Subject Course Number Long Course Title Description
FREN 101 Beginning French I A beginning course designed to give training in reading, writing, speaking, and understanding. This course is for students with no previous training in the French language. It is recommended that students take 101, 102, and 200 in three consecutive terms. Five class meetings per week.
FREN 102 Beginning French II A continuation of French 101. It is recommended that students take 101, 102, and 200 in three consecutive terms. Five class meetings per week.
FREN 190 Tutorial Studies in French Topic of study and the structure of the term’s work depend on the interest of the student, the instructor, and the subject. Tutorials are not substitutes for courses but opportunities to pursue topics suggested by courses.
FREN 195 Internship in French An opportunity for students to apply their French language skills in business, government, and the non-profit sector on the regional, national, and international level. Arranged in collaboration with and supervised by a member of the department. Includes readings, discussion, report, and/or portfolio. Advance consultation and application required. Repeatable for up to 6 units.
FREN 199 Independent Study in French A thorough investigation of a topic of a student’s choice, carried out in consultation with an instructor. Students considering an honors project in their senior year should register for this course, for one or more terms.
FREN 200 Intermediate French I A continuation of French 102, structured to help students develop their skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Five class meetings per week.
FREN 201 Intermediate French II Designed to help students attain facility in reading and oral comprehension and mastery of basic skills in writing and speaking. Includes grammar review that continues in French 202. Students with two to four years of high school French or the equivalent should contact the department about placement in this course. Four class meetings per week.
FREN 202 Intermediate French III A continuation of French 200 or 201, intended to develop further a student’s proficiency in the four language skills. Placement determined by examination and consultation with the instructor. Four class meetings per week.
FREN 301 Introduction to French Literary Studies This course introduces students to a wide range of literary genres through a careful selection of short texts and films. We study how the French have written their literary history to create and reinforce a unique national identity through a close reading of the works of writers such as Villon, Labé, Molière, Voltaire, Hugo, Maupassant, Camus, and Duras.
FREN 302 Cinematically Speaking French films function as a springboard for readings, discussions, oral presentations, and short critical essays. We will briefly examine the history of French film from 1940 to the present, study cinematic techniques, the vocabulary of cinema, and explore the principal themes.
FREN 303 Introduction to Francophone Literary Studies This course aims at introducing students to the nature and role of literature in the francophone world. Selected pieces from various literary genres (folk tales, poetry, drama, and novels) by writers such as Césaire, Senghor, Diop, Bâ, Jalloun, Kateb, and Memmi will be read. Themes will include colonialism, resistance, and identity formation.
FREN 304 Pleasures of the Text This course’s texts are chosen for their accessibility to advanced intermediate readers of French. Objectives include: increased fluency in reading, vocabulary building, mastery of idiomatic structures, and an exploration of what makes reading worthwhile as well as pleasurable. We sample medieval legends, love poetry, dramatic novellas, and short modern novels.
FREN 325 Destination Dakar A required course for students who plan to take French 400 that will serve as an introduction to Dakar. Students will be asked to participate in weekly meetings.
FREN 390 Tutorial Studies in French Topic of study and the structure of the term’s work depend on the interest of the student, the instructor, and the subject. Tutorials are not substitutes for courses but opportunities to pursue topics suggested by courses.
FREN 395 Internship in French An opportunity for students to apply their French language skills in business, government, and the non-profit sector on the regional, national, and international level. Arranged in collaboration with and supervised by a member of the department. Includes readings, discussion, report, and/or portfolio. Advance consultation and application required. Repeatable for up to 6 units.
FREN 399 Independent Study in French A thorough investigation of a topic of a student’s choice, carried out in consultation with an instructor. Students considering an honors project in their senior year should register for this course, for one or more terms.
FREN 400 Senegalese Culture This course is part of the Lawrence Francophone Seminar in which students study in French-speaking West Africa for ten weeks. Offered in alternate years.
FREN 401 Senegalese Literature and History This course is part of the Lawrence Francophone Seminar in which students study in French-speaking West Africa for ten weeks. Offered in alternate years.
FREN 402 French Language This course is part of the Lawrence Francophone Seminar in which students study in French-speaking West Africa for ten weeks. Offered in alternate years.
FREN 403 Beginning Wolof This course is part of the Lawrence Francophone Seminar in which students study in French-speaking West Africa for ten weeks. Offered in alternate years.
FREN 404 Senegalese Music This course is part of the Lawrence Francophone Seminar in which students study in French-speaking West Africa for ten weeks.
FREN 411 Fascism and Film This course lets students examine films that were ostensibly made as entertainment or explicitly crafted as propaganda in the historical context of Nazi Germany and occupied France. Aside from learning how governments and their cinematic agents used this relatively new medium to shape public opinion (in support of the war, against Jews, etc.), students will see where and how resistance was possible.
FREN 420 Defining Frenchness This course examines the French national self-image over the centuries, including the creation of a national historical narrative. We will also consider how defining the non-French, the foreigner, and especially the immigrant helps to reify national self-image.
FREN 440 Contemporary Issues in the French-Speaking World This course is designed to give students insights into the realities of contemporary France and other parts of the French-speaking world (Belgium, Switzerland, Québec, Vietnam, francophone Africa, and the Islands of the Pacific and Indian Ocean) through the study and discussion of literature, essays, film, art, and recent newspaper and magazine excerpts, as well as radio and television broadcasts from the French media.
FREN 445 Media and French Revolutions In this course, we will think about how mediated representations shape our understanding of the world we live in by investigating the dynamic relationship between diverse forms of media (print, visual, and audio) and the French revolutions of the 19th century, as well as the Franco-Algerian War and the events of May 1968.
FREN 460 Translation and Stylistics This course provides students with the knowledge and basic skills involved in translating between English and French. It surveys various approaches to translation, grammatical problems involved, and linguistic and cultural differences. Literary, business, and diplomatic texts will be used.
FREN 480 Travelers’ Tales This course will investigate the dynamic reciprocal relationship between travel, real or imagined, and the development of a discourse on the Other. Drawing on the works of Montaigne, Graffigny, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Loti, Celine, Maran, Dadié, and Beyala, the course will explore the writers’ fantasies in their attempt to acquaint us with the “exotic.”
FREN 482 Monsters and Deviants Every culture has its own definition of social deviance and monstrosity. We will study some of the favorite deviants of French fiction. Characters and authors may include a medieval werewolf, Quasimodo, the phantom of the opera, the Marquis de Sade, Hugo, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Lautréamont, Genet, Foucault, and Labou Tansi.
FREN 501 Immigrant Voices This course examines the myths and realities of immigrant life through the writings of Maghrebin and sub-Saharan African francophone writers (Beyala, Diome, Boukedenna, Mounsi, Begag, and Chaouite). The course will address questions of identity, assimilation, acculturation, integration, alienation, and marginalization and various survival strategies.
FREN 502 Childhood This course focuses on the representation of the child in French and Francophone literature. We will examine the construction of childhood by looking at changing notions of innocence, ongoing debates about education, cultural narratives about becoming gendered, and individual narratives about assuming an identity.
FREN 503 Women Writing in French Seeking to uncover lives that had remained largely hidden, women writing in French have revealed and shared their innermost desires and frustrations. French and francophone women writers have braved ostracism to question their identity and their relationship to family and society. Authors may include Duras, Djebar, Cixous, Bugul, Kristeva, Sebbar, Sand, Colette, and Hébert.
FREN 504 Je t'aime, moi non plus: Franco-American Love-Hate Stories How did the national friendship forged during the “sister” American and French Revolutions devolve into the post-9/11 enmity-filled era of  “freedom fries” and widespread French-bashing? In this course, we will examine a variety of each nation’s diverse mutual representations in order to better understand the dynamic and often volatile nature of Franco-American cultural relations.
FREN 516 Romantics, Rebels, Realists Beginning with Rousseau’s idealistic notions of nature, gender relationships, and social responsibility, this course will trace Romantically inspired dissatisfaction with the cultural status quo. We examine the range of responses characteristic of this intellectual moment: retreat into a Romantic idyll, open dissension, subversion, and realistic accommodation. Course explores readings in the context of art, music, and history.
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 from the 18 to the 21st centuries. Special focus will be placed on literary and visual representations of Paris and the construction of its myths.
FREN 559 Ancients Against Moderns From 17th-century quarrels in the Acad’mie Française to the Culture Wars of the 1990s, we read (in)famous theorists to discover how paradigm shifts come about as the result of vociferous academic debates when they surface in the public sphere. Authors and theorists may include Perrault, Boileau, Derrida, Godard, Foucault, Barthes, Lyotard, Bourdeau.
FREN 568 France Under Nazi Occupation This course looks at France and its people under Nazi occupation. It examines well-known films and literature produced under German and Vichy censorship and the risks those cultural products did or did not entail. It compares those literary and cinematic texts with more recent attempts to make sense of the difficult period.
FREN 588 Black Cultural Nationalisms A study of the variations of black cultural nationalisms in the works of francophone writers from Africa and the Diaspora. This course examines the writers, challenge to the “Négritude” school and the ways in which they articulate plural and locational black identities to affirm their unique sense of national belonging. Readings from authors such as Senghor, Cé’saire, Laye, Condé’, Chamoiseau, Contant, and Glissant.
FREN 590 Tutorial Studies in French Topic of study and the structure of the term’s work depend on the interest of the student, the instructor, and the subject. Tutorials are not substitutes for courses but opportunities to pursue topics suggested by courses.
FREN 595 Internship in French An opportunity for students to apply their French language skills in business, government, and the non-profit sector on the regional, national, and international level. Arranged in collaboration with and supervised by a member of the department. Includes readings, discussion, report, and/or portfolio. Advance consultation and application required. Repeatable for up to 6 units.
FREN 599 Independent Study in French A thorough investigation of a topic of a student’s choice, carried out in consultation with an instructor. Students considering an honors project in their senior year should register for this course, for one or more terms.
FREN 600 Senior Seminar Seniors meet with the instructor early in Term I to select a specific topic. They read and discuss texts at the beginning of the Winter Term, then formulate their own projects, which may take them in a direction of their choice (literature, art, history, music, etc.).
FREN 690 Tutorial Studies in French Topic of study and the structure of the term’s work depend on the interest of the student, the instructor, and the subject. Tutorials are not substitutes for courses but opportunities to pursue topics suggested by courses.
FREN 695 Internship in French An opportunity for students to apply their French language skills in business, government, and the non-profit sector on the regional, national, and international level. Arranged in collaboration with and supervised by a member of the department. Includes readings, discussion, report, and/or portfolio. Advance consultation and application required. Repeatable for up to 6 units.
FREN 699 Independent Study in French A thorough investigation of a topic of a student’s choice, carried out in consultation with an instructor. Students considering an honors project in their senior year should register for this course, for one or more terms.