History

The millennium following the collapse of the Roman Empire saw the development in Europe of a radically new form of civilization now called "medieval." With its nuns and monks, knights and nobles, troubadours and artists, plagues and famines, crusades and cathedrals, and cities and castles, the Middle Ages left an indelible mark on the western world. Rome, the city of the Popes, played a key role in medieval western civilization and was the center of a long-lasting tradition of pilgrimage to the apostles' and martyrs' relics preserved in its many churches. This course is intended as a broad survey of medieval culture and history with a specific emphasis on Rome. The course takes advantage of the city's abundance of medieval monuments and works of art: mosaics and paintings, sculptures, and religious architecture, which are analyzed in comparison to the artistic production of the rest of Europe, the Byzantine East, and other cultural contexts such as the Islamic world. The reading of relevant historical and literary texts completes the course.

This course explores the concepts of nation and identity in modern France via its cultural, political, and intellectual history. It examines key ideas developed by some of the most influential modern French thinkers. Each week students consider a handful of central ideas, contained in short slogans or quotations, which is then developed more fully in accompanying texts. Students discuss the ideas developed in these texts, relating them to broader course questions and to their own experience in contemporary Paris.

Japan, as recent history has powerfully illustrated, is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries. Today it is also one of the best prepared to face such extraordinary seismic risk. This was not always the case.

Using earthquakes as a window into Japanese society, this course examines when, how, and why contemporary Japan became a nation prepared for disaster as we know it today.  The course explores interconnections between nature, politics, education, economics, ideology, and the built environment in new and exciting ways. It considers earthquakes as events that not only cause suffering and devastation, but occurrences that inspire opportunism and unleash contestation. The themes and questions we explore remain relevant to Japan today.

This course will adopt an interdisciplinary approach and use a range of primary source material to explore topics including vulnerability and resilience; survivor accounts; visual representations of destruction in art and media; relief; reconstruction; political use of catastrophe; commemoration; disaster education and training.

Students will acquire a sophisticated understanding of the following: how earthquakes have been interpreted, explained, and remembered in Japanese culture and society; how governments use disasters and reconstruction processes that follow for political purposes; how and why earthquakes often expose underlying tensions in society and result in competing visions for post-disaster rebuilding and the future. Students completing this course will have a detailed understanding of how disasters have shaped Japanese history, culture, and society.

This course explores the history of the United States from the end of World War I to the present day. It is made up of four thematic sections which focus on: the state and political development; gender and sexuality; the US and the world; and race and ethnicity. Throughout, students focus on historiographical questions that occupy scholars and interrogate change and continuity in political and social ideology during the 20th and 21st centuries. As the course progresses students develop a keen understanding of the interconnected nature of these overarching themes in American life and use this to assess particular events or thematic issues in their broader context. By the end of the course, students have a solid factual understanding of the United States since 1920, a critical understanding of the historical processes that have shaped the country over the past hundred years, and the ability to construct more nuanced analyses of the US past and present.

This course helps students grasp fundamental notions of French society today by studying the roots and the development of the main institutions and concepts of French political life. It contributes to the overall purpose of the IFE preparatory session, which is to equip students to participate as fully as possible in French professional life and social and political discussion. The course establishes a thorough familiarity with the politically and institutionally constitutive elements of contemporary France by examining how history shaped institutions and outlooks which in turn shape France today. This includes an understanding of the interactions between the political/institutional sphere and social structures. It also discusses France’s role in the world, perceived and real, past and present. Students become familiar with the mainstays of French academic literature on these subjects. The course is taught in two parts, or “modules”, the first one focusing on the foundations and structures of the French State and the second on the French State in a European and international context from a historical perspective. As a survey for non-specialists, the course adopts a hybrid chronological-thematic approach to looking at the major notions of the state and the nation, since the Revolution. Founding principles, the rapid institutional developments of the 19th century, the effects of 20th century upheavals, and other themes are treated in turn.