Global Arc

The age of French political and cultural hegemony is characterized by the construction of the modern state, the imposition of strict social discipline, and the rationalization of large areas of human behavior. These processes will be studied in political and philosophical writings, plays, novels, poems, and memoirs. Prerequisite: a 200-level course in French or instructor's permission. Two 90-minute classes.

As fascism was rising in Europe in the 1930s, French writers, artists, and intellectuals expressed their opposition to this threat both in action, coalescing around militant groups with overt political positions, and in their work. This antifascist cultural mobilization was siphoned into the resistance during WWII. This highly interdisciplinary course explores works of literature, art, cinema, and photography that fought fascism before and during the war in France. Works will be situated within their historical context and framed by theory. The course will be complemented with a trip to France during break week.

This course examines the complex role of gender and sexuality in Francophone Africa's literature and visual cultures. Framed primarily by postcolonial criticism, we will explore how Francophone African writers, filmmakers, and artists treat historical and contemporary issues connected to women and marginal sexualities' experiences, and how they appropriate vernacular/conventional modes of writing and filmmaking in their works. By reading critical writings alongside the novels and films, we will explore questions such as: How stories shape our understanding of gender roles? From whose perspective are they told? What do they exclude/repress?

Literary texts represent and often question relations of power and cultural norms, but as a form of knowledge, literature is itself implicated in power relations. Topics range from the work of a writer or group of writers who composed both fiction and political theory or commentary to the function of censorship and of literary trials. Prerequisite: a 200-level course in French or instructor's permission. One 90-minute lecture, one 90-minute preceptorial.

This course sets out to explore the basic ideas, works, and principles of Surrealism as it was developed in France from its inception in the early 1920s into the late 1950s. A very wide array of material will cover diverse literary genres (manifestoes, novels, poems, essays) and media (film, photography, visual art, art exhibition, magazines) to show how the Surrealists wanted to revolutionize both art and life in its political and ethical dimensions. The course is highly interactive, built on a series of students' group activities and projects, both creative and critical, with the use of various media.

A thematic, artistic, and cultural study of the vision and sensibility shaped by the French Revolution and the new bourgeois-industrial society. The course in alternate years will stress poetry and theater or prose fiction, as well as the history of ideas. Close analysis of texts is combined with a broader perspective. Two 90-minute classes. Prerequisite: a 200-level French course or instructor's permission.

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.