Course Schedule and Catalog

Long Title: ELEMENTARY FRENCH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE I

Department: Center for Study of Languages

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture/Laboratory

Credit Hours: 5

Description: Introductory French. Concentration on all four language skills. Supplemented by work in the Language Resource Center.

Long Title: ELEMENTARY FRENCH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE II

Department: Center for Study of Languages

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture/Laboratory

Credit Hours: 5

Description: Continuation of FREN 101. Credit may not be received for both FREN 223 and FREN 102. Recommended Prerequisites: FREN 101 or FREN 222 or language placement test.

Long Title: IN THE MATRIX: ON HUMAN BONDAGE AND LIBERATION

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Using the film "The Matrix" as a point of reference, this course presents celebrated explorations of servitude and emancipation -- from religious mysticism to Marxism and artistic modernism. Texts by Lao Tzu, Farid ud-Din Attar, Plato, Freud, Marx, Baudelaire, J.S. Mill, Proust, de Beauvoir, Malcolm X, Marcuse, Baudrillard. Course taught in English. Cross-list: FSEM 127.

Long Title: NO HAPPY ENDINGS: TRAGEDY IN LITERATURE AND FILM

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Tragedy stages the sufferings and fall of a hero. It excites pity and fear. Why, then, do we take pleasure in tragedy? This course explores the importance of tragedy in Western culture through a reading of plays by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Racine, and Ibsen. Films include works by Robinson and Schlondorff. Cross-list: CLAS 131, FSEM 131.

Long Title: AMERICA THROUGH FRENCH EYES

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The United States has always been a source of fascination -- both attraction and repulsion -- for the French. This course aims to understand American culture and identity as revealed by transatlantic encounters with the French. We will study French intellectuals' observations from Tocqueville to Simone de Beauvoir as well as images of America in French popular culture. This course is limited to first-year students only, any others will be removed from this course. Cross-list: FSEM 133.

Long Title: INTERMEDIATE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE I

Department: Center for Study of Languages

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 4

Description: Communication based course. Focuses on the functional use of the language through linguistic, sociocultural and situational contexts. Develops all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing). Credit may not be received for both FREN 225 and FREN 201. Recommended Prerequisites: FREN 102 or FREN 223.

Long Title: INTERMEDIATE FRENCH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE II

Department: Center for Study of Languages

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 4

Description: Continuation of FREN 201. Credit may not be received for both FREN 226 and FREN 202. Recommended Prerequisites: FREN 201 or FREN 225

Long Title: CONTEMPORARY FRENCH SOCIETY

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course aims to give students an understanding of French Civilization through exploration of the social, cultural, and political issues that define France today. Course taught in English.

Long Title: AP CREDIT FRENCH LANGUAGE

Department: Center for Study of Languages

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 4

Description: This course provides credit for students who have successfully completed approved examinations, such as Advanced Placement exams. This credit counts toward the total credit hours required for graduation. Credit may not be received for both FREN 222 and FREN 101.

Long Title: AP CREDIT FRENCH LANGUAGE

Department: Center for Study of Languages

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 4

Description: This course provides credit for students who have successfully completed approved examinations, such as Advanced Placement exams. This credit counts toward the total credit hours required for graduation. Credit may not be received for both FREN 223 and FREN 102.

Long Title: AP CREDIT IN INTERMEDIATE FRENCH

Department: Center for Study of Languages

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course provides credit for students who have successfully completed approved examinations, such as Advanced Placement exams. This credit counts toward the total credit hours required for graduation. Credit may not be received for both FREN 225 and FREN 201.

Long Title: AP CREDIT IN INTERMEDIATE FRENCH

Department: Center for Study of Languages

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course provides credit for students who have successfully completed approved examinations, such as Advanced Placement exams. This credit counts toward the total credit hours required for graduation. Credit may not be received for both FREN 226 and FREN 202.

Long Title: INDEPENDENT STUDY

Department: Center for Study of Languages

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 1 TO 3

Description: This is a course tailored to meet the needs of French for special purposes. Instructor Permission Required. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: ADVANCED FRENCH FOR WRITTEN AND ORAL COMMUNICATION

Department: Center for Study of Languages

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Aimed at developing competence in oral and written expression, with the special emphasis on stylistic variations, lexical nuances, and complex grammatical structures. Drawing on literary and journalistic sources, students will practice different styles of writing. Besides working on an individual project, students will create a collaborative story of their own invention. Recommended Prerequisites: FREN 202 or FREN 226.

Long Title: CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION: PARIS

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3 TO 4

Prerequisite(s): FREN 202 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: Overview of the history of Paris as a cultural, intellectual, and economic center through texts, music, and films. Students earn 3 credits for the course, or 4 credits if participating in a supplementary 10-day study trip to France at the end of the semester in May. Scholarships available.

Long Title: CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION: PROVINCES OF FRANCE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 202 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: Overview of the amazing diversity in the history, languages, economic bases, traditions, and cultures of the original provinces in order to arrive at a better understanding of France as it exists today. Includes texts, music and films. Equal emphasis will be placed on language skills and content.

Long Title: DUMAS AND THE THREE MUSKETEERS IN CONTEMPORARY FRENCH CULTURE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: More than one and a half centuries after its publication, Dumas' internationally acclaimed novel finds multiple reincarnations in contemporary French society. The novel will serve as a guide on a tour into French history and culture - past and present. The course will include texts, music, films, and writing workshops. Prerequisites: FREN 202 or placement exam or AP credit or permission of instructor. Department Permission Required.

Long Title: MAJOR LITERARY WORKS AND ARTIFACTS OF PRE-REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Study of French culture, literature, and artifacts from the Middle Ages until the Revolution. Course conducted entirely in French. Recommended Prerequisite: FREN 202

Long Title: MAJOR LITERARY WORKS AND ARTIFACTS OF POST-REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 202 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: Study of 19th and 20th century poetry, fiction, and ng through the major literary and artistic movements: Romanticism, Realism, Symbolism, Surrealism, and the post-war era.

Long Title: STRUCTURE OF FRENCH

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 202 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: The primary objective of this course is to present contemporary French as a dynamic linguistic system shaped by historical, cognitive and sociological developments. Beyond the specific consideration of French, this course is concerned with the historical, psychological, and sociological dimensions that enter into the description of any language. Cross-list: LING 318.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO FRENCH SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 202 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: This course provides grounding in social, political, cultural, and economic aspects of contemporary France. The course will focus on themes such as youth culture, Europeanization, immigration, and gender debates.

Long Title: FRENCH PHONETICS

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 202 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: Contrastive analysis of the French sound system including key areas as diction and articulation of French speech with emphasis on class as well as laboratory practice.

Long Title: WRITING WORKSHOP

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The course will focus on the practice of writing as a discursive discipline. It will also closely examine, from both a stylistic and rhetorical point of view, creative and critical prose by Barthes, Djebar, Sarraute, and others. Required of majors. Open to non-majors if space is available. Recommended Prerequisites: FREN 311 or FREN 312.

Long Title: THE FRENCH ENLIGHTENMENT / LE SIECLE DES LUMIERES

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 OR FREN 312 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: This course will focus on French representations of the Orient and the Pacific in the eighteenth century. Readings include novels, travel journals and essays by Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot, and Bougainville, among others. We will conclude the course by turning to the nineteenth century and the paintings of Gauguin and Delacroix.

Long Title: FRENCH THEATER OF 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: French theater from the early 17th century to the French Revolution. It considers the debates of the period on the role theater should play in the political and cultural life of France. The inter-relationship of theater and film will be addressed through film versions of the plays discussed.

Long Title: MODERN SHORT STORY: TOWARDS AN ETHICS OF FICTION

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Study of great works in American and European short fiction of the 19th centuries, with special attention to the ethical dimensions that this (and all) fiction articulates. Selected critical essays will complement readings from Melville, Flaubert, Mann, Maupassant, Gogol, Wilde, Chekhov, Gilman, Kafka, O'Connor, Carver, and Garcia-Marquez. Does not count toward French major. Cross-list: ENGL 355.

Long Title: WOMEN, SEXUALITY, AND THE LITERARY

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 301 OR FREN 311 OR FREN 312 OR FREN 336 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: Introduction to women writers and to women as objects of representation in fiction and in poetry since the Revolution. Special attention to the body and to sexuality as these impinge both on writer and represented. Cross-list: SWGS 412.

Long Title: 19TH CENTURY FRENCH TALES OF THE FANTASTIC

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 202

Description: The 19th century in France was not just the era of the realist novel but also of realism's uncomfortable "other" - the fantastic tale. This will be a discussion course devoted to works by Merimee, Maupassant, Nodier, Gautier, Balzac, and Flaubert - stories "behind the story" of the 19th century.

Long Title: QUEBEC, P.Q., CANADA

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 202 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: A group project, the class will attempt to define Quebec's unique status through student-selected topics such as immigration, plurilingualism, national sovereignty, cultural production, and the like. The course will cover literature and visual texts (fine arts, cinema) as well as historical and political ones. It will also offer a practicum in French writing. Recommended prerequisite(s): FREN 301 or 312.

Long Title: IMAGES OF CONTEMPORARY FRANCE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 OR FREN 312 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: The course will deal with the sociopolitical and intellectual history of post-war France. We will cover the advent of the Fifth Republic, decolonization, May '68 and political dissent, modernization and the postmodern condition, and France and the construction of Europe. Texts by Borne, Edmiston, and Dumenil.

Long Title: TRANSLATION

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Exploration of the theory and practice of translation. Includes translation of modern texts from and into English. Recommended: AP credit or placement exam.

Long Title: SPECIAL TOPICS

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 1 TO 5

Description: Topics may vary. Please consult with the department for additional information. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: BEGINNINGS OF THE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF FRANCE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course includes and external history of the French language, an examination of hagiographic literature and the chanson de geste in their cultural and artistic contexts, as well as bibliographic component to acquaint the students with library tools available for research emphasizing medieval resources but not excluding those for later periods. Student will acquire a reading knowledge of Old French. Course taught in French. Cross-list: MDST 404. Recommended: Prerequisite(s): At least two upper-level French courses.

Long Title: INTRODUCTION TO CINEMA IN FRENCH

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 OR FREN 312 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: Introduction To Cinema In French -- In France and the French-speaking world (especially Africa): both the canon of "auteurs" of "high culture" and commercial "mere entertainment." Discussion of this distinction, and introduction to critical and theoretical discourse in film studies.

Long Title: NOVELS AND FILMS

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Comparison between French novels from the 16th to the 20th centuries and movies that have been based on them, in some cases more than one movie based on a given novel. The class will read each novel in question and then examine how the director perceived it when making the film. For example, La Reine Margot, Tous les Matins du Monde, Liaisons Dangereuses, Madame Bovary, Cyrano de Bergerac, Hiroshima mon amour.

Long Title: COURTLY LOVE IN MEDIEVAL FRANCE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 OR FREN 312 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: Study of the Occitan and Old French poetry that served as the source of the kind of love that came to be called "Amour courtois" in the nineteenth century. Cross-list: MDST 425, Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: FREN 515.

Long Title: LITERATURE AND CULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES: KING ARTHUR

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 OR FREN 312 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: Examination of the origins of the legend of King Arthur and reasons for its popularity, particularly in literature of the French Middle Ages but also in other medieval literatures of Western Europe. Includes discussion of the legend's influence in diverse areas even in modern times. Cross-list: MDST 436.

Long Title: SOCIETY AND SPECTACLE/SPECTACL OF SOCIETY

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Literature and culture of the 17th and 18th centuries. It is organized around the concepts of spectacle and spectacularity. Various discourses and modes of expression (theatre, iconography, festivals....) are used to analyze the staging of people and power and the ideological stakes of their re-presentations today in film and literary adaptations.

Long Title: MODERN FRENCH PAINTERS AND THEIR WRITERS

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Distribution Group: Distribution Group I

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 OR FREN 312 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: Fascinated by painting, modern and contemporary writers have produced significant literary commentaries that reveal affinities with painters whose artistic "questioning" they shared. In this course we will study some of the encounters between these painters and their writers. Among them: Picasso (commented by Apollinaire, Cocteau, Breton, Soller), Braque (commented by Ponge, Paulhan, Malraux, Saint John Perse), and others.

Long Title: 17TH CENTURY

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: Thematic approach to examining the main political, religious, philosophical, and literary discourses of the golden age of absolutism.

Long Title: WRITING WORKSHOP

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: FREN 436 is a more advanced version of FREN 336. Additional requirements include more extensive grammar and syntax reviews, one to two pages on each written paper and two more translations.

Long Title: NATIONAL IDENTITY AND PUBLIC MEMORY IN FRENCH SOCIETY

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course identifies events, symbols, and shared experiences which constitute collective French Memory and examines how public memory has shaped national identity in contemporary France.

Long Title: TOPICS IN 19TH CENTURY LYRIC

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 OR FREN 312 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: Study of the poetry and prose poetry of the 19th century from the Romantic period to the Symbolist era, through such writers as Desbordes-Valmore, Lamartine, Musset, Vigny, Hugo, Nerval, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Mallarme.

Long Title: IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP IN CONTEMPORARY FRANCE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture/Laboratory

Credit Hours: 3 TO 4

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 OR FREN 312 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: This course examines the impact of immigration on contemporary French society and analyzes debates over citizenship, integration, and multiculturalism. Students earn 3 credits for the course or 4 credits if participating in a supplementary 10-day study trip to France at the end of the semester in May. Scholarships available.

Long Title: FROM NOSTALGIA TO HYSTERIA: BALZAC, STENDHAL, FLAUBERT, ZOLA

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Study of 19th-century fiction through its discourses of displacement: its depiction of nostalgia and of "homelessness" in the first half of the century and of the crowd, the flaneur, and hysteria in the second. Readings in lyric, short fiction, the novel, and in critical theory. Undergrad version of FREN 555. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for FREN 455 if student has credit for FREN 555.

Long Title: EVOLUTION OF THE LYRIC FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE PRESENT

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Evolution of the French lyric from the Renaissance to the present, with special emphasis on the (post) modern period. The course also examines the relationship between poetry and painting through theoretical texts by Baudelaire, Marin, Derrida and others. Representative figures: Nerval, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, Eluard, Saint-John Perse, Cesaire, Segalen, Ponge, Char, Bonnefoy, and Brossard. Undergraduate version of FREN 562, with shorter reading list and research paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: FREN 562.

Long Title: POSTMODERN BREAK IN FRENCH PHILOSOPHY

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 OR FREN 312 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: A study of the questioning of philosophical modernity (starting with Descartes and the Enlightenment philosophers) by structuralist and poststructuralist thinkers and theorists of the postmodern condition. Among contemporary authors studied will be Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and others.

Long Title: HISTORY AND CULTURE OF MODERN QUEBEC

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: On the history and culture of Quebec from the 18th century to the present, the seminar also examines issues of language and cultural identity. It will include such figures as Hemon, Carrier, Godbout, Maillet, and Hebert (literature); Pellan, Riopelle, and Bordous (art); and Jutra and Arcand (cinema).

Long Title: POETICS AND POLITICS OF FRANCOPHONIE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 AND FREN 312 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: This seminar focuses on various literary, artistic, and political expressions of "francohonie" as both legitimated and contested concept. It encompasses a plurality of geo-cultural areas: sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb, and the Caribbean, and Quebec. It also examines how notions of postcolonialism and transnationalism intersect discourses of postmodernity. Undergraduate version of FREN 574 with shorter reading list and research paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: FREN 574.

Long Title: NOVEL APPROACHES TO THE ART OF CLOSE READING: BALZAC, STENDHAL, FLAUBERT, ZOLA

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Undergraduate version of FREN 576. It will involve two medium-length papers rather than the single seminar paper required for graduate studetns. Reading quantity will be modified as necessary to accommodate undergraduate needs.

Long Title: COCTEAU: FILMMAKER, NOVELIST, POET

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 OR FREN 312 or placement test

Description: Poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, painter, Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) a protean creator, was also the first French writer to become a famous film-maker. During his career, J. Cocteau was close to most of the avant-garde movements of this time: Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism. The goal of this course is to discover the various aspects of this multi-faceted work, where cinema and poetry meet under the sign of Orpheus.

Long Title: DISCOURSES OF DISSIDENCE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 AND FREN 312 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: Undergraduate version of FREN 582, with shorter reading list and senior level research paper. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: FREN 582.

Long Title: UTOPIA AND THE FUTURE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will explore utopia and how historical future is anticipated in French literature and philosophy; study of the most important utopists (from Cyrano de Berjerac to Fourier and Dejacque): the rise of new expectations and fears in a more technical and globalized world (from Jules Verne to Houellebecq & Dantec). Pre-requisites: FREN 311 or FREN 312 or permission of instructor. Recommended Prerequisites: FREN 311 or FREN 312.

Long Title: THE NOVEL IN FRENCH- 18TH CENTURY TO POST-COLONIALISM

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 OR FREN 312

Description: Form and themes of the novel as problematic engagements with the evolution of art, capitalism, the family and gender, the sacred, subjectivity and imperialism. Authors include: the Marquis de Sade, Balzac, Flaubert, Proust, Colette, Sartre, Robbe-Grillet, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Camara Laye.

Long Title: THESIS RESEARCH (M.A.)

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 1 TO 15

Description:  Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: SPECIAL TOPICS

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Topics may vary. Please consult department for additional information. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: BEGINNINGS OF THE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF FRANCE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course includes an external history of the French language, an examination of hagiographic literature and the chanson de geste in their cultural and artistic contexts, as well as a bibliographic component to acquaint the students with library tools available for research emphasizing medieval resources, but not excluding those for later periods. Students will acquire a reading knowledge of Old French. Course taught in French. Recommended: Prerequisite(s): At least two upper-level French courses.

Long Title: TEACHING COLLEGE FRENCH (PRACTC)

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Study of pedagogical principles applicable to the teaching of French. Includes practice teaching and performance reviews, design of pedagogical activities and peer observation.

Long Title: THE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL IMAGE OF THE MEDIEVAL WOMAN

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Comparison and contrast of the presentation of the medieval woman in literature with extant evidence of historical women from contemporary documents and records. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: MDST 411.

Long Title: COURTLY LOVE IN MEDIEVAL FRANCE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Study of the Occitan and Old French poetry that served as the source of the kind of love that came to be called "Amour courtois" in the nineteenth century. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: FREN 415.

Long Title: FRENCH ENLIGHTENMENTS

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: What is Enlightenment? Does it define a period, an idea, a group of writers? Was there one Enlightenment or many? What is specific to the French Enlightenment? Readings include key eighteenth-century texts and major attempts to define Enlightenment (Casirer, Gay, Habermas, Roche, Gordon).

Long Title: NATIONAL IDENTITY AND PUBLIC MEMORY IN FRENCH SOCIETY

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course identifies events, symbols, and shared experiences which constitute collective French memory and examines how public memory has shaped national identity in contemporary France. Graduate students will write a 25-page research paper on topic of their choice related to themes of the course.

Long Title: FRANCE-AMERICA: IMAGE AND EXCHANGE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The course analyzes French and American culture and identity through transatlantic encounters. We study intellectual's observations of American life (Tocqueville, Beauvoir, Baudrillard) and images of America in French novels, comic strips, films. We also examine American gazes toward the French. The course introduces students to interdisciplinary study of intercultural exchange and representation.

Long Title: FROM NOSTALGIA TO HYSTERIA: BALZAC, STENDHAL, FLAUBERT, ZOLA

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Study of 19th-century fiction through its discourses of displacement: its depiction of nostalgia and of "homelessness" in the first half of the century and of the crowd, the flaneur, and hysteria in the second. Readings in lyric, short fiction, the novel, and in critical theory. Mutually Exclusive: Cannot register for FREN 555 if student has credit for FREN 455.

Long Title: EVOLUTION OF THE LYRIC FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE PRESENT

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Study of the situation of the writing subject and strategies of representation in the modern lyric using Bonnefoy's "La presence ed l'image" as a point of departure. Includes Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Lautreamont, Breton, Perse, and Bonnefoy. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: FREN 462.

Long Title: LITERATURE, ART AND PSYCHOANALYSIS

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Study of selected works in literature and art through the lens of psychoanalysis, and of psychoanalysis through the lens of literary and visual art.

Long Title: SURREALIST AND AVANT-GARDE NARRATIVES

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The avant-garde and the logic of capitalism. The post- romantic precursors and the rise of a sacred and transgressive Art (Baudelaire, Mallarme, Rimbaud, Lautreamont, de Nerval). Ecstasy beyond the constructed subject: Breton, Artaud, Bataille, Aragon.

Long Title: THE NARRATIVES AND THE OTHER ARTS

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The seminar will focus on the aesthetic and ideological interplay between literature and the other arts. Figures and topics will include: neoclassical poetry and painting; Segalen, and Gauguin's Tahiti; Baudelaire's art criticism; Delacroix, Chasseriau, Fromentin, Djebar, and French Orientalism; Cocteau, or the poet as film-maker, Simon and the Baroque; Robbe-Grillet, Duras, and the cinema; Ben Jelloun and Giacometti.

Long Title: THE POSTMODERN BREAK IN FRENCH PHILOSOPHY

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Study of the questioning of philosophical modernity (starting with Descartes and the Enlightenment philosophers) by structuralist and poststructuralist thinkers and theorists of the postmodern condition and the post-history conjecture. Emphasis on the conflict between humanism and anti-humanism, including in its theological and aesthetical ramifications: Foucault, Lyotard, Levinas, Castoriadis, and others.

Long Title: FRENCH PHILOSOPHY

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Survey of moral philosophy from Descartes to today, exploring the relationship between the individual and society, the problem of freedom and values, questions of universality, humanism, the important moments of the constitution and deconstitution of the subject. Includes philosophy of Descartes, Rousseau, Condorcet, Comte, Guyau, Durkheim, Fouillee, Bergson, Sartre, Foucault, and others.

Long Title: SPECIAL TOPICS: VERSIONS OF OEDIPUS

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Through the myth, the tragedies, the complex, the Greek figure of king Oedipus has haunted our literary imagination, troubled our philosophical thought, and nourished our psychoanalytical investigation. This seminar explores this well-known figure in French modern playwrights who revisited the tragic character, as well as in the various philosophical and theoretical interpretations of the myth and its ramifications.

Long Title: FRENCH PHILOSOPHERS AND IMAGES

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Cinema, psychoanalysis, modern painting opened a new way of looking at images. This seminar, based on references to Bergson, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Barthes, Bazin, Deleuze, Dagognet, etc... will explore the role and power of images the relationships between the visual and the textual, including through paintings and films.

Long Title: PROUST

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Extensive close textual readings and broad-ranging meditations on the meaning of "A la recherche du temps perdu" in terms of the history of artistic modernism and social modernity. Taught alternately in French and English.

Long Title: POETICS AND POLITICS OF FRANCOPHONIE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Prerequisite(s): FREN 311 AND FREN 312 or placement test or permission of instructor

Description: The seminar focuses on various literary, artistic, and political expressions of "francophonie" as both legitimated and contested concept. It encompasses a plurality of geo-cultural areas: sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb, and the Caribbean, and Quebec. It also examines how notions of postcolonialism and transnationalism intersect discourses of postmodernity. Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: FREN 474.

Long Title: NOVEL APPROACHES TO THE ART OF CLOSE READING: BALZAC, STENDHAL, FLAUBERT, ZOLA

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Four exemplary novels - Balzac's "Le Pere Goriot," Stendhal's "Le rouge et le noir," Flaubert's "Madame Bovary," and Zola's "Nana" - will provide the core of this course as we reflect on the realist novel as a form, on the preoccupations of the 19th century, and on the art of reading closely. Taught in English. UG/GR Equivalent: FREN 476.

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).

Long Title: MARX, BATAILLE, BAUDRILLARD, POSTMODERNITY

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Taught in English. Exploration of the shift from a Marxist political economy of class struggle, through Bataille's "general economy" (economic activity as a "cosmic phenomenon") to Baudrillard's "indetermination of the code" and "simulation" in postmodernity. Texts by Marx, Mauss, Bataille, Athusser, Ernest Mandel, and Baudrillard.

Long Title: GILLES DELEUZE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course provides an advanced introduction to Deleuze's work, from the earliest writings to the final period. Emphasis: Deleuze's relation to the philosophical tradition, his differences from and similarities to other French "postructuralists," and the uses to which his work has been put by others. Taught in English.

Long Title: GILLES DELEUZE II

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Continuation of FREN 580.

Long Title: DISCOURSES OF DISSIDENCE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Seminar centers on dissidence as a concept and a practice, both ideological and esthetic. Covers a selection of figures, genres, media, and movements of "French" expression from Montaigne to present. Limited enrollment to 12. Open to seniors with approval from instructor. Also open with texts in English to non majors. Instructor Permission Required.Graduate/Undergraduate Equivalency: FREN 482.

Long Title: SOCIOPOLITICAL INTERPRETATION OF LITERATURE

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Analysis and interpretation of several major literary texts from the beginning of the 19th century to the contemporary period, from a sociological and political view. Vigny, Balza, Zola, Gide, Mauriac, Malraux, Robbe-Grillet, Sollers. Theoretical texts by Mme de Stael, Tocqueville, Goldman, Sartre, Bourdieu. Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: AESTHETIC THEORIES OF MODERNISM AND POSTMODERNISM

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Exploration of such artistic and literary movements as Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, "Refus Global," "Lettrisme," "Situationnisme," "Oulipo," "Tel Quel," and "Les Perpendiculaires." How does one define the "avant-gardes?"

Long Title: TWENTIETH AND TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY NOVEL IN FRENCH

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: The novel as response to the vicissitudes of capitalism, colonialism and post-colonialism, globalization, the death of God and the subject, the end of Art and History: Proust, Celine, Sartre, Robbe-Grillet, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Marguerite Duras, Michel Houellebecq, Maryse Conde, Camara Laye, Maurice G. Dantec. Taught in English.

Long Title: 20TH CENTURY NOVEL IN FRENCH

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: This course will explore the construction of the modern self in a variety of French and Francophone novels of the twentieth century. Topics include relationship between the self and narrative form; the role of memory; violence and representation; and the construction of gender, sexuality, nationality and race.

Long Title: CONSCIOUSNESS, CONSTRUCTIONISM, THE SUBJECT AND THE SOUL

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Taught in English. Is the subject a "construction"? Is consciousness a neurological event? Philosophy, religion and aesthetics in the face of cultural critique, cognitive science and post structuralism. (Mostly) short readings from Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Bataille, Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, cognitive science, philosophy of mind.

Long Title: FRENCH THEORY FROM SAUSSURE TO IRIGARAY, PART I

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Background in Freud, Marx, Saussure; then Levi-Strauss Benveniste, Althusser, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Lacan, Bataille, Fanon, Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard, Irigaray, Lyotard, Deleuze. Taught over 2 semesters, in English.

Long Title: FRENCH THEORY: FROM SAUSSURE TO IRIGARAY, PART II

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Seminar

Credit Hours: 3

Description: Background in Frued, Marx, Saussure, then Levi-Strauss, Benveniste, Althusser, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Lacan Bataille, Fanon, Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, Baudrillard, Irigaray, Lyotard, Deleuze. Taught over 2 semesters, in English. Requirements: FREN 589 Part I is desirable but not indispensable.

Long Title: INDEPENDENT STUDY

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Course Type: Independent Study

Credit Hours: 1 TO 15

Description:  Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: SUMMER GRADUATE RESEARCH

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 1 TO 12

Description:  Repeatable for Credit.

Long Title: THESIS RESEARCH PH.D.

Department: French Studies

Grade Mode: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 1 TO 15

Description:  Repeatable for Credit.