French And Francophone Studies

Advanced Courses Offerings for the 2009-2010 Academic Year

If you have questions about what courses to take, please feel free to speak with a member of the French and Francophone Studies department.

STUDY ABROAD

• The IES program in either Paris or Nantes, France. Two comparatively traditional programs of French language and culture study that allow either semester or full year participation.
• The Chicoutimi Program in the heart of the province of Québec. The program includes courses in Québécois culture and business French, an internship that corresponds closely to student interest. Offered fall term.

TERM I

FREN 302 La Conversation à travers le cinéma
You have a date with French films, some of the best in the world! We explore the past fifteen years in French cinema as a jumping off point for discussions, oral presentations, and a short paper. Do you like thrillers? We have Diva and Rouge. How about social commentary? We’ll watch La Haine, L’Esquive and L’Enfant. Are you a Jeunet and Caro junkie? We have Delicatessen, a horror, romance, musical comedy. Students formulate questions, lead discussions, introduce new films to the class, and give a power-point or keystone presentation based on a French director of their choice. Guaranteed to improve your conversational skills in French and your speaking skills in general. This will count as a speaking intensive course for the GERs. MWF 11:10 Ms. Sarnecki

FREN 411 Fascism and Film
What counts as a fascist film? How might we identity fascism in feature films made in Nazi Germany and Occupied France? How did a German production company succeed in making excellent French films in Paris? We set out to answer these and many other questions as we view feature films made in France and Germany from 1933-1944. We learn to “read” and analyze these films that were supposedly made for entertainment. To what degree they functioned as propaganda for Nazi or collaborationist ideologies will be explored in our class discussions. In addition, we read two fictional texts of the period by writers only recently published. Three papers based on film analyses. If taken for French credit an additional 2 unit tutorial in French, which accompanies the course, is required. This will count as a dimensions of diversity course for the GERs. MWF 3:10 Ms. Sarnecki and Mr. Peterson

FREN 588 Black Cultural Nationalisms
A study of the variations of black cultural nationalisms, in literatures from Africa and the Caribbean, this course focuses on the question of national identity in the black world. It examines the writers’ challenge of the notion of a global black identity posited by the proponents of the Negritude movement and how they articulate plural and locational black identities to affirm their unique sense of national belonging. We will start out with a critical examination of the Negritude movement, its philosophy and the role it played in black peoples’ struggle for liberation as well as the controversy about its relevance as an effective literary movement in the quest for freedom and identity. The course will also explore the concepts of Creoleness and Caribbeaness as variations of black identities which challenge the idealistic and fictional notion of a homogenous black world. The writings of L.S. Senghor, Aimé Césaire, Camara Laye, Aminata Sow Fall, Maryse Condé, Patrick Chamoiseau, Raphael Constant and Edouard Glissant, will be our main sources of reference in our examination of the contours of black cultural nationalism in Africa and the Diaspora. Course will be taught exclusively in French. 6 units. Prerequisite: one 400-level course or consent of the instructor. This course is cross-listed as ETST 584 and counts as global diversity for the GERs MWF 12:30 Mr. Vetinde

TERM II

FREN 303 Introduction to Francophone Literary Studies
What is francophone literature? What are the principal preoccupations of francophone writers and their sources of inspiration? Is there a difference between French literature and francophone literature? While answering these questions, this course will introduce students to the nature and role of literature in the French-speaking world outside of France. Selected pieces from various genres (folk-tales, poetry, drama, and novels) by representative writers such as Birago Diop, Aimé Césaire, L.S. Senghor, Mariama Bâ, Aminata Sow Fall and Tahar Ben Jelloun will be read. A number of key themes in francophone literature such as colonialism, Negritude, protest and resistance and identity formation will be explored. Course will be taught exclusively in French. 6 units. Prerequisite: French 202 or consent of the instructor. This course counts as writing intensive as well as global diversity for the GERs MWF 9:50 Mr. Vetinde

FREN 420 Defining Frenchness
Americans imagine “the French” in any number of positive or negative ways: as rather snobby wine-drinking fashion plates, as gourmet philosophers who dislike all things American, or as cultural and intellectual luminaries to be admired and emulated. But how do the French see themselves, and has that national self-image been consistent over the centuries? What national symbols do they use in self-representations: the coq gaulois? the Tour Eiffel? the ever-morphing Marianne? What national memories do they glorify—and which do they suppress? Just how do they define “Others” (i.e., the non-French, the foreigner, and especially the immigrant) in order to reify their national image? How do those symbols of French-ness get transferred and translated abroad? Explorations of these questions will be guided by readings of literary excerpts, essays, film, cultural readings, art, music, and contemporary journalistic writings. 6 units. Three class meetings per week. Prerequisite: one 300-level course or consent of the instructor. MWF 12:30 Ms. Chang

FREN 555 Myths of Paris
In this course, we will examine some of the major literary, cultural, and intellectual movements that have shaped the character of French depictions of Paris (the “city” and also the “cité”) from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. How have writers, poets, artists, photographers, and filmmakers helped to create, reinforce, or subvert stereotypical or “mythical” images of this great city? What, in fact, are these myths, and how do they affect opinions of Paris, of Parisians, or of “the big city” generally speaking? Our inquiry will lead us not only to examine a variety of genres and media, but also to think critically about how diverse modes of representation contribute to the construction of cultural myths. We will examine works by Roland Barthes, Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire, Rachid Djaïdani, and Patrick Modiano, among others. 6 units. Three class meetings per week. Prerequisite: one 400-level course or consent of the instructor. MWF 3:10 Ms. Chang

TERM III

FREN 301 Introduction to Literary Analysis
This course introduces students to a wide range of literary genres through a careful selection of short texts and films to pique students’ interest and stimulate their creativity through discussion and writing. We begin our journey with medieval and early-modern poetry written by a juvenile delinquent (François Villon), and one of French literature’s first feminists avant la lettre, Louise Labé. We then continue with scathing critiques of 18th century court society (La Fontaine), ribald theatrical comedy (Molière), and a sensitive novella about a young Senegalese woman suffering racial alienation in the throes of the French revolution (Duras). Along the way, we also encounter romantic, realist, and symbolist poetry and short stories of the 19th century (Hugo, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Maupassant). In addition, we will examine how 20th century films have represented these periods in French and Francophone history. Toward the end of the journey, we will compare a riveting screenplay by Marguerite Duras with its cinematic version. 6 units. Three class meetings per week. Prerequisite: French 202 or consent of the instructor. This course counts as writing intensive for the GERs. MWF 9:50 Ms. Chang

FREN 410 Romantics, Realists, and Rebels
This course considers the diverse ways in which Romantics, Realists, and Rebels reacted to the major social, cultural, and political upheavals of the 19th century. We begin our inquiry by examining the “father of Romanticism,” Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s idealistic notions of nature, gender relationships, and social responsibility. Soon after Rousseau’s time, the French “long 19th century” brought with it repeated revolutions, the industrial take-off, the rise in scientific rationalism, as well as passionate support for women’s rights, the abolition of slavery, and the separation of church and state. Throughout the term, we will examine how writers, artists, poets, and musicians such as Delacroix, Chopin, Hugo, Balzac, Sand, Flaubert, Baudelaire, and Rimbaud (among others), responded in turn to this remarkably turbulent period in French history. 6 units. Three class meetings per week. Prerequisite: one 300-level course or consent of the instructor. MWF 1:50 Ms. Chang

FREN 503 Women Writing in French
Anglo-American feminism has given a place of historic honor to a handful of French women authors writing after the mid-twentieth century, including Beauvoir, Cixous, Kristeva, and Irigary. Several of these French authors took issue with the identity imposed on them by culture (Beauvoir famously coined the term “second sex,” arguing that women have a negative identity that makes male identity all the more salient). Some spoke the language of uppity protest (Wittig was way ahead of the “Vagina Monologues” when she imagined a culture of joyous Amazons !). Some wrote the language of unspoken desire (and any number of them set Freud and company straight…). Most importantly, these authors made it clear that women could be empowered by language to define their own identity and to revel in and rage about women’s experience. In this course, we won’t want to miss the writing of some of those trailblazers, but we will also see how later generations of women writing in French, some of them from la Francophonie, have used the power of the pen to claim the rights of many women to speak out, no matter their culture, their class, or their experience. 6 units. Three class meetings per week. Prerequisite: one 400-level course or consent of the instructor. This will count as a dimensions of diversity course for the GERs. MWF 11:10 Ms. Hoft-March