French 150W: Freshman Seminar in English

Topic for Spring 2007: Lights, Camera, Action, France!

Taught by M. Leruth

An introduction to French society and culture through the analysis and discussion of a number of recent French films that focus on historical events, social structures, individual and collective values, and public and private controversies that are important to the construction of French identity.

French 151: Freshman Seminar in French

Topic for Fall 2007: The French Revolution

Taught by G. Pacini

This course will investigate the history of the French revolution through an analysis of different forms of cultural expression. We will read a best-selling play, a ground-breaking philosophical treatise, a short story and revolutionary poems, as well as analyze political caricatures, pamphlets, music, ceramics, architecture, and period films. In the process, we will address questions such as: How does one go about studying the guillotine as a cultural object? Why did the revolutionaries care so much about their language and clothing? The final part of the course will also examine the late eighteenth-century French debates on race and slavery in the colonies.

This course is open to freshmen who have taken at least four years of high-school French (or equivalent credit). It is meant to give students a chance to develop their analytical and linguistic skills through intensive discussion. This course will be entirely conducted in French.

Topic for 2004: Surrealism

Taught by R. St. Onge.

Where would we be without Surrealism? All around us, in film, photography, advertising, poetic imagery, rock DVDs, Daliesque paintings, and especially within the unconscious part of our being, we find evidence of Surrealism's magnetic influence. This seminar will focus on the production of Surrealist writers, painters, and filmmakers, as well as on allied thinkers such as Marx and Freud, all of whom disclosed how reality is shaped by and responds to our desires. Primary emphasis will be placed on Surrealism in France, the country from which the movement sprang. Readings and discussions in French.

Freshman students with 4-5 years of high school French or a strong AP score are encouraged to enroll.

French 206: Upper-Intermediate Conversation

Taught by A. Leruth

A course beyond the College's foreign language requirement proficiency level stressing the cultural and linguistic notions of oral discourse in developing communicative ability in the language. Practice in stimulated cultural contexts through discussion and student presentations on themes in contemporary French culture.

French 210: Introduction to Writing and Reading (GER 5)

Taught by M. Leruth. G. Pacini

Continued development of all four language skills, with a special emphasis on reading and writing. This course will incorporate work with applied grammar, interactive video, film, and French and Francophone readings.

French 212: Cross-cultural Perspective on the Francophone World (GER 4C)

Taught by M. Compan

An introduction to comparative cultural studies of the Francophone world. An exploration of the rich cultural exchanges among Francophone communities with an emphasis on their geographical, historical and social contexts. Sustained attention to oral and written expression.

FREN 304: French Phonetics and Diction

Taught by K. Kulick

Intensive study of concepts in articulatory phonetics and phonology in modern standard French. Readings in phonetic theory. Diagnostic evaluation of each student's pronunciation. Corrective phonetics.

French 305: Advanced Writing

Taught by M. Fauvel, K. Kulick and R. St. Onge

This course is designed to develop the art of writing in French in more sophisticated prose than in lower level courses. You will focus on improving your writing proficiency in French in different modes of expression (narration, description, argumentation, exposition, etc.). Writing assignments will include a wide range of topics (architecture, nature, the environment, portraits, autobiographical writing, etc.) and each will be supported by specific activities to develop and refine appropriate vocabulary and grammatical structures. Through practical exercises and peer-editing, as well as reflection and revising, you will focus on writing French in coherent, extended discourse with lexical flexibility, rhetorical skills, and style.

FREN 314 - Introduction to French Cultural Studies (GER 4a, 5)

Taught by M. Compan, M. Leruth, and G. Pacini

French 321: Early Modern French Theater

Taught by G. Pacini

Theaters of Vice and Virtue: The Spectacular Culture of Early Modern France

To what extent could one say that early modern French culture was fundamentally spectacular? What role did performance and spectacle play in the social and political scenes of this period? What debates were played out on stage and in the contemporary discourse about acting and theater-going? Why did people believe that plays could corrupt the soul?

This course will study the impact of theater and theatrical performances at court, in the city, in fairgrounds and in the streets of Paris. In addition to reading critically or popularly acclaimed literary masterpieces, we will examine essays that describe or theorize the effects of the theater on the evolution of moral, social, and political conventions.

French 331: Révolutions: de la prise de la Bastille à l'indépendance de Haïti

Taught by G. Pacini

By analyzing late eighteenth-century literary, political, philosophical, and visual documents, this course will cover the history of the French revolution. In order to grasp the latter's international dimensions, topics of discussion will also include the impressions and experiences of foreigners in Paris, the aristocrats' emigration, and the independence of Saint-Domingue (Haïti).

Selected readings will include Rousseau's ground-breaking treatise Du contrat social, Sade's provocative pamphlet in La philosophie dans le boudoir, Beaumarchais' best-selling Le mariage de Figaro, and Staël's impossibly romantic Delphine. Other essays will examine revolutionary commemorative objects or souvenirs, music, caricatures, utopian architecture, and clothing. Film screenings will be organized throughout the semester.

French 331 may be repeated for credit if topic is different.

FREN 350: Modern French Poetry

Taught by R. St. Onge.

Specific topic for Fall 2004: The Bad and the Beautiful

From Baudelaire's fleurs du mal to Breton's surrealist beauté convulsive, modern French poetry pits revolution against convention. This course focuses on the "bad boys" of literature, often known as les poètes maudits.

French 351: Twentieth-Century French Literature I

Taught by R. St.Onge

Topic for Spring 2006: "Paris - Province": The City in French Novels of 1900-1950

Colette, Gide, Proust, Breton, Sartre, and Camus: you shouldn't consider yourself well-educated unless you've read them!

In the social novels, the Surrealist récit, the psychological narratives, and the thought-provoking of texts of the Existentialists, the city plays as much of a role as do its inhabitants. Come and get a view of France as you have surely never seen it.

French 352: Littérature et culture du XXe siècle: Postwar, Postcolonial and Postmodern

Taught by M. Fauvel

Après la seconde guerre mondiale, la littérature française comme forme d'engagement laisse vite place à des mouvements complètement opposés, qui sont l'expression de différentes crises en littérature (rôle de la littérature remis en question, crise du roman, crise du théâtre, crise du langage, etc.). Les textes littéraires et les oeuvres culturelles sont radicalement transformés dans leur forme et les idées qu'ils transmettent. Ces crises reflètent des crises idéologiques/ philosophiques/sociales/politiques/économiques qui ont profondément transformé la vision du monde, et l'identité des Français (holocauste, l'utilisation de la bombe atomique, guerre froide, ère de la technologie et importance des sciences, développement du cinéma, société de consommation, décolonisation, âge de l'informatique, nouveaux droits pour les femmes, abolition de la peine de mort, crise du marxisme, etc.)

French 361: Culture in Context I: Art and Ideas

Taught by M. Leruth

France has long been known as a hub of artistic production in Europe, and the great masterpieces of art and architecture that it has produced -- from the Cathedral of Chartres to the Impressionist landscapes of Monet -- are a main reason why it is today one of the leading tourist destinations in the world. This course will look behind the masterpieces to the social structures, cultural paradigms, and intellectual currents that have shaped art in France from the Middle Ages through the present.

Here are some questions that we will be asking ourselves in this course:

• What kinds of virtual reality have artists aspired to create in different periods of history?
• How was art affected by different sources of power and forces of change in France through the ages, such as religion, the state, democracy, capitalism, urbanization, technology, and the media?
• How did the social status of the artist change through time?
• What makes some art "classical," "modern," or "postmodern?"
• Does French art somehow express Frenchness?
• Whatever happened to the Parisian avant-garde and to French rayonnement?
• Can I learn to love contemporary art?
• What is happening in the French art world today?

French 362: French Culture in Context 2: The Republic

Taught by M. Leruth

In France, the "Republic" is more than a form of government. It is also a model of society, a cultural project, an avatar of modernity, a mythical figure of collective memory, and a way of life. However, as the basis of national identity, it has not always inspired the same warm and fuzzy feeling among all French people. While some still think of it as something sacred, others-well into the twentieth century (e.g. Vichy)-have reviled it as the antithesis of the "real" France. The course will examine the multiple cultural significations of the Republic in the French context using an interdisciplinary approach that will focus four main themes:

- THE KEY IDEAS that form the foundation of French political culture in the republican era: e.g. centralization, indivisibility, the rights of man, citizenship, and laicism.

- A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE PROCESS OF REPUBLICAN NATION BUILDING IN FRANCE that began with the Revolution of 1789; special emphasis will be placed on the struggle to establish and maintain a republican "imaginary community" in the face of the stiff opposition and string of grave national crises that mark the period of the Third Republic (1870-1940).

- THE STRUCTURE OF THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL SYSTEM under the Fifth Republic.

- THE CONTROVERSIAL POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES OF TODAY that are prompting some observers to speak of a "crisis" of the French republican ideal: e.g. American hegemony, globalization, the transfer of sovereignty to the Europe Union, multiculturalism, racism, social injustice, the dysfunctional behavior of French institutions and the populist backlash against them.

French 385: Francophone African Literature

Taught by M. Compan.

Topic for Fall 2004: Islands and Identities in Francophone Literatures

The island figures centrally into western fantasies and fears, evoking notions of both paradise and isolation. The island is also a space that fosters the identity and writing of its native inhabitants. In this course we will consider the role that the island plays as myth, trope, ideal, problem, literary inspiration, and geographic reality in the formation of francophone literature. We will examine novels, plays, poems, short stories and films that reflect upon the role of the island in the formation of Caribbean and Indian Ocean identities. Thematic questions we will consider over the course of the academic term include: How do island natives write space and write themselves within that space? How does the island get transfigured from a colonial space to a space of resistance?

French 386: Francophone African Literature II (in English)

Topic for Fall 2005:  From Négritude to Créolité. Francophone Literature in Translation

Taught by M. Compan

This course will examine selected major novels, plays, poetry and films from Africa and the Caribbean from the early 1930s to the present. Through readings, discussion, lectures, and films, we will study some of the important personalities and historical and literary forces that have influenced Africa and its diaspora. In particular, we will examine Négritude and its critics, Antillanité, Créolization, and Créolité. We will explore this Francophone intellectual history by examining the context of literary production while pursuing these questions: What model did Négitude have to offer? What did it accomplish? What led to its renunciation? What did the proponents of Créolité have to offer? What is their relationship with Négritude?
Authors we will consider include Léon-Gontran Damas, Aimé Césaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Patrick Chamoiseau, Ousmane Sembene, Maryse Condé, Edouard Glissant, Frantz Fanon, Jean-Paul Sartre.

French 391: Notions of the Exotic in the Age of Exploration and Empire

Taught by M. McColley

It is a common belief that exoticism came into the literary and cultural imagination of France during the romantic period. In this course we will study 17th, 18th, and 19th century notions of the exotic that sprung during the age of exploration and took on various forms through eras of revolution and colonial expansion. We will look at the birth of exotic notions from perspectives of cultural, social, and geographical difference, using several mediums as our texts of inquiry: literary texts, correspondences, travel journals, and theatrical works, as well as images of the exotic from maps, prints, and paintings of the era.

French 392: Creative Writing

Taught by R. St. Onge

It is said that to translate is to betray. In this course, you will write creatively then "betray" yourself by translating into French what you have written. Through a study of the linguistic principles involved in passing from an English text to a French version of it, you will also acquire a fuller knowledge of the techniques of translation.

French 410: French Philology

Taught by D. Monson

An introduction to French historical linguistics, including the history of the French language, historical grammar, and the study of Old and Middle French texts.

French 450: Senior Seminar in French/ Francophone Literature, Language or Culture

Topic for Fall 2007:  Liberté et Libertins

Taught by G. Pacini

In this interdisciplinary seminar we will analyze philosophical, scientific, and literary masterpieces of the early modern French libertine tradition. We will investigate seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theories about the relationship of soul, mind, and body, and examine the link between free thought and unconventional behavior. Readings may include Molière's Le Festin de Pierre ou Dom Juan, Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and works by Cyrano de Bergerac, Pierre Bayle, Crébillon fils, Denis Diderot, the marquis de Sade, and Giacomo Casanova. In order to situate these texts in their broader social and cultural contexts, we will also study political pamphlets and the art of this period.

Topic for Fall 2006: A table !

Taught by M. Fauvel

“C’est qu’avec les sandwichs au chester et à la salade, nourritures ignorantes, je n’avais rien à dire. Mais les gâteaux étaient instruits, les tartes étaient bavardes.” Marcel Proust.

“L’homme n’a pas seulement besoin de meurtre. Il a besoin aussi d’un solide repas.” (Alfred Hitchcock).

Topic for Spring 2006: Cannibalism and the construction of identities

Taught by M. Compan

The term 'cannibalism,' first coined by Christopher Columbus as he was writing about the Arawaks in the Caribbean, has repeatedly been used by imperial Europe in an effort to distinguish itself from the subjects of its colonial expansion and justify the colonization of territories. Although this term was in the past used to construct differences between colonizers and colonized, it is now used to deconstruct those differences. In this class we will explore the construction of such a concept and how it has been used in literature and the arts to draw new boundaries between "us" and "other" and renegotiate identities.

MLL 346: Foreign Language Acquisition Processes: Theory and Practice

Taught by K. Kulick