International Studies

This course introduces students to key topics and concepts in disaster management. No prior knowledge is assumed. The causes of disasters are explored and different approaches to addressing them are critically analyzed through lectures and seminars. Course content includes disaster vulnerability and resilience, as well as the disaster management cycle. Students gain a clear understanding of the different types of disasters, disaster risks, and how and why vulnerability to hazards varies across space and time, in both low- and high-income contexts.

Public International Law governs the everyday life of the international society and supplies the fundamental framework for the conduct of the international political process. In this context, it deals mainly, but not exclusively, with the relations of sovereign states inter se and their relations with international organizations, individuals, transnational corporations, ‘peoples’, and other international actors. This course provides the students with an introduction to this field of law. The course provides students with a contemporary introduction to the subject of international law. Further this course provides students with an understanding of the nature and sources of international law; introduces students to the main subject areas of international law and keep them abreast of contemporary developments; introduces students to the principal areas of international conflict and the main actors on the international stage; fosters a critical appreciation of the role played by international law in world affairs; introduces students to the basic international legal research and IT skills using the Library and the Internet; and familiarizes students with the professional role and career choices of the international lawyer.

Combining theory and practice of international relations, this course is designed to provide a solid understanding of the trajectory of both conceptualizations and policies on sovereignty in the global stage. The variety of classes focus on multiple aspects of strategic diplomacy in the global commons - outer space, air space, cyber space, maritime space and polar space - to understand expressions of sovereignty outside of territories under national jurisdiction, a topic of crucial importance for the coming century. As this course breaks barriers between academia and practice, students are equally trained to write argumentative essays (French academic exercise of dissertation) and research papers as well as policy papers, while being introduced to the art of diplomatic negotiation.

This course fosters respect in the dignity, rights, contributions, and circumstances in one's own person and in others, with constructive and supportive responses to different circumstances and needs. It also aims to build committed and solid solutions to social problems and needs, strengthening democracy, and the common good, while proposing solutions to problems and projects, systematically integrating knowledge, experiences, and methodologies from other disciplines, groups, and cultures.

This class provides an opportunity for students to lead international negotiation processes, seeking win-win agreements. The course analyzes international conflicts; their causes and consequences; and the actors involved, with their interests, positions, and strategic decisions. 

This course requires prior knowledge of the evolution of the international system and International Relations theories. 

This course explores American foreign policy at the broadest level of analysis – the level known as grand strategy. The course showcases the main theoretical perspectives that inform the study of grand strategy and applies them to historical and contemporary cases of American statecraft. In this connection, students assess the relevance of the U.S. experience for theorizing about power politics and the implications of alternative theories for thinking critically about American international behavior. Emphasis is placed on the debates and controversies that animate the study of grand strategy, as well as of the unique challenges posed by making foreign policy in the American political, economic, and cultural context.

By adopting an interdisciplinary approach (African studies, history, political sciences, anthropology), this course explores globalization from the vantage point of the Global South, taking Africa in particular as an entry point. It looks at the history and contemporary configurations of the relations between African, Asian and Latin American countries through a holistic approach that keeps the political and economic dimensions of these phenomena connected to their wider social and cultural contexts, the analysis of macro-phenomena tied to individual experiences. To do so, the course is divided into six teaching modules: history; politics and international relations; goods and infrastructures; people; religions; media and popular culture. Each module combines the discussion of larger, transversal trends with the analysis of specific case studies that, through their specificities, help understand global phenomena in their locally grounded dimensions. The course thus offers an alternative understanding of globalization process that permit to reconceptualize the European experience within a larger universe of ex-centric and multipolar interconnections that characterize contemporary politics and culture.

This course examines Indigenous peoples as agents of geopolitical change. It introduces colonial/decolonial geographies to demonstrate the geopolitical implications of Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing. Key themes include: territory and geopolitics; Indigenous identities, subject-formation and intersectionality; Indigenous knowledges, rights and political agency; and, Indigenous relationships with non-Indigenous peoples.

This class provides an opportunity for students to formulate a multicultural communication strategy, based on analysis of the actors involved and there interests while applying the appropriate methodologies for its implementation in the public arena. Prior knowledge required of historical analysis of the international system and research methodologies. 

This course situates migration within broader social and economic contexts. To understand human mobility, it conceives migration as an intrinsic part of wider processes of economic and social change, rather than as a “problem to be solved”. Drawing on empirical and theoretical work, it demonstrates the contradictions and continuities in how migration has been understood in social science scholarship and explores how migration affects key areas of the economy and society, including implications from a public health perspective. By examining historical and contemporary examples, the course shows how migration patterns evolve in response to shifting economic demands, political decisions and social transformations.