History

This course examines the dynamics between cities and countryside during Middle Ages, from the fifth to the fifteenth century. Their evolution and interactions are studied through various aspects including space, politics, religion, and economics, in order to understand the medieval society.

This course examines the social, economic, cultural, political and international dimensions of the history of women and gender relations. It looks at the presence and evolution of patriarchy in different societies, the importance of gender as factor of inequality, and the theoretical foundations of feminism within Western philosophical trends and its contribution to societal evolution. 

The course introduces methods, topics, and historiography of modern environmental history. Students approach the history of the modern world by focusing on material, ecological, and global histories. Through exploring 9 "things," (mosquitos, cement, wheat, cattle, cod, guano, barbed wire, uranium, computers) students discuss the complex interactions between communities and commodities that frequently shape global connections, remaking both space and time. These "mini-biographies" of different plants, animals and minerals, allow students to consider how humans have relied on nature to construct the economies and infrastructures of the modern era.

This course examines French and Francophone cultural productions since the end of the Second World War, a traumatic event that transformed and deeply marked France’s society. It focuses on the evolutions of French national identity and diverse representations of it in a context of decolonization, European dynamics, and globalization. The concept of national identity is challenged by multicultural and immigrant populations that shift our understanding of “French” towards a transnational perspective. The critical urgency of this issue of definition is underlined by increasing political tensions in France that are also accentuated by the growing demands for new public commemorations that seek to acknowledge silenced, wounded memories and that, in doing so, may further divide society. The course examines how dissent about French identity revives democracy while paradoxically undoing national borders. It progresses chronologically, starting with post-War liberations from the margins: women (feminism), colonials (decolonization), youth, and other social identities (May 1968). It then analyzes how these forms of gender, ethnic, and social otherness persist or were dealt with in the 70s and 80s. The course also takes a close look at the geographical and spatial fractures that weigh upon French society. Finally, it addresses today’s issues concerning the education system, in particular the teaching of history, the unprecedented economic crisis, old age, climate change, Islam, Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism, the attacks in Paris in 2015, and the refugee crisis.