France

This course covers the role of revolutions in shaping history. From the Cold War, to the “new world order” following the end of the Cold War, to the present day, the course considers how and why revolutions happen, what constitutes a revolution, and how revolutions achieve (or fail to achieve) social and political reform.

This course focuses on the political aspects of Hollywood cinema by questioning the links that exist between the production of films and the ideological structures hidden behind the images. It discusses how genre cinema appears to be a "dream factory" whose specific economic organization is accompanied by ideological and political schemes that should be identified in the perspective of political and cultural studies. The course demonstrates how much cinema contributes to the diffusion of the traditional values of the American Dream and how the big studios manage to find a balance between submission to the commercial constraints imposed by the market, simplification of political phenomena (whether situational or systemic), and artistic research.

This multi-disciplinary course covers three broad topics: the architecture and various state and non-state actors of formal peacebuilding processes; negotiation between states as a key diplomatic function; and the phenomenon of third-party mediation in conflict resolution. These topics are covered from both the theoretical and practical perspectives, so the course literature, lectures, and exercises provide a balance between what the academics state and what actual diplomats, mediators, and non-state actors experience in the field of peacebuilding. The course also involves detailed case studies of contemporary conflicts in the Middle East region in order to explore these various processes in action and provide a degree of area studies specialization, including the conflicts in Lebanon, Palestine-Israel, Libya, Yemen, and Syria.

This interdisciplinary course explores classic literature and contemporary perspectives on reproduction from the perspectives of history, sociology, anthropology, and law. It examines the crucial role reproduction plays in how relations between nations are negotiated, both symbolically and materially. From colonial to metropolitan households, notably via military contexts, the “domestic” has been re-signified by the transnational: nannies, international adoption, and gestational surrogacy have historical links with 19th and 20th centuries' wars. Focusing on the exchanges and connections between the economic, the political, and the intimate, it examines how these increasingly global processes affect individuals, families, and (imagined) communities from multiple lenses: ethnicity and race, nation, class, and gender. It considers how notions of kinship, citizenship, and human rights have become the subject of intense scrutiny, notably through public debates on private and state management of collective life through (bio)technologies of measurement and intervention. Case studies range from analysis of gender dynamics of armed rebellions in Africa to reproductive politics in the United States. Key concepts and policies pertaining to biopolitics, birthing, welfare programs, domestic labor, marriage, and care work are discussed.

This course is a study of three components: grammar, written comprehension, and written expression. The course examines sentence structure and verb systems and focuses on complex notions of time, causality, and argumentation. The course analyzes literary texts from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries for their grammatical properties, literary style, and practice of written expression.

Based on the analysis of philosophical texts, artists' writings, and works of art, this course studies the first major themes of aesthetics and philosophy of art (imitation, judgment). The course provides the basics of a general culture in the aesthetic field and promotes mastery of the techniques of dissertation and commentary from a methodological point of view.
 

This course is structured as a series of workshops focusing on Russia's influence in Europe, nearby countries, and the United States. It approaches this topic with the perspectives of popular geopolitics, international relations theory, cultural studies, media studies, and sociology. Topics include strategies of Kremlin's propaganda; its (post)-Cold-War-era anti-Americanism reverberating in the rhetoric of the European far-rights; Russia's Covid-19 policy; Putin's troll fabrics; interference in the U.S. elections; the Russian Orthodox Church and the Kremlin's influence in Ukraine and Georgia; and Russia's invasion on Ukraine. The course is based on case studies and extensively uses audio and video materials, documentaries, political statements, investigative reports, and opinion surveys as sources for analysis.

In Western culture, the city is the epitome of political and cultural expression, which gives the urban question a complex, diachronic, and dialectical character; it mirrors major economic, social, and political tensions. This course deciphers the fundamental elements of this complexity in tension with the fields of geopolitical thought applied to territories, in the decisive context of the environmental transition. In a dynamic and interactive way, the course takes on a contemporary political culture of the urban condition, allowing a political approach to urban citizenship, more diasporic or mobile where the network prevails over the territorial continuity. Instruction alternates between the classroom and the city.

This course analyzes the comic, a narrative art that reads not only in each successive box but also in a complex system relating to the space of the board and album as a whole. It applies literary tools to the media to take into account the image and sequencing. The course focuses on the theme of “the quest” using comics from the French-Belgian domain: set in a medieval universe more fantasized than properly historical. It considers quests and conquests in antico-medieval fictions including literature, cinema, and games.

This course studies traditional open macroeconomic models and the role of monetary policy and exchange rates. It discusses currency and sovereign debt crises and the role of international coordination.