France

This course, the sixth in our intensive summer language program sequences, with its continuous course FR60, is roughly equivalent to the sixth quarter of lower-division French language instruction and an upper-division French composition course on students’ home campuses. FR6 and FR170 provide students who have completed the better part of a university-level second-year French course or its equivalent the opportunity to expand and improve their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills, as well as expand their cultural knowledge of the French and Francophone world. The course is based on a presentation of advanced intermediate-level forms of grammar, an expansion of students’ working vocabulary, and practice of oral and written communicative skills, with a particular emphasis on their writing skills. Placement in this course is determined by students’ previous experience and the results of a language assessment taken prior to arrival. Textbook and Course Materials for the course include: RÉSEAU: COMMUNICATION, INTEGRATION, INTERSECTIONS, by J.M. Schultz and M.P. Tranvouez,. The FR170 course reader includes : LE CODE NOIR; Louis de Jacourt, TRAITE DES NÈGRES ; DÉCRET D’ABOLITION DE L’ESCLAVE ; Assia Djebar, L’AMOUR, LA FANTASIA ; Mohammed Dib, L’ARBRE À PAROLES; Andrée Chédid; Rimbaud, LE DORMEUR DU VAL; MC Solaar, LA CONCUBINE DE L’HÉMOGLOBINE. Grammar, vocabulary, and cultural topics are discussed, including art, literature, cinema, vernacular French, multicultural society, Francophilia and Francophobia, and France’s role in the European Union. Students engage in class discussions, write summaries, dialogues and essays, in addition to group and individual oral presentations.

This course provides an analytical framework for understanding Turkey's foreign policy in its geographical environment from 2002 to the present. The regions covered are the Balkans, the Middle East, the Caucasus, the Mediterranean basin, and the Black Sea. The course is divided into two chronological phases: from 2002 to 2011, when Turkey based its power strategy primarily on soft power; and from 2011 to the present day, when the outbreak of the Syrian civil war has seen the militarization of Turkish foreign policy. The course is transversal and addresses many themes related to history, geography, economics, sociology, and international law as tools for the analysis of international relations.

This course debates contemporary issues in a Socratic manner inspired by Michel Sandel's lectures and Ian Shapiro's views on Enlightenment philosophy, which placed great faith in the power of human reason to understand the true nature of our circumstances and the idea of progress in human affairs as means to control, and perhaps even improve, our environments and our lives. Through different roles, students adopt different positions to think about sensitive issues related to conflictual situations from points of view that are not necessarily based on their personal convictions. Topics are inspired from the Council of Foreign Affairs: What is a Moral Foreign Policy.

This course examines the philosophy and sociology behind television series, as well as the reception of these shows and political and sociological ramifications of TV series, primarily in France and the US. The first part of the course focuses on critical approaches to media, philosophy, social science, and the reception of different forms of media. The second part of the course examines the series THE KILLING, GAME OF THRONES, THE WIRE, THE STATE, FAUDA, THE HANDMAID'S TALE, THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, UNBELIEVABLE, MARE OF EASTTOWN, FARGO, and WE OWN THIS CITY. These series are investigated for their philosophical implications of dominance between humans, activism, and reactions to conflict. The final project involves the philosophical and social analysis of a TV series of the student's choice.