France

This course introduces students to the fundamental theoretical approaches relating to the study of facts, phenomena, and actors of communication. This course approaches the study of communication through a historical and comparative lens, allowing students to become acquainted with the diverse role communication has played over the years into the modern world. This includes an analysis of technological development and communication techniques on the function of mass media.

This course on French gastronomy provides an overview of how the food and wine culture became such a distinctive feature of life in France. It addresses both the subjects of food and wine, with a view to giving as informative a perspective as possible. The course covers the evolution of French food culture as well as regional cuisines. It also gives special attention to wine areas as well as the rituals around food and wine. The course thus relies on historical facts, sociological data, and economic figures but is also be an opportunity to get as close as possible to French gastronomy with field trips, dinners, and tastings. The perspective is both French and foreign as it welcomes students’ experience and ideas about French gastronomy.

The course presents the main characteristics of the French economy: production and income, consumption, employment and unemployment, public finances, redistribution, social inequalities, and external balances. It underlines its assets and weaknesses in the context of both European integration and globalization. The course refers to the main analysis models currently used in economics and tests their “modernity” for a renewed understanding of the French economy’s strengths and weaknesses within the European and global framework. This course introduces students to the language of economics and offers the possibility of using statistical information to understand a national economic reality.

This course introduces the enterprise of comparative constitutional law as a judicial practice and as a field of academic study. It compares, across various constitutional systems, issues of constitutional structure, judicial review, separation of powers, constitutional interpretation, constitutional amendments, and individual rights. Additionally, the course considers various approaches that have been used to solve similar constitutional problems, with special attention given to equality, freedom of expression, religious freedom, and the recognition and adjudication of social and economic rights.