University of Bordeaux

This class is intended for non-biology majors and focuses on a single project for the entire semester. The project is a blog that is to be created on a genetic disease or type of cancer. The purpose is for students, whose concentration is not on biology, to learn more about biological diseases and experimental methods.

The objective of this course is to initiate the understanding of the methods and models of optimization. The first part of the course concerns convex optimizations, specifically conditions of optimality, the algorithm of the gradient, and its variants. The second part of the course concerns linear programming in the real and natural numbers. The emphasis is put on modeling. Topics include: modeling, the formalization of concrete problems in the form of mathematical optimization; optimization without constraints (analytic resolution, dichotomy, variants of the gradient); optimization with constraints (conditions of optimality, linear programming, linear programming with whole numbers).

This course examines, on the one hand, the notions of artist and object of art and, on the other hand, the question of the meaning of art, by appealing to other disciplines of the human sciences such as anthropology, hermeneutics, psychology, semiology, and sociology. To do this, the different disciplines are not presented theoretically, but in an application to objects and issues in the history of art. Topics include: the artwork as a sign, the qualification of the object in the other fields, the notion of artist as proposed by the sociologist or the psychologist. The aim is to introduce students to the approaches proposed by these disciplines and to show them the contribution they can make to a better approach to the questions of meaning and definition of the objects being studied.

This course explores the sociology of organizations. It explores the structures of enterprise, and examines the many historical and contemporary theories that explain these structures. Students examine different critiques of these theories and studies, and how organizations and enterprises work on a sociological level.

This course closely examines the French Presidential Election of 2017 and its potential impact on the future of French politics. Topics include the rise of new political parties and the factors that led to the victory of Emanuel Macron.

The course is an introduction to the Japanese language. The aim of the course is for students to learn the alphabets hiragana and katakana, as well as basic oral and written expressions.

Students are expected to read and understand documents relevant to the "living university" and should be able to produce written (letter, email, etc.) and oral material relevant to university life in Spanish.

This course covers how Africa and its relations with the rest of the world can contribute to our understanding of world politics. The last 15 years have experienced a dramatic shift in the representations of Sub-Saharan Africa on the international scene. Part of this shift lies in the recent economic and diplomatic growing involvement of non-Western states and firms, coming from Asia more particularly. These newcomers induce a new competitive stance among the traditional partners of the sub-continent, arguably providing African actors with new economic opportunities. The course documents these current trends, including their sociological and historical backgrounds, and relates them to key issues explored by International Relations (IR) scholars, regarding the logics of cooperation and conflict, the role of the interstate system in the capitalist world economy, multilateral institutions, regional integration, security communities, the politics of identity, etc.