Global Arc

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.

A study of major themes, forms, and techniques in modern fiction. Close analysis of works by Proust, Gide, Céline, Sartre, Camus, Sarraute, Duras, Robbe-Grillet, and Condé. The nouveau roman and experiments in contemporary fiction will be examined as well as the cultural, moral, and political problems of our times. One 90-minute lecture, one 90-minute preceptorial. Prerequisite: a 200-level French course or instructor

Postromantic poetry, including works by Baudelaire, the symbolists (Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé), such modernists as Valéry, Apollinaire, and the surrealists. Special emphasis is placed on close textual analysis, as well as on symbolist, surrealist, and contemporary poetics. Two 90-minute seminars. Prerequisite: a 200-level French course or instructor

Plays by Molière, Corneille, Racine, Beaumarchais, Marivaux, Hugo, Feydeau, Jarry, Claudel, Giraudoux, Anouilh, Sartre, Genet, Ionesco, and Beckett, along with consideration of mise en scène, techniques of acting, theories of Artaud, and evolution of such traditions as théâtre de moeurs, boulevard comedy, and theater of the absurd. Two 90-minute classes. Prerequisite: a 200-level French course or instructor's permission.

Innovations in the theory and practice of French narrative from the 1850s to the present, considered in cultural, historical, and intellectual context. Works by Flaubert, Proust, Gide, Céline, Camus, Sarraute, Yourcenar, and others will be read in English translation. Prerequisite: a 200-level literature course or instructor's permission. Two 90-minute classes.

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.

What is violence? Visible and invisible, legitimate and illegitimate, the course will examine a selection of critiques of this ubiquitous phenomenon. Topics to include revolutionary violence in France and Haiti, the critique of colonial violence from Montaigne to Fanon and Ouologuem, and the Sartre-Merleau-Ponty-Camus debate over Soviet violence and the Algerian war. Critical writings to include Robespierre, Louverture, Benjamin, Sartre, Arendt, Foucault, Zizek, Badiou. Films will also be included.

We will explore how Proust's work addresses issues great and small, such as art, memory, sexuality, war, spectacles, restrooms... We will read the two ends of "A la Recherche du Temps Perdu" (and more) and examine its influence in literature and broader cultures.

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.

A survey of the literature of decolonization in the Francophone world. The focus will be on the invention of a critical and militant literature in 1950's and 60's North and West Africa, the Caribbean, and Viet Nam. Texts will include poetry, essays, novels, and films. Prerequisite: 200-level French class or permission of instructor.