France

This course explored and analyzes major institutions, actors, and trends in contemporary French and European Media and attempts to situate them in the larger contexts of “unifying” Europe and “globalized” world-media-scene. Students examine the operational schemes, performances, and internal decisional and power structures of different branches of French media: print national & regional press, specialized magazines, the publishing industry, advertising, radio, television, and the Internet. The course attempts a specific analysis regarding the international and French implications of the growing potential of social networks and “New Media.” Students review aspects of the growing confusion –both in terms of competition and compatibility—between “new” and “old” media and their political, social, and cultural impacts. In the domain of social and political presence students study and question practices of newsgathering, deontological principles and constraints, media performance under pressure of time, context, profit-making-structures, politics, violence, ethics, and ideologies. The course examines forms and styles of “information,” editorial policies and the variety of notions of “Democratic pluralism” and “freedom of expression” across the French and European Media landscapes. We will try to define, decode, and interpret distinctions between “news,” “commentary,” and “analysis” as they are being treated on the French and European media scenes. The course analyzes what all these may mean, encourage, cultivate, or block in terms of politics, society, culture, and media during “high times” of political turmoil, violent crisis, or social unrest. In the domain of entertainment and “services” offered by the Media, students examine different variations of publishing, broadcasting, and “accompanying” practices over the last 20-30 years. We may attempt a parallel analysis of possible interaction between these two domains (News/Entertainment), following political and ideological lines and some study of the dynamics of change along the ambitions, the strategies and the priorities of the media industries alongside “public demand.”

This course offers students an introduction to two key dimensions of globalization: international trade and international finance. The course covers both theoretical and empirical contributions and often refers to current policy issues in both international trade and macroeconomics. Using theoretical and empirical tools, students consider a wide range of topics such as: gains of specialization; effect of trade on inequality; market power effects on international trade; consequences of trade policy; international financial flows; relation between exchange rates and monetary policy; globalization impacts on macroeconomics policies; euro currency area; and international financial crises. Prerequisite for this course is a first year economics course. The course uses basic mathematical tools that are common in any economics course.

This course focuses on objects and space. Through exercises, experiments, and various situations, students graphically present natural or constructed objects (observed or imagined) and represent space according to prospective codes of different eras and places. Additionally, the course discusses color theory. Students create a notebook for observation and research as a tool to support various exploratory steps and reveal an investment in a diversity of practices.

This course focuses on the most significant visual and artistic movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. Beginning prior to WWII, the course examines how new design emerged as its own discipline in the United States. It also explores topics including material culture, kitsch, and feminism in design as it traces the progress of global visual culture to the current state.