In this course, we will study the relationship between cinema and ecology through a consideration of films, videos and other media drawn from French and francophone contexts. Artists whose works we will analyze together include but are not limited to Jean Painlevé, Chris Marker, Sylvain George, Éliane Radigue, George Perec and Denis Côté. In addition, students will be assigned theoretical readings drawing from ecofeminism, ecocriticism, ecolinguistics and more. As this is an R1b course, students will write a research paper on a film or video of their choice. To this end, students will work in close consultation with the instructor throughout the semester in order to hone their writing and editing skills. 

This course is designed to fulfill the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement. The primary goal of this course is to develop students' reading and writing skills; a series of assignments will allow them to formulate observations made in class discussions into coherent argumentative essays. Emphasis will be placed on the refinement of effective sentence, paragraph, and thesis formation, keeping in mind the notion of writing as a process. Other goals in this course are a familiarization with French literature and the specific questions that are relevant to this field. In addition, students will be introduced to different methods of literary and linguistic analysis in their nonliterary readings.