European Studies

This course focuses on the therapeutic relationship between physician/surgeon and patient, at a time of major socio-economic change, political turmoil, and advent of the clinical gaze in medicine. After a first phase of contextualization, the course is organized in thematic subsections, in which text pertaining to these questions as well as some historical sources is read and discussed. The course examines the economic dimension of medicine and the impact it has on patients’ agency in the therapeutic relationship in a context of competition between surgeons, physicians, and other health practitioners. The course also focuses on the question of pain management and the sensory experience of surgery before the advent of anesthesia. Finally, there is a focus on the doctor/patient relationship in institutional contexts such as hospitals and prisons, with a deeper look at the case of military surgery. The colonial context, while not at the heart of this course, is also included. The question of power dynamics between physician and patients, including questions of in particular of class, race, and gender are present throughout.

This course focuses on the crisis of democratic politics in Europe, placing it in the wider context of the evolution of postwar democracy, as well as seeking to build accounts of our present politics. It develops a refined understanding of democratic politics in Europe, introducing academic accounts of party democracy, technocracy, and populism, and deploying them in the context of postwar European history. In so doing, this course enriches the understanding of commonly deployed notions and concepts for the purpose of contemporaneous political analysis, rendering more clearly both the disjunctures and continuities of Europe's Democratic Age.

This course covers Europe's foreign and security policies since the end of the Cold War with a focus on political, strategic, and foreign policy challenges. It combines historic understanding and political analyses of the main challenges faced by the European Union and clarifies several concepts such as European diplomacy, Europe's grand strategy, EU hard versus EU soft power, the EU in its regional dimension, and the EU in a multipolar world.

This course provides a systematic view of French foreign policy and foreign policy debate since the end of the Second World War. French diplomacy played an extremely important role in the world right from the beginning of international politics in the 17th century. Against that backdrop, the period since 1945 is usually seen as a decline in French international power and influence, in favor first of the United States and then of Europe. Topics include France in international relations since World War II; decolonization; France’s Africa policy; the Cold War and NATO; French initiatives for European integration; and the history of the European Union, between economic cooperation and political sovereignty. The latter being central to French international policy, the course devotes a good deal of discussion to European affairs.