Global Arc

This class will examine the cinema and literature of the Black Metropolis. The course will focus on the cinematographic production that presents Black lives in metropolises of the world, particularly in Paris, along with theoretical work and novels to help us define the concept more cogently. Focus on Black social upward mobility and migration, Black identity and self-expression. We will look at issues related to both representation and aesthetics, and at the ways through which a transnational Blackness impacts the general politics of cultural representation in the world.

What is an archive? What role do archives play in producing historical knowledge and cultural memory? How are new digital technologies reshaping the archive and thereby transforming our relationship to the past? This course develops practical research skills by introducing students to major archives and digital collections in France, while also exploring key theoretical works on the archive from media theory, literary criticism, and philosophy (Foucault, Nora, Benjamin, Derrida). Students will also gain hands-on experience producing their own new media "archives" by creating podcasts and participating in an ongoing digital humanities project.

This course will introduce students to French critical theory, focusing on political theory with close reading of a selection of brief, representative original texts. Authors will include Toussaint Louverture, Olympe de Gouges, Hegel, Marx, Sartre, Beauvoir, Fanon, Althusser, Foucault, Rancière, and Badiou. Particular attention will be paid to close-reading of shorter, but often demanding primary texts and to the intensive relation in this tradition between political and ethical theory and practice, including its interrogation in what one might call a politics of principle addressing problems such as universality, equality, and justice.

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.

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.

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.