France

Through a series of concept-letters, this course uncovers various approaches to politics. It covers a selection of classical and contemporary notions, doctrines, and various styles of reasoning, and presents their usefulness for the city. It considers what these doctrines and reasonings mean for today's citizens, and how they can be mobilized to understand political issues and act in a just, democratic, and responsible way. Beyond abstract reasoning, the course reflects on the articulation between theory and practice; deliberates contemporary social and moral problems; discusses the formal understanding of political phenomena and the way they are understood, implemented, or contested by individuals and groups; and finally, demonstrates that philosophical concepts are not only elaborated in the realm of ideas, but are inspired by and act upon in the political and social world.

This course highlights 1960s, or the “Sixties,” as a puzzling concept in many respects. It uses the concept of the “Sixties” to move beyond both the chronological limits of 1960-1969 and the purely temporal framing of the term. It studies a longer timeframe spanning almost twenty years from the start of the Civil Rights movement (Montgomery bus boycott in December 1955) to the end of the Vietnam War (fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975). It addresses the historical period as defined in international and domestic terms, but also according to geopolitical, political, economic, social, and cultural change; as an era but also a zeitgeist, a time of specific social and cultural effervescence. The course develops a nuanced knowledge of this key period of United States history. Topics include the counterculture, social activism, feminism, and the rises of a New Left and a New Right.

This course examines the definition of propaganda and the persuasion of the masses in the contemporary world. It relies on several disciplines (history, communication, sociology, political sciences, social psychology, art history, and neuroscience) and puts into perspective the evolution of propaganda and persuasion from the "age of paper" through the "digital age." Students analyze a multitude of platforms (text, fixed images, animated images, sound, objects, and monuments) by using both a theoretical and empirical approach. Along with a methodology of writing and presentation, this course explores critical analysis in a global perspective and techniques of forming public opinion.

This course is an introduction to digital image processing and analysis. Students benefit from an overview of image processing methods (histogram restauration, convolution filters, mathematical morphology, segmentation) and image analysis methods (pattern recognition, identification, etc.). During the course students: learn how to manage 2D, 3D, and animated images; understand human perception and image acquisition; discover image segmentation, registration, and analysis; concrete implementation through existing tools or simple script development; study algorithms to obtain features from images (histogram, filters, descriptors).

This tutorial course focuses on Francophone literature. It discusses two novels centered around the idea of laughter and irony, as well as excerpts from critical texts and other short literary works.