Global Arc

Writing, Directing and Acting Others will be exceptionally co-taught by celebrated French playwright and director Pascal Rambert and Florent Masse. Students will have the chance to immerse themselves in the theater-making process, writing, directing and acting texts that they will devise under Pascal Rambert's guidance. Students will conceive characters inspired by people from the surrounding local community. The class will culminate in the making of a full production and performances open to the public on May 1-2, 2019.

The course will explore the creation, production, and management of pioneering international festivals from France's main historic festivals, such as Festival d'Avignon and Festival d'Automne, to more recent and emerging ones worldwide. It will use Le Festival de Princeton, Princeton French Theater Festival's sixth annual edition, as a case study, and closely follow its offerings at the onset of the fall semester. Leaders in the field will visit the seminar to share their experiences on festival management and missions, and discuss the true role of a festival nowadays.

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.

Major movements and directors in French and French-language cinema. Topics may include: early history of the cinematographe; the Golden Age of French film; Renoir, Bresson, Tati; the "New-Wave"; French women directors of the 1980s; adaptation of literary works.

This course studies the history, theory, and aesthetics of "new media" in France and beyond between 1400 and 1900. We look closely at moments when textual and visual media that are now "old" were first emerging, from the printing press in the Renaissance to the Lumière brothers' cinématographe in 1895. How did early users perceive, adopt, and shape these new media technologies? How did each medium transform the existing cultural landscape? What can this history tell us about contemporary new media? Course integrates regular visits to libraries and archives on campus for hands-on interaction with historical media objects and technologies.

This interdisciplinary course explores the state of French and Francophone Studies today and offers students a variety of methodologies and theoretical frameworks they may apply to their own research projects. Students will receive practical training in digital humanities, archival research, close and far reading, and will study the ways critical race theory, environmental humanities, semiotics, media studies, psychoanalysis, gender and sexuality studies, poetics, and postcolonial studies have impacted the academic study of French-language literature and culture.

This course is designed to provide a formal environment for French senior concentrators to refine their command of literature, culture, and thought, as well as to foster their writing skills. In addition, the seminar helps prepare students for the department's final comprehensive examination. Major texts from the French and francophone traditions will be studied weekly, and, in addition to being discussed, will serve as bases for writing workshops. An important part of the seminar will also be dedicated to the art of translation.

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.

This course will study the interrelation of slavery and capitalism in the francophone Caribbean, from the Haitian Revolution to the present. The course will examine a series of classic works that contest French Caribbean colonialism and slavery, from the perspective of the historical transition from late imperialist feudalism to industrial and post-industrial capitalism. Writers addressed will include CLR James, Karl Marx, Aimé Césaire, Suzanne Césaire, Eric Williams, Edouard Glissant, and Maryse Condé.

What is an animal? The "question of the animal" has long preoccupied literature and philosophy, and still informs any definition of what it means to be human. But many accounts also reduce animals to mere symbols, things, or machines in a human-centered world. What is at stake in attributing thought, feeling, and speech to them? What might they say, if they could speak and we could hear? This course looks at the strain of French literature and philosophy which, from Montaigne and La Fontaine to Romain Gary and Derrida, has sought to think seriously about the presence, meaning, experience, and importance of non-human animals in our world.