France

This course examines the economics of climate change. Topics include technology and the history of economic thought, the economic evaluation of climate change, and climate change and public policy instruments.

This course examines a controversial issue: the history of slavery in France and the United States from the 17th to 21st centuries. It first focuses on the history of two cities at the heart of triangular trade, Bordeaux and Charleston, and the way in which their elites thought and translated into their lifestyles, in their urban spaces and, today, in their museums, this historical fact over time. The course then considers how the American and French slaves, unwilling actors in the history of slavery, for their part, thought and translated their history, but also their emotions, in particular through writing. The autobiographies published between the 18th century and the 19th century are an appreciable complement for the researcher even if they raise the question of the subjectivity of their authors and their status as sources. Finally, the course questions the way in which French and American literature, including that dedicated to youth, thinks about and translates the history of slavery through specific examples. The publication of historical novels relating to these lively questions having always been consciously accompanied by civic and moral objectives and the formative function of literature for youth being undeniable, the course investigates if French and American publications think and translate in the same way this part of our history and, above all, whether they transmit the same values. 

While questioning the relevance of the concept of the "Iranian world," this course provides fundamental knowledge in the political sociology of contemporary Iran and Afghanistan, from a comparative perspective. The course considers together the political, economic, and cultural developments of these two states over a long period, from the fall of Isfahan in 1722, under the blows of an Afghan invasion, to the fall of Kabul in 2021, via the Anglo-Persian war of Herat in 1856-1857 and the concomitant upheavals of 1978 and 1979. Methods of comparative politics are combined with those of connected history to better understand the "Iranian world" as a whole, as well as each of its two major components, highlighting their differences as much as their similarities. The comparative study of Islamic currents of thought in the two countries forms an important part of this course. This includes a focus on the Arab world, as well as the Indian subcontinent. Finally, while the course focuses on Iran and Afghanistan, it also includes Tajikistan, the only other state where Persian is the official language. The course includes a visit to the Guimet Museum.

This course is specialized for international students. It offers a contemporary history of political ecology in France, from the mid-19th century to present day. The course covers how the environmental issue has gradually become more and more political and cultural over the years, and how historiography has tended to favor the hypothesis of a delay in the emergence of this issue in France, in contrast to the situation in the United States. After recalling the main historical milestones (the creation of national parks in the United States, the National Trust in Great Britain), it looks at the first forms of identifying and safeguarding areas identified as "natural," using the example of tourism and the protection of remarkable sites. The course discusses how this process developed and amplified in the twentieth century, as industrialization and urbanization increased, with experiments such as allotments and debates on the return to the land; and finally, in the last third of the twentieth century, intellectual and popular movements took up environmental issues (Friends of the Earth, Larzac movement) and helped place them on the public agenda. The course reflects on the convergences and tensions as seen from the cities or from the countryside, by linking two historiographical traditions: urban and environmental history, and rural and agricultural history.

This course explores the relationship between Transcendentalism and women's rights, family relations, and perceptions of childhood and education. It draws almost exclusively on writings from the period.

This course covers the development of public administrations during the 18th and 19th centuries. It addresses the ways in which government impresses political will onto the day-to-day lives of ordinary people, and how, inversely, society shapes government. It is both a course in history and public law. The course draws attention to the centuries of social evolution and legal tinkering behind many habitual features of our contemporary “bureaucratic” administrations. It explores several administrative systems across the Atlantic and Europe, namely that of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia. Each session begins with the commentary of a visual document relating to aspects of a period's daily life containing cues to the legal and institutional context. The rest of the session consists of a brief lecture and a primary sources discussion. Sources are provided in a reader and mostly consist of historical legal documents.

This course examines images and photography to understand the role perspective plays in interpretation and meaning.

This is a tutorial for the course LITERATURE OF THE ANGLOPHONE WORD: SHAKESPEARE. It focuses on close readings of two Shakespeare plays: one tragedy, HAMLET; and one comedy, AS YOU LIKE IT. 

This course covers technical-commercial language in English used in the field of eonology (wine-making). It covers vocabulary used to discuss sensory analysis and tasting comments. It also focuses on professional communication techniques used in presentations, writing a CV, composing emails, engaging in sales, as well as interviews and promotions. 

This course examines the dynamics of contemporary racism in France through a knowledge of long history. It traces the genealogy of racism as it is expressed, both in the processes at work and in the debates that run through our society. To achieve this, the seminar focuses in particular, but not exclusively, on the legacy of our colonial past in terms of the expression of racism. This focus is directly linked to the lively debates that have arisen since the late 1990s as French society questions its colonial past. The seminar also develops the ability to reflect on the issues raised in a complex and problematized way.