France

This course explores the place of food in art in France, with a focus on the modern and contemporary periods. Throughout the course, representations of food are studied as a means to survey the evolution of French art within a global context, and as significant markers of social, ethnic, and cultural identity. The analysis of these depictions provides the opportunity to learn about dietary and dining customs, habits, and beliefs prevalent in France from the early modern period to the present. The course begins by decoding the archetypal representations of succulent food in the still life and genre painting of 16th-17th-century Holland, which established the conventions of the genre for centuries to come. It then examines how the rise of these previously minor artistic genres in 18th-century France coincided with the birth of French gastronomy. Frivolous depictions of aristocrats wining, dining, and indulging in exotic beverages like coffee and hot chocolate then give way in post-Revolutionary France to visions of austerity and “real life,” featuring potato-eating peasants. The focus then shifts to representations of food and dining in the age of modernity, when Paris was the undisputed capital of art, luxury, haute cuisine, and innovation. The course analyzes how Impressionist picnics and café scenes transgress social and artistic codes. Building on their momentum, Paul Cézanne launches an aesthetic revolution with an apple. Paul Gauguin’s depictions of mangos and guavas speak to his quest for new, “exotic” sources of inspiration, and allow discussion of questions of race, gender, and French colonialist discourse. Drawing from these pictorial and social innovations, the course subsequently observes the place of food and dining themes in the avant-garde movements of early 20th-century Paris, whose defiance of conventional society and art leads them to transform previously comforting themes into troubling ones.  It questions the place of food—or its absence—in art to capture the suffering and violence of upheavals like the Second World War and consider the place of food and dining in contemporary art: from the Pop Art movement’s calling into question postwar consumer society through its representations of mass-produced food; to contemporary creators in a plural and globalized art scene who use these traditional themes to challenge the status and roles of the artist, the spectator, and the work of art itself; to how depictions of food in visual art grapple with multiculturalism in France today.

This course discusses a classical issue for international relations and political theory: the ethics of war. It exemplifies the role of norms in warfare and discusses the major dilemmas that face armies, politicians, and civilians throughout history, with a specific focus on contemporary challenges. Its focus is mainly interdisciplinary as it brings together moral and political philosophy, international law, and international relations. By analyzing case studies, it addresses the legitimacy of resorting to war, discusses the coherence of certain rationales and principles justifying the use of force both legally and morally, and explores future challenges of the field (cyberwar, artificial intelligence). Ultimately, the course provides the concepts and references students can deploy to build their own argument on justice and war.

This course introduces the Anglo-Saxon economic model as it exists in the United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and to a lesser extent in countries such as India, Singapore, and Hong Kong tied historically to the United Kingdom. It adopts a social sciences inquiry-led approach based on varying theoretical approaches to assessing how and why Anglo-Saxon countries have developed their economies in the way they have done. Case studies are primarily from the United Kingdom and United States, and the reading and sources will largely be based on these two countries. In the case of the United Kingdom, extensive reference shall be made to the United Kingdom's relationship with the European Union (EU) and the role of both in nurturing and promoting ideas associated with the Anglo-Saxon economic model; such as, in the case of the EU, the United Kingdom-led promotion of the Single Market (1986+). The course explores how the Single Market may have laid some of the foundations for the eventual electoral fall-out of Brexit in 2016. The first part of the course explores what the Anglo-Saxon economic model is and the second part assesses why this economic model has emerged and is branded and stereotyped in this way. The final part examines the effects of the Anglo-Saxon model on macroeconomic stability, equality and equality of opportunity, infrastructure, public sector investment, and the environment.

This course is a tutorial for LING 105. The course provides an overview of several disciplines of linguistics, including morphology, semantics, syntax, phonology, and pragmatics. It looks specifically at how they shape the French language's grammar, orthography, and pronunciation. Students are introduced to basic syntactic properties in addition to reference and strategies for studying syntactic rules.

This course explores the field of study on the European Union's (EU) foreign policy with a focus on the relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC). Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the EU and the PRC in 1975, this set of bilateral relations has undergone different stages of interactions. This course concentrates on the time period beginning from 2013. The first part of the course introduces fundamental knowledge about EU foreign policy: an overview of the field of study in the literature and main actors and the coherence issue in EU foreign policy. The second part provides a brief historical overview of EU foreign policy towards the PRC before 2013. The third part examines EU foreign policy towards the PRC in the post-2013 timeframe through different dimensions: economic and trade, foreign and security, values and norms, and the EU facing United States-PRC strategic competition.

The course introduces some of the theories and concepts that form the basics of strategic studies as a distinct subfield of international relations. The course is an introduction to the key ideas and themes of strategic studies, which deal with the preparation and use of military power to serve the ends of politics but also what are the means to avoid the use of force. The course is not directly interested in ethical and normative problems linked to the use of force. To adopt Robert Cox's terminology, the lecture is much more problem-solving than critical. That is why it does not really address notions like just wars, democratic peace, or gender and feminism. The course guides students through a wide-ranging survey of theoretical and practical aspects of strategic studies. It includes sections on the uses of strategic theory, instruments of war - land, sea, and air power, cyber - and their evolution, nuclear strategy, small wars and counter-insurgency, peace operations, victory, or defense planning. The course tries to strike a balance between theoretical works and empirical material to link the study of strategy with the realities of modern politics, and ultimately practice the skills that are critical to success in public service as well as the private sector—deep intellectual knowledge of the core issues of our time; analytical thinking and effective writing skills. Students are also expected to engage the readings fully and actively participate in seminar discussions and debates.