France

This course covers the economic, social, political, and cultural transformations that characterize European and American societies in the eighteenth century. Breaking with the Judeo-Christian idea of Man's inevitable decline, the Enlightenment period saw several ways of looking at the emancipation of individuals and societies. This legitimized the large political reforms of “enlightened absolutism” (religious tolerance, abolition of censorship, economic liberalization of regulated markets, penal reforms, etc.) as much as the metropolitan and colonial revolutions did. It authorized the questioning of individual cause of faith and the right to a “pursuit of happiness”. At the crossroads of history, literature, and political science, this seminar offers a global history of these transformations. Through an inductive method of a particular case to an general case, an introduction to the history of the eighteenth century going from sociology-political history to cultural history, from urban history to the history of gender and sexuality. In this way, the course also examines the transformation of the contemporary world.

This course offers a panorama of international law norms regulating the peaceful existence and continuous development of international society, mainly inter-State relations. The rules and their knowledge thus constitute fundamental pillars of the overall understanding of international relations and politics as well as their impact on national decision-making. The aim of the course is both to learn the norms and to acquire capacity to apply them to particular world affairs and main judicial cases. Issues like State sovereignty and its limits, peaceful settlement of disputes, coercive measures and the use of force as ultima ratio, human rights standards and their enforcement, and the role of supranational institutions are studied. The underlying line is the identification of the sources of international law, the subjects bound by its norms as well as the consequences of the violation of international law. Finally, a complete framework is portrayed of international law and its position beside foreign and international policy, economy, religion, and international ethics.

Eleven years after the worst financial debacle with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the question of regulating the financial and banking sectors remains a top priority for the world's major countries. This course provides an understanding of the transformations underway since the subprime crisis and the European sovereign debt crisis. It starts with an overview of the major changes in the banking sector over the past thirty years because of financial deregulation and globalization. Then it explains the mechanisms underlying securitization and the reason for the strong development of the subprime market that led to the 2007 crisis. This helps to understand the interconnectedness of banks and financial markets. Then the course focuses on the role of central banks as lender of last resort and on the capital regulation in the banking industry. Special attention is dedicated to the Basel Accord. The course ends on the controversial issue of cryptocurrencies and their future.

French political life is going through a powerful and largely unexpected transformation. This course covers the structural changes taking place and considers the influence that is on the powers and behavior of public players. Students discover the realities of different political powers and French administrations. The approach of these players, their organization, and their operations are largely concentrated in the heart of these different places of power. Ministries, Parliament, local power, diplomatic positions, community institutions, political parties, unions, press, and polling institutions are also part of the discussion. The daily lives of the players in these places of power are covered outside of their activity, congress, councils, or media representations. This includes elected officials, militants, members of the Cabinet, and high level administrators. The course looks at not only the unique features of these different powers and their organizations but also their closeness and their integration in the heart of the national and international public sphere. The course has no specific prerequisites but permits the students who already have a background in law, history, or political science to use their background when investigating concrete examples.

In this course students learn the basic concepts of project management. Students are required to work in teams to put together a project using the information learned in the class.

Using an approach over several disciplines, such as meta-geography, geopolitics, geohistory, cartography (ancient and contemporary) and the epistemology of geography (including the history of the discipline), this class looks at the divisions of the world. This class addresses topics such as: the measure of time and space while considering region, scale, and temporality; the geohistorical dispersion of the human genus on Earth and corresponding representation (Brandt, Hungington, Saïd); limits and conventions of continents; invented continents (Lemutian, Atlantis); rotundity and stature of the earth, looking at projections and the prime meridian, epistemic changes, quantifications and visualization; the "cosmographic revolution", definition, delimitation and cartography of the sea; the modern mapping device; and the invention of the Far East and the Middle East.

Through this course students learn to: understand how sounds are produced and articulated in a human language; know, identify, articulate, describe, and transcribe the sounds of a language with the aid of the International Phonetic Alphabet; know the phonetics and phonology characteristics of the French language, the constants and vowels in the language; explain the object and the methods of phonetics to relate to phonology and locate their roles in the science of language (linguistics); become aware of the oral pronunciation in writing; use a scientific approach and without prejudice of the variety of French regional dialects in their phonetic aspect. The course covers the differences in the ways French is spoken in various places such as Paris, Bordeaux, Marseille, Abidjan, or Montreal.