Germany

This course gives an overview of the development of public and private architecture in Berlin during the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Following an introduction to the urban development and architectural history of the Modern era, the Neo-Classical period is surveyed with special reference to the works of Schinkel. This is followed by classes on architecture of the German Reich after 1871, which was characterized by both modern and conservative tendencies and the manifold activities during the time of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s such as the Housing Revolution. The architecture of the Nazi period is examined, followed by the developments in East and West Berlin after the Second World War. The course concludes with a detailed review of the city's more recent and current architectural profiles, including an analysis of the conflicts concerning the re-design of Berlin after the Cold War and the German reunification. Seven walking tours to historically significant buildings and sites are included (Unter den Linden, Gendarmenmarkt, Potsdam, Chancellory, Potsdamer Platz, Holocaust Memorial, etc.). The course offers a deeper understanding of the interdependence of Berlin's architecture and the city's social and political structures. It considers Berlin as a model for the highways and by-ways of a European capital in modern times.

This course explores theoretical and historical perspectives on the intersection of law, society, and politics, and fosters discussion of contemporary issues among students from different cultures and disciplines. After an introduction to comparative law and legal culture, several classical social theorists are covered (Durkheim, Marx, and Weber) and their relevance to contemporary debates about morality, (dis)obedience, conflict, and property are considered. The course examines the role of totalitarian law in Nazi and Communist Germany, and considers the difficulties such legacies pose for fostering the rule of law in post-totalitarian societies. In this context, the course also examines the need for “transitional justice”, as well as the relationship between law, the market, and economic development (e.g. Weber). Finally, the appropriate limits on the exercise of free speech and the right of association are explored. Overall, the course develops skills at using theory and history to inform debates on contemporary challenges, such as multiculturalism, punishment, (illegal) downloading/streaming/ file-sharing, and economic development. In addition to gaining substantive expertise in various socio- and politico-legal fields, students develop communicative competence through participatory exercises, and intercultural competence through discussion with other students.

This course provides the practical tools for developing, applying, and investigating machine learning methods in Python. The course utilizes libraries including Pandas, PyTorch, JAX, and Cython.

In her first book, published in 1997, Saidiya Hartman unfolds a theory of the subject based on the effects of colonialism. She studies the relation between white supremacy and the oppression of Black people through modes of self-constitution and performance. Hartman’s work is one of the canonical readings within Black studies and Black feminism and methodologically situated between history, philosophy, and performance studies. The course engages in a semester of close reading in order to get familiar with some fundamental theoretical motives in Black Studies, such as the notion of antiblackness, slave agency, the aftermath of slavery and its counterparts: the possessive individuality of the bourgeois subject and the liberal notion of freedom.

This seminar introduces the scientific study of European politics. The course applies the basic theoretical tools, concepts, and empirical methods of comparative politics to analyze, understand, and explain some of the systematic relationships that exist between economic, political, and social variables within European countries and the European Union. The seminar is divided thematically into three parts. Following a brief introduction to the course and review of the comparative method, the first section covers the origins of European states and democracy in Europe as well as the democratic transition processes of the ‘third wave’ in Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe. The second section focuses on the domestic political institutions of liberal European democracies and the variation that exists between them and the institutions of the European Union. While the course covers country-specific knowledge, the course is not an in-depth study of individual countries. Instead, the course discusses the similarities and differences in the executive-legislative relations, electoral systems, and party systems across Europe. The final section of the seminar deals with the effects and policy consequences that the variation in these institutional arrangements has on government accountability, representation, economic performance, political stability, and various economic and social policies.

This beginning course introduces fundamentals of the French language such as common greetings, basic introductory phrases, numbers, commonly used verbs, and the alphabet. In addition, basic knowledge of France and other French-speaking countries such as Switzerland and Belgium is also taught. Listening, speaking, and writing exercises are utilized. The course covers the A1 CEFR level of French language.