France

This course provides an overview of the origins and the evolution of the European Union’s legal system, as well as the main features of its governance framework. It also provides an opportunity to debate relevant questions and news items as they unfold during the course. Considering the strong influence European norms have on national legal systems today, the knowledge acquired in this course is useful both to more advanced study in European Union law and to better understand how national and European norms are defined and how they should be applied. The course provides the key to understanding current debates related to democracy, economic integration, and the respect of the rule of law within the European Union.

This methodology course is designed to help UC students make the transition from the American to the French university system. For three hours a week over a course of twelve weeks, students are introduced to the essential techniques for succeeding in the typical French university class. Students acquire skills to take clear and thorough notes, compose an outline, and write a summary of materials presented in both written and oral forms. Writing skills are sharpened by learning how to conduct a stylistic analysis, develop an argument, counterargument, and a conclusion. By the end of the course, students are familiar with the expectations of French professors and their methods of assessment. The course adapts materials to target students in both literature and the social sciences. Continuous assignments allow for frequent feedback from the instructor.

This course belongs to the field of intelligence studies. It introduces the main actors of American intelligence (agencies, National Interest Exception, National Safety Council, etc.) from their origins (most notably the birth of the CIA in 1947) until today. This is done through a historical analysis of the period, the actors, and the international context. Special attention is devoted to the impact of intelligence agencies in the conduct of United States foreign policy. Finally, the course introduces the main concepts of the intelligence world, such as clandestine actions, counterespionage, technological innovation, relationship between the decision maker and the intelligence agency, and inter-service cooperation. In so doing, it highlights the challenges that American, and more broadly Western, agencies continue to face today.

Exploring French political history since 1870, this course presents the history of the French republican system during the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Republics. It explains how this political regime gradually stabilized and became synonymous with democracy. The lectures focus on the successive constitutions and their application, while also enabling students to discover the main political figures of the period, the presidents and the political leaders for instance, and to understand the great moments of crises and of progress. The course also focuses on France during the two World Wars and the colonial crisis, underlining the effects of these events on the government.

This course offers a blended approach to contemporary diplomacy focused on theory and practice. It is built around a series of lectures that discuss the logic of modern diplomacy, intertwined with workshop sessions which provide an opportunity to engage in role-plays, dispute resolution exercises, and simulations. The lectures review the key challenges that globalization has imposed on the traditional diplomatic practices as well as the art of negotiation as a function of diplomacy. It also reviews iconic case studies; discusses the relevance of traditional and modern diplomatic practices; assesses the triangle between media, politics, and society; and distinguishes the strategies to succeed. Finally, the course offers an emphasis on intercultural diplomatic skills to broaden the perspectives of the course.

Contemporary Middle Eastern cinema reflects the social, political and cultural challenges in the region, while revealing the revolutionary spirit of its filmmakers and their filmic language. This course defines dominant themes such as: territory, cultural identity, memory, modernism, religion, feminism, internal conflict and socio-political violence, within both historical and present political contexts. Filmmakers include: Chahine, Saab, Kiarostami, Farhadi, Gitai, Maoz, Folman, Doueiri, Khleifi, Assad, Güney, and Ceylan, dealing with the challenges of Egypt, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, and Turkey. Basic film analysis terms and cultural theories are covered in order to study and articulate the form as well as content of these films. While addressing the larger question of the relationship between aesthetics and politics, this course encourages students to consider the analysis of film as a participant in social and political change.

History—both the actual physical materials that help historians establish a timeline of events of the past and the imaginings contemporaries have of those events—is a crucial part of feminist and gay rights activism. This course analyzes feminist organizing in the U.K. and gay rights organizing in the U.S. from two perspectives. First, it delves into specific historical moments that have created significant cultural and political reverberations, such the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York and the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp from 1981. Second, it examines how those events and others become parts of the storytelling used by the feminist and gay rights movements as tools to advance their demands in specific national contexts. From this dual articulation, the seminar examines the relationship between the past and the present as well as the stakes that this reciprocity has for advancing or hindering social progress. Students engage in independent and original research as they learn to engage in historical archival research and think about these issues from the perspective of apprentice scholars.