolutions, in a new wave of globalization marked by an apogee of imperialism. The program of this EU, in its chronological, spatial and thematic definition, is specified each year within this general framework.

This course takes a sociological approach to study events that get termed, in a contested manner, as revolutions; it focuses on cases from the contemporary Middle East and North Africa region. The first two sessions of the course provide the sociological tools to study social movements. The rest of the course is divided into three parts: first, the socio-political factors that lead to a revolution; second, living in the revolution; and, third, the afterlives of the revolution. Overall, the course ask questions like: What socio-political context pushes people to protest? When do protests get termed a "revolution"? What are the differences in the experiences of the revolution along gender, socio-economic class, migrant-citizen, and racial lines? What type of afterlives do the revolutions take in terms of the discourses about them as well as the socio-political trajectories of the states experiencing them? A basic knowledge on the politics and societies in the Middle East and North Africa region, as well as knowledge of Arabic and French languages, is helpful but not required.

This is an advanced level German course, level B2. This course is for students who have completed a minimum of three semesters of university level German. By the end of this course, the student has acquired the following competencies: Listening comprehension: understanding with some ease any materials provided in classes (presentations, press reviews, varied range of audio and video recordings: newsflashes for example); recognizing different points of view being exchanged and even differentiate the attitude of different speakers. Spoken expression: intervening spontaneously in discussions and debates and responding to the spoken contributions of other students; expressing ones self in clear, well-structured text, expressing points of view at some length; present documents (press reviews, graphic documents) in a comprehensible way while developing a personal argument; communicating with greater confidence on familiar topics. Reading comprehension: independently reading a variety of extended texts of descriptive, explanatory and interpretative nature from a variety of domains; identifying the important components of a fairly long text with a relatively complex logical order. Written expression: writing clear and detailed texts on a wide range of topics in a variety of styles; producing a personal, organized, and argued response to a specific topic in the form of a report, essay, or summary.

This course has two main objectives: First, to introduce some essential features of American politics such as its political culture, the organization of its political system and political institutions, and the electoral logics that shape the contours of the state and the policies implemented. The second objective is to critically discuss key issues of today's U.S. political debate, such as political and party polarization, rising economic inequalities, and minorities and women rights.

Empirically, this course deconstructs Lebanese political institutions and culture as they relate to collective violence. It models the latter, and draws out possible lessons that can be used to decipher other cases of turbulent consociativity. From a theoretical point of view, Lebanon provides a formidable laboratory in which to interrogate the definitions, categories and theses of classical political science. Civil war, intercommunal tensions, invasion and occupation, annexation, trusteeship and foreign intervention are all notions of political violence observed in situ in Lebanon. More broadly still, Weberian sociology of the state, Gellner's theory of the nation and theories of social movements are profoundly challenged by the Lebanese case. This course proposes a whole new approach to collective violence and to institutional and political sociology, using Lebanon as a case study.

This course provides an exploration of French language and civilization through several cultural facets: literature, music, news, politics, ecology, media, and cultural traditions. It analyzes various media in France throughout the 20th and 21st centuries and discusses their linguistic, social, and cultural significance.

This course delves into the multifaceted landscape of social policies across Europe, examining the diverse approaches taken by various nations to address social welfare challenges. The course begins by providing a foundational understanding of social policy concepts and theories. It then transitions into an in-depth analysis of the evolution of welfare systems in Europe from the post-war period to the present day. Emphasis is placed on understanding the historical legacies, institutional frameworks, and ideological underpinnings that influence the design and restructuring of social policies in different European countries. The course finally delves into the comparative examination of key areas of social policy, including family policy, labor market policy, healthcare, and long-term care.