France

This course examines the factors that lead companies of strategic importance to France's economic sovereignty to relocate their activities or be taken over by foreign players. It studies theoretical concepts concerning industrial sovereignty, French public policies aimed at protecting strategic companies, case studies, and exchanges with guest speakers.

Through a multifaceted approach, this methodological workshop imparts an effective methodology and knowledge to apprehend the reading of political philosophy texts as a genuine interpretative experience. By focusing on famous philosophical texts, it studies the way in which argumentation is constructed and logical, articulated reflection is conducted. This methodological and practical approach focuses on providing the tools needed to understand a text properly: identifying arguments, dialectical procedures, and the use of examples. The temporal and geographical variation of the texts also provides an understanding that any reading of political philosophy is necessarily situated, inscribed in a here and now, which instructs us on the meaning of the text and enriches our understanding of it. Finally, the course cross-references the interpretations that the texts may elicit. From this point of view, the study of secondary sources offers a fresh, offbeat look at philosophical works.

This course focuses on international security with a constructivist approach. It relates the security sector's response to the 9/11 attacks in the United States and studies the international security framework that has been centered on anti-terrorism against Al Quaeda and Daech, from 2001 to 2011 (ending at the death of Bin Laden), through films and TV shows. The course draws on the theoretical apparatus of the aesthetic turn and recent work on fictional representation and its impact on public space, as well as on security policies themselves. Fiction is not just a matter of a more or less realistic representation of reality, but an increasingly influential and even central element in defining the repository for security policies.

This course focuses on the practical aspects of the automated processing of human languages. It develops knowledge of useful and logical aspects, as well as useful prototypes of the same nature. The course introduces the basics of the programming language Python.

This course compares interdisciplinary approaches to economics (sociology, history, political science, business) through the study of a specific object: consumption. It highlights the contributions of each of these perspectives to underline their specificity. It also considers how they can be combined to produce a more complete and realistic representation of consumption, and through it, of our society. After a presentation of the main viewpoints and narratives on consumption, thematic sessions cross-reference these viewpoints on a variety of subjects and issues including quality, choice, credit and money, fashion, overconsumption, and addiction.

This is a second level beginning French course that covers: oral comprehension, pronunciation, grammatical structure, reading, and writing simple texts. It also introduces some aspects of French culture.

This course considers destruction and the life and destiny of works of art. It investigates how we understand and describe the gestures or modes of destruction of works of art, a question that seems to arise from the more general problem of iconoclasm, defined as the refusal and destruction of images. It also considers other means of destruction: the effect of time and ruin, of a natural disaster, or the consequence of a voluntary gesture on the part of an artist, whether they are the producer or not. The course discusses how we can distinguish iconoclasm from “vandalism,” “attack” from artistic gesture by offering a philosophical history of the arts and an investigation into the different modes of existence of works of art.

This course covers three main topics: measuring the per capita income of countries; measuring inequalities; and measuring poverty. It examines key indicators, how these indicators are actually constructed using available data, and the conditions for their comparison over time and between countries.

This course is a chronological presentation of French literature from the Middle Ages to 1600.  It connects genres and literary texts with the history of ideas and mentalities.

This course explores how literature shapes our perspective on the past and identity. By studying Patrick Chamoiseau's LE DIMANCHE AU CACHOT and Josephy Boyden's DANS LE GRAND CERCLE DU MONDE, this course considers how authors can use fiction to reconquer a painful past to better reconstruct an identity and a perspective that has been hidden.