Formal logic and informal logic. The study of abstract logic together with the construction and deconstruction of everyday arguments. Logical symbolism and operations, deduction and induction, consistency and inconsistency, paradoxes and puzzles. Examples drawn from law, philosophy, politics, literary criticism, computer science, history, commercials, mathematics, economics and the popular press.

This eight-week lecture series provides an overview of the financial system and the role of financial institutions in the global economy; domestic and international regulation; domestic and international banking. Faculty and guest lecturers reflect on contemporary developments and challenges in their fields.

Topics course: What is l’Amérique française? What is the nature of the French-American relationship, historically and today? During recent Franco-American culture wars, France and the United States seemed to be polar opposites. Yet at one time, people in New England and Louisiana spoke French, lived and laughed in French, cried and died in French. Must French now be translated in America? Through what cultural mechanisms is Frenchness expressed by Americans? In what language(s) does one write French America today?

Topics course: This course is about dilemmas, i.e. moments in life when one has to choose between two valid but mutually exclusive options. It explores how major writers of the 19th and 20th centuries have used moral conflicts in their works to confront what they saw as the most pressing social, political or personal issues of their times. One novel (excerpts), one autofiction, one theater play and one film script provide us with four different, yet complementary venues for examining and debating the moral implications of dilemmas. Works by Hugo, Gide, Camus and Duras.

Topics course: Pre-marital sex, adultery, divorce, birth control, cross-dressing, women’s education, women’s right to political representation—these controversial gender issues were at the core of debates over women’s changing legal, social, and cultural status and of their role in the family in 18th-century France. We will examine women’s changing role as represented in the fiction and philosophical texts of the French Enlightenment.

Topics course.

Topics course.

Topics course.

Review of communicative skills through writing and class discussion. Materials include a movie, a comic book, a play and a novel. Prerequisite: three or four years of high school French; 103 or 120, or permission of the instructor. Students completing the course normally enter 230. Enrollment limited to 18 per section.

Review of communicative skills through writing and class discussion. Materials include a movie, a comic book, a play and a novel. Prerequisite: three or four years of high school French; 103 or 120, or permission of the instructor. Students completing the course normally enter 230. Enrollment limited to 18 per section.