FREN 4332 - MIDDLE AGES AND RENAISSANCE

FALL 2001

This course takes a not always reverential look at the culture and literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in France. Using films set during this period, we will discuss plagues, wars, intrigues, murder, history, politics, and religion. We will also read some of the great works of the period, including La Chanson de Roland, Tristan et Iseut, poetry and short stories from the Middle Ages. From the Renaissance we will study the great poets of the Pléiade: Ronsard and DuBellay, the erotic poetry of Louise Labé, the scatalogical humor of Rabelais and the sober introspection of Michel de Montaigne. Requirements for the course include short papers, a mid-term and final exam and several quizzes. Films include: Le Retour de Martin Guerre, La Reine Margot, Décameron, The Holy Grail (yes, Monty Python) and more. Visit class homepage

FREN3304 READINGS AND COMPOSITION

FALL 2001

This course is designed to continue development of reading and writing skills in French. We will review major grammar points and work on subtleties of the written language. Students will write short weekly compositions on various topics, mainly centered around the readings for the course. Reading comprehension and analytical skills will be enhanced through the reading and discussion of poetry, essays and a full-length novel., as well as one film screening. Class homepage.

GENDER AND FILM: FREN 5338 / WOMS 4392

SPRING 2001

This course explores the representation and construction of gender (both masculine and feminine) in and through film. Adopting both an historical and theoretical approach, we will focus on how masculinity and femininity, in its various forms and combinations, is signified, how both the gender of the character and the spectator is implicated in the cinematic gaze, and how gender characterizations inform and reflect the larger culture/society surrounding the film. A wide variety of cinematic traditions will be discussed, and although French film will form the base of the course, other national and regional cinemas will be explored, both through the screening of full-length films and numerous excerpts of others. We will screen films by Jean Renoir, Louis Malle, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Claude Chabrol and others, as well as Pedro Almodovar, Wim Wenders Alfred Hitchcock and other filmmakers from Latin America and the United States Films will primarily be screened in class. Visit Class Homepage

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE AND CULTURE:

NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES: FREN 3312

SPRING 2001

In this course we will study the literature and culture of post-Revolutionary France, from roughly 1800 to the present. Focusing on major literary and artistic movements, such as Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Modernism, Surrealism and Existentialism, we will sharpen our analytical skills by studying works by Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Baudelaire, Marcel Proust, Louis Aragon, Jean-Paul Sartre and Samuel Beckett. In addition, we will examine historical and cultural trends by discussing art, politics and popular culture. Two films will be studied. Requirements for this course include a short bi-weekly papers, mid-term and final examinations, and occasional quizzes. Visit Class Homepage

LE ROMAN D'APRES GUERRE / THE POST-WAR NOVEL IN FRANCE: FREN 5331

The Second World Was marked a point of rupture with the past perhaps unequaled in history. In French literature, rebellion against traditional forms and epistemes surpassed even the literary revolution following the Great War. The novel, in particular, took a radical new course apparently leading to its eventual self-destruction, a prediction which fortunately appears now to have been misguided. Beginning with the political engagement of the existential novelists, we will explore the various modes of representation in novels of the post-war period, including the radical departure of the nouveau roman from traditional narrative, the "return" of the auto-biographical novel, and the post-modern novel. Important considerations will include the nature of the novelistic act, what does it mean to write? the conception and representation of the individual, primarily the individual as author; and the role of memory in the contemporary novel.

THEORIES OF LITERATURE AND CULTURE: FORL 5310

This course presents an introduction to various theoretical ways of approaching literature and culture. We will read major theorists and discuss areas such as structuralism, post-structuralism, psychoanalytic criticism, Marxism, feminism, cultural studies and postmodernism. Concepts such as narration, the author, the audience, the reader, etc. will be explored. In addition to theoretical texts, we will read two literary texts (in English), The Awakening and Heart of Darkness, which will provide a common ground for discussion of various approaches. Syllabus

SEX, LIES AND NARRATIVE MISDEMEANORS: TWENTIETH-CENTURY FRENCH NARRATIVE: THE "POLAR": FREN4328

FALL 1999

The detective story has enjoyed a wide following and great prestige in France during the twentieth century. In this course we will read and discuss both popular "romans policiers" and more avant-garde experiments with the genre, as well as screen at least two films. We will focus on problems of narration: chronology (time); plotting, the narrator, description and perspective. Texts will include novels by Simenon, Véry, Robbe-Grillet and Duras and films by Resnais, Becker and Clouzot. See syllabus

CONTINENTAL EUROPEAN CINEMA - FORL 3301 (FALL 1999)

This course is a survey of the history and development of European cinema from its origins to the present. We will explore Weimar Cinema, Soviet Montage, Surrealism, Italian NeoRealism, French New Wave, German New Cinema, and Post-Franco Spanish Cinema. In addition, we will study the various forms of film analysis and discuss contemporary approaches to film criticism, including psychoanalysis, marxism, feminism, semiotics, cultural and post-modern All films are sub-titled and the course is taught in English. See syllabus

ADVANCED COMPOSITION AND GRAMMAR : FREN 4314

This is a course in advanced composition and grammar and will therefore focus on written expression in French. Emphasis will be placed on a variety of types of writing, most importantly that which you are expected to do in upper-level literature courses - text commentary as well as "dissertation" that departs from the text. You will also be required to develop some other topics over the semester. Excerpts from literature will frequently serve as models of writing and objects of commentary, but this is not a literature course: your work will be evaluated on the basis of the quality of your written language, with attention to grammar, structure, and organization. When your writing involves analysis of literary passages, you will be graded on how clearly you present your ideas and on how persuasively you support them, whether or not the professor agrees with your particular interpretation of the passage in question. Visit Class Homepage.

CONTEMPORARY FRANCE: FREN4338/FREN 5331

FALL 1998/SPRING 1999

4338 - Un regard sur la France contemporaine dans ses aspects historiques, politiques, institutionels, culturels, sociologiques, artistiques, littéraires, et gastronomiques, entre autres. Le cours se centrera sur l'analyse culturelle en tant que practique culturelle située non en France mais aux Etats-Unis. L'on examinera les attitudes, les préjugés et les donnés qui accompagnent a priori toute analyse de l'autre. VIEW SYLLABUS

Designed to further understanding of contemporary France, this course combines theoretical and practical approaches to the study of culture. We will study various aspects of French society, including its institutions, its cultural practices and its modes of self-conception through a variety of texts. Contemporary novels, works by leading sociologists and ethnologists (both French and American), newspaper and magazine articles, films, the Internet and round-table discussions with French natives will form the basis for class discussions and will be scrutinized as components of ideological and counter-ideological discourse. A crucial component of our work will focus on issues of intercultural communication as we study France as seen by Americans, and vice versa, not as a comparative exercise but to delineate ways in which intercultural criticism reflects upon the culture of production. Along with these more theoretical concerns, a sustained examination and discussion of the various approaches and possibilities of teaching culture at the secondary and post-secondary levels will add a practice-oriented dimension to the class. Two class sessions will be devoted to an "atelier pédagogique" and students will formulate individual cultural units appropriate for integration into language curricula.