University of Bordeaux

This course introduces the issues associated with demographic growth, which has accelerated very significantly over the last half century to soon reach eight billion individuals today. It covers the issues of population geography which vary around inequalities in the distribution and evolution of the population; the challenges of sometimes too rapid growth in the urban population; and the consequences of increased life expectancy. The course studies new societal behaviors to decipher the issues associated with the evolution of pronatalist and matrimonial behaviors. Population migrations, although they are no longer the source of new settlements, constitute a major aspect of this course, and are examined under demographic, societal, and political facets. Finally, the course examines the environmental consequences.

This course introduces the basic economic rationale of major innovation policy measures as well as the principles and methods used for their evaluation. It covers simple treatments of the key economic problems addressed by the most important among such policies, coupled with data and examples on how they are implemented and evaluated. Topics include: key vocabulary, market-failure versus systemic policies, supply- versus demand-side policies, knowledge as a public good, supply-side policies; R&D policies: public science, public support to private R&D; intellectual property rights: classic model (dynamic versus static welfare trade-off), advanced topics (cumulative innovation), demand-side policies; and diffusion of innovations.

This course is divided into two parts: civilization and literature. The civilization part covers the history of Australia since the beginning of the 20th century. It studies the major events that shaped Australian identity: the world wars and their impact on Australia's place within the British Empire, the major stages of indigenous activism, and the socio-cultural impact of immigration. The literature part of the course introduces the main paradigmatic change of 1980s Britain: the advent of shifting, plural, unstable identities. Hanif Kureishi’s THE BUDDHA OF SUBURBIA is the perfect introduction to these themes and also, at the time, brought a new light on the political and cultural period. The importance of drama and television writing is also discussed. Additional topics include Thatcher’s Britain, postcolonialism, marketing marginal voices, suburbia, and the pop scene.

The first part of this course focuses on nineteenth-century British art in context. It considers how artists engaged with key issues of the time such as urbanization and industrialization, nation and empire, gender and class, and modernity and tradition. The second part of the course covers the social and cultural history of British photography from the second half of the twentieth century to the present. It is conceived as an introduction to the main debates around the social uses of photography, with a particular emphasis on documentary photography. The focus is on the British context, and thus the class offers an approach to British cultural and social history through photography. Images as well as theoretical texts on photography are studied and used in critical discussions about the different uses of the medium. This is an opportunity to refine the method of image analysis and to reflect on the aesthetic specificities of the medium. The course is also intended as an introduction to research practices.

This course considers labor and its exploitation. It discusses the labor theory of value and the concept of exploitation in Marxian theory, as well as the criticisms and the ways they are overcome by analytical Marxism.

This course covers how to differentiate wine-growing soils and understand how, along with the climate, they influence the functioning of the plant and maturation. It also discusses how to characterize maturation and the biochemical processes involved in deciding the harvest date; understand the organization and functioning of the plant to produce quality grapes in a given pedo-climatic context; and use all the data on the organization and functioning of the plant to produce quality grapes in a case study context.

This course introduces the broad literary genre of science fiction, with a particular focus on postwar American science fiction from the classics to cyberpunk. The first part of the course focuses on BLADE RUNNER and analyzes excerpts from various science fiction films of the period, including Ridley Scott's 1982 film adaptation. The second part of the course focuses on BURNING CHROME. The course strengthens literary analysis through close reading and considers how the thematic components of science fiction have developed over time. 

This course focuses on the history of Rome from the foundation of the Republic until the commencement of the imperial era. It explores how the Roman Republic’s political structures allowed it to become the primary power of the Mediterranean and Western worlds. It also explores in depth the authors and historiography of this period.

This course covers how to establish the relationship between chemical and physicochemical mechanisms and the evolution of the quality of a wine. It also covers how to choose the analyses adapted to control or respond to a given problem, carry them out, interpret the results, and give the necessary advice and prescriptions.

This course focuses on the history of Central and Eastern Europe during the mid-15th to mid-17th centuries. Topics include the Holy Roman Empire, The Ottoman Empire, the protestant reformation, Scandinavia, and Russia at this time. Furthermore, it explores the complex relations between these states after the Middle Ages and the creations of the states that would continue into the contemporary era.