Global Arc

As fascism was rising in Europe in the 1930s, French writers, artists, and intellectuals expressed their opposition to this threat both in action, coalescing around militant groups with overt political positions, and in their work. This antifascist cultural mobilization was sustained throughout the decade and siphoned into different kinds of resistance action and creation during WWII. This highly interdisciplinary course explores works of literature, art, cinema, and photography that fought fascism with words and images before and during the war in France. Works will be situated within their historical context and framed by theory.

This course examines the complex role of gender and sexuality in Francophone Africa's literature and visual cultures. Framed primarily by postcolonial criticism, we will explore how Francophone African writers, filmmakers, and artists treat historical and contemporary issues connected to women and marginal sexualities' experiences, and how they appropriate vernacular/conventional modes of writing and filmmaking in their works. By reading critical writings alongside the novels and films, we will explore questions such as: How stories shape our understanding of gender roles? From whose perspective are they told? What do they exclude/repress?

Close readings of landmark novels from nineteenth-century France by Balzac, Stendhal, Hugo, Flaubert, Zola, Huysmans, Claire de Duras, and Constant. What course did the modern novel chart between realism and naturalism, romantic disenchantment and fin-de-siècle decadence, engaged art and aesthetic detachment, national history and private life? How did the novel reflect, shape, and map this revolutionary period in French history? Topics to be highlighted: formal innovation, realism, social critique, theories of the novel, the reading public, and print culture. Prerequisite: a 200-level French course or instructor's permission.

Topics will range from the oeuvre and context of a single author (for example, Balzac, Baudelaire, or Beckett) to specific cultural and literary problems (modernism and the avant-garde, history as literature, women's writing). Prerequisite: a 200-level French course or instructor's permission.

Albert Camus was one of the most acclaimed writers of the 20th century, and one of the most paradoxical. Reading his major narratives, plays, and essays, we will asses how the author found himself often at odds with his own thought and creativity, through his philosophy, politics, or the very act of writing. We will see how Camus, always in between, eternally on the move, can help us face (and revolt against) the nonsense of our world, from pandemics to terrorism, imperialism and totalitarianism, how we can question ourselves and relate to others, while still remembering to seek happiness and beauty.

This course explores displacements, identities and representations of the francophone populations around the globe. We will address some key issues including resettlement, global migration, the relationship between language and identity, transnationalism, multilingualism, language maintenance of French-speaking communities, particularly those living in the US and New Jersey, through readings, videos, movies, graphic novels, and documents in French and English. The course will also provide students opportunities to engage in civic service, to interact with local community members and to critically reflect on their experiences.

In this course, which is both a creative writing course and a literature course, students will study canonical French-language essays and newer forms of essayistic production (the essay film, photo essay, blog, and podcast) and will use these texts as models for their own writing. Beginning in the Renaissance with Montaigne's famous Essais and continuing to the present day with essays written throughout France and the Francophone world, students will analyze the stylistic and formal features of this compelling genre and seek to understand how the essay has maintained its relevance throughout the centuries.

Race in French Theater will investigate the question of race and diversity on the French stages. We will study efforts made in recent years to diversify representations both on stage and in the audience, and examine the concrete steps taken by major institutions, subsidized national theaters, festivals, drama schools, and commercial theaters. We will compare similar current undertakings in the world of dance and at the Paris Opera, and broaden the scope of our inquiries by looking at representation and inclusion in French cinema. Theater artists will join us from France and share their experience creating in and for the present times.

Issues pertaining to French literature and/or culture that transcend chronological boundaries. The specific content of the course will change each time it is offered. Possible topics include: French Autobiographical Writings, The Idea of Nationhood in France, The French Intellectual, Satire and Humor in France. Prerequisite: a 200-level course in French or instructor's permission. One three-hour seminar.

A practical investigation of the issues affecting translation between English and French. Weekly exercises will offer experience of literary, technical, journalistic and other registers of language. Discussion will focus on the linguistic, cultural and intellectual lessons of translation seen as a practical discipline in its own right. Prerequisite: FRE 307 or equivalent level of proficiency in French.