Global Arc

How have French writers, thinkers, and activists addressed the growing environmental crisis in recent decades? In what ways does their work converge? We look here at how fiction and thought-often inspired by the work of activists-have confronted this challenge. Themes include climate change; agribusiness and factory farming; development and (de)growth; nuclear risk; environmental justice and health; species extinction; the attention economy; and ecofeminist and decolonial thought. Novels, essays, and BDs paired with landmark works by thinkers such as Gorz, Guattari, Serres, Latour, Descola, Zask, Morizot, Pelluchon, and Ferdinand.

FRE 1027 is an intensive double course designed to help students develop an active command of the language. Focus will be on reading and listening comprehension, oral proficiency, grammatical accuracy, and the development of reading and writing skills. A solid grammatical basis and awareness of the idiomatic usage of the language will be emphasized. Students will be introduced to various Francophone cultures through readings, videos, and films. Prerequisite: FRE 101 and permission of instructor. Five 90-minute classes. All classes are conducted in French.

FRE 207F is an intensive, total immersion program taught in Aix-en-Provence. Designed and led by Princeton faculty to give students an opportunity to immerse in French culture and hone their linguistic skills while exploring Provence. Daily classes include an introduction to journalistic and creative writing, grammar review, discussion of current affairs, films, and readings, as well as cultural visits and study trips. Admission by application and interview. Possibility of a Princeton-in-France internship immediately after 207F. Admission to internship also by application and interview. Prerequisite: 107, 102-7, or 108, or equivalent.

An intensive discussion-based seminar, designed to integrate linguistic and cultural learning. We will examine contemporary debates on important cultural, social and political issues, allowing you to gain enhanced cultural understanding and knowledge while honing your skills. Topics include the promises of the "Thirty Glorious Years", the social transformations of the sixties and seventies (family life, women's rights, etc.); as well as the challenges brought by the post-colonial period and globalization: immigration, social exclusion and inequalities, rise of the far-right nationalism, problems in the "banlieues" and debates on secularism.

Beyond the myth of the City of Light, this course proposes to look at the real "lives" of Paris. Focusing on the modern and contemporary period, we will study Paris as an urban space, an object of representation, and part of French cultural identity. To do so, we will use an interdisciplinary approach, through literature, history, sociology, art history, architecture, etc. To deepen our understanding of its history and its making, we will take a mandatory trip to Paris during Fall Break. Students will not only (re)visit the city, but also meet guest speakers and conduct personal projects they will have designed in Princeton. Prereq: FRE 207

This media-based survey of popular music in twentieth-century France traces the evolution of music culture through intensive listening to the most influential artists from 1900 to 2012, through recorded and printed interviews with musicians, songwriters, producers, and critics, and through the analysis of music videos and blogs. Beginning with the early music hall performers to contemporary experimentations in electronic music, hip hop, and hybrid forms, the course constructs the genealogy of influence between musicians and raises questions about commercial interests, politics, and authenticity.

This course is designed to improve spoken and written French while exposing students to a number of urgent topics in French environmental politics: climate change, energy politics, food safety, pollution, animal rights, public health, risk management, landscape conservation, and degrowth. What makes the French case unique? How has French history, including Enlightenment and colonialism, shaped current activism, green politics, and the backlash against "ecofascism"? Discussion, debates, and creative projects will center on films, bandes dessinées, literature, art, philosophy, and essays; the course is writing and speaking intensive.

This course will explore classic French and Francophone cinema from Meliès and Lumière to the Nouvelle Vague. Directors to include Vigo, Renoir, Godard, Truffaut, Rouch, Varda, and Djibril Diop Mambety. The course will investigate both the specific cinematic languages developed by these various directors, as well as the historical and political context in which these films developed.

Can images be "read"? In this course, we will study the visual as a reflection of culture and will draw on methodologies from a wide range of fields to examine images that try to persuade, shock, seduce or surprise us, and will learn to identify the various elements that are combined to produce meaning. We will examine different types of images and texts stemming from French culture, ranging from advertising to propaganda, political communication, cartoons, caricatures, and artwork. Topics will include "Representations of Food", "The Other", and "Challenging Political Power".

This course interrogates the ways we read now and in the future, along the cultural, social, and cognitive ramifications of our habits of reading. The course is divided into three sections, past, present, and future of reading, investigated through questions such as: Why do we read? How do we read? What does reading do to/for the individual and the community? We approach reading not as a neutral process, but as a basic cognitive function and a life skill that is determined by many factors (material, cultural, social, and psychological), which can have considerable repercussions on the individual and the society at large.