Global Arc

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.