Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: CONTEMPORARY FRENCH THOUGHT: TOWARD A SYMBOLIC ECONOMY

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Exploration of the idea of a "symbolic economy" that transforms notions of production, exchange, and consumption in anthropology, semiotics, psychoanalysis, and literature. Includes Mauss and Levi-Strauss (on "exchange of goods, words, and women"), later developments of Bataille, Lacan, Baudrillard, Irigaray, and the theory and practice of "economic criticism" (e.g., Balzac, Zola, Gide).