History

This course explores theoretical and historical perspectives on the intersection of law, society, and politics, and fosters discussion of contemporary issues among students from different cultures and disciplines. After an introduction to comparative law and legal culture, several classical social theorists are covered (Durkheim, Marx, and Weber) and their relevance to contemporary debates about morality, (dis)obedience, conflict, and property are considered. The course examines the role of totalitarian law in Nazi and Communist Germany, and considers the difficulties such legacies pose for fostering the rule of law in post-totalitarian societies. In this context, the course also examines the need for “transitional justice”, as well as the relationship between law, the market, and economic development (e.g. Weber). Finally, the appropriate limits on the exercise of free speech and the right of association are explored. Overall, the course develops skills at using theory and history to inform debates on contemporary challenges, such as multiculturalism, punishment, (illegal) downloading/streaming/ file-sharing, and economic development. In addition to gaining substantive expertise in various socio- and politico-legal fields, students develop communicative competence through participatory exercises, and intercultural competence through discussion with other students.

This course introduces students to the history of the city in which they are studying. It highlights both the way in which the built environment and physical layout of the city has been shaped by historical processes, and how extant buildings, monuments, and objects can be used to illuminate the concerns and ambitions of those societies that have occupied the area from the early-medieval period onwards. Students analyze primary sources, textual and visual, that foster understanding of the way in which the city has developed through time. The course gives students an enhanced understanding of the cultural, political, social, and institutional history of the city and the university.

This course introduces students to the politics of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), with a particular focus on regional dynamics related to religion, authoritarianism, foreign intervention, and popular politics. The first half of the course provides the main historical, social, and economic features underpinning current politics in MENA by examining historical state formation, authoritarian governance, and political economy in the region. In so doing, the course equips students with the main analytical tools needed to comprehend and critically analyze the course of current political developments, which the second half of the course addresses. Students learn about the trajectory of the Arab Spring, the rise and decline of Islamist political movements, and ongoing struggles with civil wars and terrorism, among other topics. The course requires students have basic knowledge of theories and concepts of political science to participate in the course.

This course uses an array of primary and secondary source readings to explore the emergence of the system of intensive colonial exploitation that we know as the plantation system. The course investigates the economic, political, legal, cultural, intellectual, and technological innovations that undergirded the development of the plantation as a colonial institution. It will also explore the role of bound and enslaved people in resisting and reshaping the institution. The seminar engages extensively with the historiographic debate about the relationship between the plantation system and the emergence of capitalism. It focuses upon developments across the Americas between the 16th and the late-18th century, drawing from the Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch empires and the newly independent United States.

 

This course aims at a broader and deeper understanding of Europe, developing a panorama of the meaning of the term “Europe” using a hybrid approach at once historical/cultural and institutional/political. It provides the basic knowledge needed to be an informed citizen of/in Europe and read and interpret accurately European current events. The course builds fundamental knowledge of the basics of European geography, and its common history and politics. It considers Europe as not simply a geographical area nor a multilateral treaty but a civilizational mosaic, and a whole. The course allows students to become familiar with the mainstays of French academic literature on European integration. The approach this course takes is to highlight and examine the key moments, what Solzhenitzyn called the nodal points, of the European adventure as a way of understanding what drove the artistic and religious revolutions that accompanied Europe's tremendous expansion on the basis of overseas conquest. Subsequently, and based on the understanding of the European historical ensemble, the course reflects on the political, economic, social, and even cultural convergence constituting the European integration which has been taking place over the past seventy years. 

This course offers an introduction to the historical and cultural processes of the Caribbean from the Lithic Age to the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Topics include: introduction to Insular Caribbean Studies; the Antillean insular environment and it's population; periodization of the pre-Hispanic Insular Caribbean; daily life and Antillean material culture; Antillean mythology and worldview; first contact with Europeans.