France

This course examines the politicization manifested in works of fiction and the political effects of the creation and the use of artwork. Incorporating an international and comparative dimension, it explores censorship, politics, mobilization, and conflicts within the art world. The course studies several aesthetic registers including cinema, television, literature, and painting to examine the tension present in various worlds of art, between artistic recognition and the politicization of works and creators. It explores the mechanisms of this tension as well as the practices and forms of action and creation through which artists engage and see their creations become objects of disruption.

This course begins with the emergence of capitalism and industrialization in Europe, particularly in England, as opposed to countries like China. The first part of the course reviews and discusses the main theses that relates to given chapters in the theory of economic growth: trade and market integration, property rights and wage labor, institutions and state-building, finance, and colonialism. The second part of the course analyzes Western capitalism at its height and how it structured a new, integrated, global economy. This course also covers the issue of late industrialization and economic catch-up in the emerging economies at that time, such as Germany, before moving into the global goods and capital markets, colonization and imperialism, and the underlying fault-lines at work during the First Global Era that surfaced in the years immediately before and after World War I.

The course investigates a variety of topics including the concept of global environmental governance, the development of institutions and norms governing the protection of the environment. It places special focus on key principles of international environmental law, multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), cooperation among States and the growing significance of non-State actors (subnational governments, nongovernmental organizations, business and corporations), and the diversity of regulatory approaches and related policy tools. The course includes guest lecturers who share their experience working in international institutions.

This interdisciplinary course provides a comprehensive introduction to energy security, touching upon economic markets, political strategy, and even technological developments. It introduces global trends in energy supply and demand, exchanges, and prices. It provides an overview of the diversity of measures taken to promote energy security, with a specific emphasis on the European Union and member states. Finally, the course considers scenarios for the future in the context of calls for an energy transition.

This course introduces classical music and the first quality of a good musician: knowing how to listen. In addition to acquiring a broader musical culture, the course develops listening, concentration, and analytical skills. By means of key works from the repertoire, the main forms of Western classical music are approached, from the Baroque age to contemporary music. The course also discusses the many ways of playing the orchestra. This diversity constitutes a veritable musical laboratory, but also a social one. In this regard, the orchestra is a valuable tool for better understanding what “the collective” entails: knowing how to listen to others in order to play better together. Students give an individual presentation of an analysis of a work of their choice, share listening comments, and complete a group project based on symphonic or lyrical music (concert report or recording), musicians (portraits, interviews), or concert halls (reportage), and is produced using various media: musical, literary, photographic, theatrical, digital (video, audio recording), et cetera.

The city and language course introduces students to French history, culture, and language through team-taught instruction. In the “City as Public Forum” sessions, students are introduced to French history and culture through a series of lectures and site visits. Students discover some of the fascinating ways the core principles of social justice were tested in theory and practice on the streets of Paris in the past and explore how they evolved into the pillars of French society today. The course focuses on just how an ideal society should be forged, where all are free individuals and members of a cohesive community at the same time. Trying to make individuals believe—as religions do—in the primacy of the collective, and in its concomitant goal of protecting human rights, is at the core of social justice in France. From 52 B.C.E to today, France has been an exemplar of how—and how not—to construct a just society. To render these values visible, and therefore legible, to all by adding a physical dimension—whether constructive or destructive—to the usual means of establishing laws or setting policies, is what distinguishes the history of France's capital city of Paris. Those who control Paris—be they monarchs, revolutionaries, or presidents, past and present—believe that erecting all kinds of physical structures will render their values concrete and immutable. The ideal French society did not always necessarily mean a democratic or inclusive one. Since the French Revolution, however, institutionalizing the concept of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” has been France's greatest universal achievement and a source of constant upheaval, eliciting a unique form of secular activism that has led to targeting buildings and monuments that no longer reflect the collective's values. Students discuss how the diverse social actors, who constitute “the French,” continue to thrust their bodies and minds into the physical spaces of the public sphere in the pursuit of social justice. In the “Unlocking French” sessions, students learn targeted language skills through situational communication, so they have the opportunity to use everything they learn as they go about their daily activities. Advanced French students will participate in conversation courses on the program’s theme.