University of Bordeaux

This course provides a concise introduction to sociolinguistics, examining its interdisciplinary foundations and its relationship to linguistic structuralism. Students explore the definition and scope of sociolinguistics, the principal sources of linguistic variation, and the dynamics between linguistic norms and actual language use. The course also introduces key concepts in geolinguistics, focusing on how linguistic practices relate to geographic and social space. Together, these elements offer a foundational understanding of how language functions as a social phenomenon.

This course offers a structured chronological framework and a comprehensive introduction to the Victorian era in Great Britain (1837–1901). Through an exploration of political, social, intellectual, and artistic developments, the course examines how the Victorians navigated a world marked by rapid and sometimes unsettling change. Particular attention is paid to the interplay between ideological frameworks, social structures, and cultural production. In addition to lectures, the course includes seminar sessions designed to strengthen students’ analytical and written expression skills. These sessions provide training in core academic practices such as textual commentary and argumentative essay writing.

The ghost is a paradoxical figure: does it belong to the world of the dead or to the world of the living? Is it a revenant from the beyond, or the projection of the “fantasms”—the words share the same etymology—of the person who sees it? Keeping these questions in mind, and focusing on effects of surprise, ambiguity, and evocation, this course examines the adaptations and transpositions of the ghostly figure between literature and cinema. In the first part of the course, devoted to cinematic and operatic adaptations of Henry James’s THE TURN OF THE SCREW, the course explores the methods of adaptation—from straightforward illustration to the transformations required by the specific tools and languages of opera and film. How does each medium make the ghost “appear”? The second part of the course attempts a bolder comparative exercise by putting Charles Nodier’s short story INÉS DE LAS SIERRAS dialogue with Alfred Hitchcock’s film VERTIGO. The course pays close attention to the thematic resonances (the woman, the double, the investigation) that exist between these two works separated by more than a century, as well as to the distinctive ways in which each of them employs music and painting.

This course provides both fundamental and advanced knowledge in chemical oceanography, specifically to describe the chemistry of seawater and to present the processes that control its composition. The course offers a quantitative approach to material transfer processes at environmental interfaces, as well as their interactions with the oceanic biosphere, and details the (bio)geochemical processes responsible for modifying these transfers across time and space. The lectures cover topics such as the chemical composition of seawater, inputs of dissolved and particulate material to the ocean, elemental cycles, gases in seawater and ocean–atmosphere exchanges, redox conditions in the ocean, the use and relevance of stable and radioactive isotopes, particle transfer from the ocean surface to the sediments, and material exchanges between the oceanic crust and seawater. The course is complemented by a field excursion in a coastal environment involving sample collection, as well as tutorials and laboratory practical sessions during which the collected samples are analyzed.

This course is an introduction to the study of state-building and state-formation dynamics in Africa since precolonial times, and to the broader question of politics in Africa. It introduces multidisciplinarity into the study of politics: it is indeed one of the major contributions of African studies to combine political science with history, anthropology, and development studies. Two main approaches are combined. First, the historical approach, which evokes pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial Africa. Archives, maps and documentary film extracts are used to illustrate the ways in which power is exercised and criticized on the longue durée. Second, the sociological approach considers the modalities of policymaking in Africa, to which a plurality of actors take part – in partnership but also often in competition with state bodies.

This course provides the tools to develop an analysis when confronted with information related to indicators of spatial disparities and development, such as GDP, HDI, economic growth rates, and others. The course places emphasis on concepts, issues, and challenges—of a social and political nature—associated with understanding how indicators are produced, their roles, their limitations, and their embeddedness within political contexts and ideologies. The course encourage students to formulate well‑reasoned arguments supported by knowledge (literature and examples) and by skills (analysis, reformulation, argumentation) on the theme of spatial disparities and development indicators. It equips students to develop their own critical analysis when faced with information concerning spatial organization, spatial inequalities, and development indicators.

This course analyzes the different steps of nervous system development during prenatal, postnatal, and adult life, and the pathological consequences of its alterations. Examples of key molecular and cellular processes are studied in several models (invertebrate, vertebrate, in vitro and organoids).

This course explores the various concepts, dynamics, debates, and challenges of cultural globalization. Most chapters start with a review of key writings and concepts that describe the process of globalization through a cultural lens. Guided by this understanding of culture, it questions the notion of globalization as largely the product of Western culture, modernity, and capitalism resulting in a worldwide, homogenized, consumer culture – a scenario often referred to as “McDonaldization.” The course focuses on diverse case studies to explore and discuss that possibility and also take into account emergent issues in relation to cultural globalization in the world we live in right now.

This course strengthens linguistic, cultural, and analytical skills through a focus on the economic and social realities of the United States and the United Kingdom. It develops the ability to understand, process, and critically interpret major economic concepts and historical contexts. The course emphasizes effective listening, note-taking, and building disciplinary vocabulary, and engages with essential notions in economics, social history, and contemporary societal issues.

This course explores the difference between the language of literature and the language of general communication. The course examines these topics by conducting close textual analyses on 19th- and 20th-century literary samples of poetry, novels, and theater.