Spring Paris Program
HUMANITIES IN PARIS

Please note: Study abroad programs sponsored by the undergraduate College of the University of Chicago are open to University of Chicago students only. Applications from outside the University are not accepted.

Courses for Spring 2008:

Philosophy of Mind: Context, Community and Environment
Michael Forster

It seems natural to think of the mind as an independent object: subject to causal influence from the world outside, but possessed, like a clock or other physical mechanism, of its own self-standing internal constitution.  In recent years, however, some philosophers have articulated and defended views in radical conflict with that conception.  According to such views, our minds are not merely in causal contact with the world; rather, the very existence and identity of our thoughts and beliefs are partially constituted by our relationships to the physical and social environment.

In this course, we critically examine the most influential arguments of this kind.  We focus especially on two French authors writing in the analytic-philosophical tradition.  One is Vincent Descombes, who in The Mind’s Provisions argues that, contrary to the cognitive-scientific conception of the mind, thought must be understood as constitutively embedded in a cultural and historical context.  The other is François Recanati, a principal defender of contextualism, the view that the contents of our utterances depend in far-reaching ways on the conversational contexts in which they are uttered.

 
Globalization, Language and Culture: Western European Concerns
Salikoko Mufwene, Linguistics

This course will highlight the significance of “Anglo-Saxon” cultural and linguistic presence in continental Europe through the presence of especially American business firms and through the French and other European elites’ concerns with the impact of the United States on their lives.   It will examine concerns of la Francophonie vis-à-vis what is described alternately as “American” or “Anglo-Saxon” imperialism. It will raise issues out of the now growing concern, among several scholars, that English, the super-“killer language,” is driving continental European languages to extinction.  We will address the question of whether a lingua franca can easily encroach in the vernacular functions of local and well-established languages which are also used in governmental institutions; is there any evidence for this at all in Europe?  It will explain why the pretension of “partnership” between French, minority languages in France (a reversal from France’s traditional monolingual ideology?), and indigenous African languages is little more than a desperate attempt to maintain the “imperial” lingua franca position for French in Third World countries.


Art-in-Context: Art in Paris, 1610-1661 (will count for art/music/drama gen. ed.)
Richard Neer, Art History

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