France

This course focuses on the climate crisis and, more broadly, the ecological issues, environmental struggles, and social movements that participate in it. It studies how sociology has taken hold of ecological problems (subjects, issues, methodologies), notions and concepts (risks, Anthropocene, transition/transformation, environmental inequalities, justice), and theoretical frameworks to identify the postures (scientific, ethical, committed, neutral) endorsed by sociologists. The course first reinscribes these current dynamics of mobilizations and research in a double chronology: that of environmental struggles and that of the constitution of a sociological field dedicated to the environment. It then considers recent works on environmental policies and controversies relating to industrial and agricultural pollution to illustrate scientific results and actions that sociological approaches can produce on issues of environmental justice.

This course analyzes how policy making and artificial intelligence may be intertwined in a dynamic that has major impacts on the definition of public service itself. It investigates the integration of artificial intelligence related tools: how they are likely to affect policy making processes, whether they will change the relationship between the administration and citizens, and if they enable the delivery of new public services. The course emphasizes the adoption of artificial intelligence in a historical context of the progressive adoption of technologies, from traditional bureaucracies to essentially digital governance and e-bureaucratic forms. It focuses on the study of major artificial intelligence technologies and their potential uses, the value of data as a resource and product of administrations, as well as data ethics. The course analyzes use cases of artificial intelligence adoption in major policies such as health, education, bureaucracies, security, and climate change mitigation in the context of their implementation, from international to citizen-related approaches. It critically assesses the relationship between public-based policies and the creation of public value; the potential leverages, risks, or barriers; and the geopolitics of public artificial intelligence. Finally, the course develops a critical approach on how not only public agents, but also citizens, have major roles to play in the adoption of these technologies.

This French language course consolidates the basics in oral and written French. It improves the four competencies: written production, written comprehension, oral production, and oral comprehension. Written production involves writing short texts respecting coherence and cohesion using the tenses (past, present, future) and introducing the notions of cause, purpose, and obligation. Written comprehension focuses on understanding short texts on daily life and activities with the past and present tenses. Oral production practices addressing someone to ask for information and precisions on facts. Oral comprehension practices understanding simple or more complex conversations on present daily life and on past events.

This course presents the various methods and techniques of psychological evaluation.

This course considers how the global pandemic of 2020-2021 has challenged the modus operandi, urban development model, and financial viability of the world's great cities at a time when those also have to face the profound challenge of making themselves more resilient against the multi-faceted threat of climate change. It highlights both the danger and opportunity brought on by the pandemic, in terms of rethinking transport systems, commercial real estate, commuting and work arrangements, food distribution, energy, waste management and recycling, housing policy, education, and the provision of essential business as well as personal services. The course examines the shake up of “established wisdom” in urban economics which has led to new thinking and an opening for innovation that extends to new organizational formations within the context of the “circular economy,” as well as “social solidarity economy” such as urban commons and cooperatives.

The course is broken into three parts. The first part focuses on the science of vision, covering early theories and anatomical observations, the eyes’ dark adaptation functions, visual organization (size, shape, orientation, and spatial frequency shown with illusions and clinical testing of the limits of vision), and vision impacting memory. The second part focuses on a linguistic aspect showcasing auditory anatomy and vocal anatomy. It describes the science behind how sound is measured and differentiated and how language is produced and understood; and observes language by breaking down the elements of sound and signing into primitives diving into phonemes, phonology, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics. There are also demonstrations of early cognitive development showing how plastic young brains are compared to their adult counterparts. The last part of the course is about language and memory. It focuses on comprehending text and writing and covers theories of how humans developed and started using written language as it is a relatively young invention in the history of the earth and humanity. The course reviews the role of comprehending knowledge and discusses the biological systems that make up and help our understanding of language.

This course introduces the study of educational inequality and education policy. It begins by reviewing the main goals, achievements, and outstanding challenges in education policy at the beginning of the 21st century. Specifically, it takes a historical perspective to review the progress made with respect to providing education to large parts of the world's population and with respect to reducing gender inequality in education. The course then turns to one key policy challenge of the early 21st century: reducing the inequalities in education between individuals from different socio-economic backgrounds. It examines the social processes that may account for these educational inequalities and discusses whether and how different policies can address them.

This course provides an overview of the goals institutional actors are pursuing when they design and reform an electoral system. It discusses conceptual dimensions and criteria for categorizing and comparing electoral systems and studies specific national cases to assess the impact of electoral laws on party systems, legislator behavior, and interbranch relations. The course explores both aspects of intraparty and interparty politics. After completing a long series of case studies, it adopts a comparative perspective to discuss recent scholarly research in this field. 

This course introduces a set of analytic tools and conceptual frameworks through which to assess the origins and evolution of the institutions that constitute modern capitalism. It takes an interdisciplinary political economy approach that draws insights from economics, sociology, political science, history, geography, science and technology studies, and law. The course critically assesses the rise of what Karl Polanyi and Albert O. Hirschman have referred to as "market society," a powerful conceptual framework that views the development of modern capitalism not as an outcome of deterministic economic and technological forces, but rather as the result of contingent social and political processes. The material covers various theoretical perspectives that illustrate alternative conceptions of rationality, which in turn produce competing ways of seeing and making sense of the complexities of our social world. Ultimately, the course exposes a range of critical conceptual tools and frameworks through which to interrogate the current relationship between states and markets, and to consider the extent to which social actors can challenge its limits and imagine alternative possibilities.

This course allows the development of a personal graphic practice. Students choose tools and gestures among those offered in their training and learn to situate their practice in the field of creation. The course provides an opportunity to consider the openness, deepening, and methods of presentation (material support, framing, hanging, installation, public perception of the work) of the student's personal practice.