Fall 2013

Reading and Composition (R&C)

(F)acts or Fiction? Finding Fiction in Literature and Life
R1A (Section 1) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Fall 2013
Instructor: A. Skrzypczynska

Readings:

TBA

Course Description:

This course will examine the ways in which literature and film expose and engage with the relationship between fact and fiction, be this relationship one of distinction, ambiguity, or both. Referring to a variety of literary genres will allow us to move from thematic discussions about fiction to discussions of how texts themselves can be demonstrations of fiction at work, thus inviting us to consider the value of fiction in everyday life and fiction’s potential to affect how we relate to the world. This will allow us to ask what the dangers are of fiction that is too real while also asking how ordinary life and experience might require fiction, and how fiction can also be something very “human.”

This course serves as an introduction to literary analysis and as a guide to the composition of well-argued essays. This will be accomplished by class discussion, by breaking down essay-writing into manageable components, and by extensive rewriting. French R1A fulfills the first half of the Reading and Composition Requirement in the College of Letters and Science. All readings and lectures are in ENGLISH.

Additional information:

French R1A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition Requirement. Classes are conducted in ENGLISH.

Literary Inventions of Speech
R1B (Section 1) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Fall 2013
Instructor: M. Smith

Readings: TBA

Course Description:

This course will examine the nature of speech. From rhetorical flair, improvisatory performance and conversation to stuttering, listening and silence, we will consider a wide-range of speech phenomena as represented or invented in literary and philosophic texts. We will read poetry, radio-plays, short stories and essays as well as scholarly and popular articles related to this topic.

Additional information:

This course fulfills the second half of the Reading and Composition Requirement in the College of Letters and Science. Class conducted in ENGLISH.

Speak, Memory -- Reflections on the Photograph
R1A (Section 2) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Fall 2013
Instructor: D. Hoffmann

Readings:

Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida; Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes; Vladamir Nabokov, Speak, Memory

Course Description:

This course will explore the various relationships (both harmonious and troubled) between photography and memory. More specifically, we’ll look at the ways in which photography has shaped various writerly relationships to the past, both in autobiography and in fiction. Authors will include Baudelaire, Barthes, Benjamin, Proust, Nabokov, and Sontag. Films and photographs by Marker, Frampton, Nadar, Cartier-Bresson, and Stieglitz.

This course serves as an introduction to literary analysis and as a guide to the composition of well-argued essays. This will be accomplished by class discussion, by breaking down essay-writing into manageable components, and by extensive rewriting. French R1A fulfills the first half of the Reading and Composition Requirement in the College of Letters and Science. All readings and lectures are in ENGLISH.

Additional information:

French R1A satisfies the first half of the Reading and Composition Requirement. Classes are conducted in ENGLISH.

Upper-Division Courses 

Writing in French, 3 sections ("W")

102
Fall 2013

Readings:

Course Reader; Other readings as announced.

Course Description:

This course introduces students to different modes of proposing and furthering a point of view or argument (whether in a critical essay, through dramatic metaphor, or in plays or short stories). To this end, we read passages from a variety of works, such as critical essays, novels, and plays, in order to study their use of language, their structure, and their tactics of persuasion. Through readings on problems of language and the visual arts, we explore the ways in which words and images structure thought, communication and interactions of individuals and societies. Great attention is paid, both through the readings and through extensive written work, to questions of interpretation as well as to the logical and coherent development of reading and writing skills leading to correct and effective expression in French.

Prerequisites:

Completion of French 4 at Berkeley or the equivalent. Students who have taken the equivalent of a third-year college level French course elsewhere, or who have AP scores of 5, may also enroll in French 102; Additional placement questions may be directed to the course instructor.

Additional information:

French 102 is the sole prerequisite to all UCB French courses numbered 103 and above. Course open to non-native speakers of French only. Course conducted in French. This course is designated as “W” (writing intensive) in the French major.

Reading Lyric Language ("W")

103A : Language and Culture
Fall 2013
Instructor: C. Davis

Readings:

See Description

Course Description:

This course introduces students to lyric poetry in French, focusing on Medieval and Early Modern traditions. How is the language of poetry different from other kinds of language? What are the grammatical and rhetorical conventions that make language lyrical? What kinds of emotional or subjective experiences is lyric language used to express? The goal of our class is to develop strategies for literary and linguistic analysis through close reading and interpretation of individual poems in French, from the lyrics of the medieval troubadours and trouvères to the 16th century poets of the Pléiade, Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay. Readings for the course will be in modern French.

Prerequisites:

Students must have either previously completed French 102 or its equivalent, or be concurrently enrolled in French 102. For additional placement information please see Placement Guidelines.

Additional information:

Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Arts and Literature. This course is designated as “W” (writing intensive) in the French major.

Medieval French Literature

112A
Fall 2013
Instructor: D. Hult

Readings:

The Chanson de Roland, ed. Short (ISBN 2-253-05341-4); Tristan et Iseut, ed. Walter (ISBN 2-253-05085-7); Chretien de Troyes, Le Chevalier de la Charette, Le Chevalier au Lion and Kibler, Introduction to Old French.

Course Description:

The subject of this course is the most creative period of medieval literature, in which the epic still flourished but courtliness and the romance were born. Among the topics will be oral tradition, the chanson de geste, the troubadours of southern France and the rise of courtliness, the women troubadours, the values of courtly society, the invention of romantic love, adultery and faithfulness, the transmission of Celtic themes in the matière de Bretagne, the legends of King Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Iseut, as well as medieval manuscripts (including a session viewing manuscripts in the Bancroft Library). Most of the texts will be read in modern French, but instruction in the Old French language will be an important component of the class and key passages will be read in their original linguistic form.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or consent of instructor.

Additional Information:

Knowledge of Old French not required; readings in modern French translation. This course satisfies 1 French Major course requirement in the “Literature” (112-120) category or 1 French Major course requirement in the Elective category. This course also satisfies 1 Historical Period Requirement in the French major. Priority enrollment for declared French majors. Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Arts and Literature.

What is Enlightenment? ("W")
118A : Eighteenth Century Literature

Fall 2013
Instructor: S. Maslan

Readings:

See description.

Course Description:

At the end of the eighteenth century Immanuel Kant tried to answer the question: What is Enlightenment? He came up with this answer: The Enlightenment was the time during which and the process by which human beings finally emerged from their own self-imposed childhood. The Enlightenment meant shaking off traditional authorities– kings, priests, fathers—and refusing to acknowledge the authority of handed-down ideas. Everything was up for grabs: ideas about politics, religion, sex, the family, and the nation. Both the content of beliefs and practices and the methods by which concepts and practices were formed came up for scrutiny as writers and thinkers turned their studies away from the supernatural and the metaphysical toward the natural, the physical, and the social. Moreover, enlightenment was a public process. Reading, thinking, writing, criticizing was something no one person could accomplish by him or herself “Dare to know” was the watchword Kant retrospectively assigned to the readers and writers of the Enlightenment. Recently, this heroic account of the Enlightenment has come under attack. For Horkheimer and Adorno, the Enlightenment was the origin of the kind of instrumental reason that lead to fascism. More recent scholars accuse the Enlightenment of having constructed a “universal man” who is nothing but a cover for white, western, male power. In this class we will try to decide for ourselves. We will read many of the classic works by authors such as Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire as well as plays and novels that treat freedom and slavery, love and sexuality. We will also read secondary works that help explain the social and cultural contexts for these radical developments.

Prerequisites: French 102 or consent of Instructor. Course conducted in French.

Additional information:
This course satisfies one “Literature” or one “Elective” in the French major; satisfies one Historical Period requirement in French major. Satisfies L & S breadth requirement in Arts and Literature. Priority enrollment for declared French majors. This course is designated as “W” (writing intensive) in the French major.

Wars, Revolts, Literatures. Midnight in the 20th Century
120B : Twentieth-Century Literature

Fall 2013
E. Colon

Readings: See Description

Course Description:

This course will explore the relationships between aesthetic innovations and political writing from the 1940s onwards. Throughout the course of the semester, we will read literary works (novels, narratives, theater plays), watch a few films (by Melville, Godard, Pontecorvo), and bring them to dialogue, when necessary, with the main political conflicts that have shaped the second part of the century, in particular WW2 and its aftermaths, the Algerian War and May ‘68.

We’ll mainly focus on writers published by Les Éditions de Minuit, between the 1940s and 2012, using this famous publishing house as a guide through 20th century French literary history. We’ll start when “Minuit” was clandestinely founded, in 1941, in the midst of the Resistance. We’ll read the first novel they published (Le silence de la mer, by Vercors, later adapted for film by Melville), and follow them through the 1950s when they started publishing Beckett and the “nouveaux romanciers” (Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute, Duras). We will then move to the 1960s and the 1970s, reading novels and “documents” that directly engaged with the political events and issues of their time, such as torture during the Algerian war (Alleg), the Mouvement de Libération des Femmes (Wittig) and radical left militantism (Linhart).

We’ll end by reading a few contemporary novels and plays written by the most recent generations of “Minuit authors” (Koltès, Toussaint, Volodine, NDiaye, Lindon) and consider what becomes of formal innovation and political writing when wars, revolutions and vanguard movements have seemingly disappeared altogether from the French contemporary landscape.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or consent of Instructor.

Additional Information:

This course satisfies 1 French Major course requirement in the “Literature” (112-120) category or 1 French Major course requirement in the Elective category. Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Arts and Literature. Priority enrollment for declared French majors.

Theater and Power in Seventeenth-Century France
121A : Literary Themes, Genres, Structures

Fall 2013
Instructor: D. Blocker

Readings:

Pierre Corneille, Le Cid, Polyeucte, Œdipe, les Trois discours sur le poème dramatique, ainsi que des extraits de ses contributions à la querelle du Cid ; Molière, La Critique de l’Ecole des Femmes et L’Impromptu de Versailles, Le Tartuffe, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme ; Jean Racine, Alexandre le Grand, Iphigénie et Esther

Course Description:

Theater as we know it only began to take shape in France at the beginning of the17th century. This class investigates the emergence of French classical theater under Louis XIII and Louis XIV by studying how monarchical power interacted with this new genre. For the King and his ministers both attempted to develop public playhouses and to police the stage, displaying simultaneously a distrust for the theater and a clear desire to use it to political ends. As we read plays by three of the most famous French classical playwrights (Corneille, Molière and Racine), we will be looking to understand how the esthetic canons of French classical tragedy and comedy were established, in constant negotiation with these political demands. We will also examine how kings and their counselors were represented on the French stage, and to what extent it was possible to reflect critically on the limitations of monarchical power in a genre that so depended on the King’s support. This class invites students to think about the development of new theatrical practices in a specific historical context, that of the rise of absolutism. It will also allow them to reflect on the origins of modern drama more generally

Prerequisites:

French 102 or consent of instructor.

Additional information:
This course satisfies one “Literature” or one “Elective” in the French major; satisfies one Historical Period requirement in French major. Satisfies L & S breadth requirement in Arts and Literature. Priority enrollment for declared French majors.

The Crafting of the French Philosopher -- from Montaigne to Sartre
140B : French Literature in English Translation

Fall 2013
Instructor: D. Blocker

Readings:

Diogenes Laertius, The Lives of Eminent Philosophers (“Life of Diogenes”); Michel de Montaigne, Essays (I, 20 and III, 13) ; René Descartes, Discourse on Method, Nicolas Fontaine, Conversations of Pascal with de Saci on Epictetus and Montaigne ; Blaise Pascal, Pensées (excerpts) ; Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, Conversations on the plurality of worlds, Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary (excerpts) ; Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions (books I and II) ; Ernest Renan, Philosophical dramas (the play entitled Caliban) ; Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words.

Course Description:

In France, the figure of the public intellectual has a long, eventful and often fascinating history. This survey class introduces students to this social and intellectual tradition by examining some of the ways in which the philosopher became an essential part of French culture. The course is not devoted to the study of philosophical doctrines or systems per se, – though the instructor makes every effort to furnish the students with the information they need to grasp the philosophical stakes in the texts studied. Rather, the class asks why and how the public practice of philosophy became, in France, a distinct social, institutional and even political possibility. Accordingly, the readings are intended as inquiries into the ways a variety of philosophical figures crafted positions for themselves in French society. The class also pays careful attention to the social and institutional settings in which (and, in many cases, outside of which) these “philosophers” conducted their activities, examining how their writings worked to transform and/or uphold the society in which they appeared. These forms of contextualization are meant to encourage a historical understanding of how key representations of philosophical activity – such as “enlightenment” or “engagement” – emerged and were played out.

Students will receive general bibliographical training on how to conduct research in the humanities and written exercises will include an end-of-term research paper. All readings, lectures and class discussions are conducted in English.

Additional Information:

No knowledge of French is required. All lectures and discussions in English. This course can satisfy 1 “Outside Elective” course requirement in the French major, with prior approval of French Undergraduate Major Adviser.

Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Philosophy and Values.

Introduction to French Linguistics

146A
Fall 2013
Instructor: M. McLaughlin

Readings:

Battye, Adrian, Marie-Anne Hintze and Paul Rowlett (2000) The French Language Today: A Linguistic Introduction, London – New York: Routledge

Recommended Readings:

Walter, Henriette (1988) Le Français dans tous les sens, Paris: Robert Laffont.

Course Description:

This course provides an introduction to the linguistic analysis of Modern French. You will develop the basic skills of linguistic analysis in order to understand how the French language works. We consider four different levels: the phonology (sounds), the morphology (internal structure of words), the syntax (ordering of elements within the phrase) and the lexis (vocabulary). The course places considerable emphasis not just on the system but also on places where there is variation: we will consider, for example, why the negative particle ne is often dropped in spoken French, why some speakers use on instead of nous and how speakers decide between tu and vous in a given context. We use real linguistic data as much as possible, so you will find yourself analyzing transcripts of conversations, excerpts from films or short scientific texts.

Prerequisites:
French 102 or consent of Instructor.

Additional information:
This course satisfies one “Culture” or one “Elective” requirement in the French major.

Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Social and Behavioral Science.

The Experience of Modernity in 19th-Century Paris
180C : French Civilization

Fall 2013
Instructor: D. Sanyal

Readings:

Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot (GF Flammarion no. 826/2006); Charles Baudelaire, Le Spleen de Paris (Livre de poche/2003); Gustave Flaubert, L’Education Sentimentale (GF-Lycée/2001 ISBN2080711032); Emile Zola, Au Bonheur des dames (GF/1998 ISBN 2080710869); Rachilde, Monsieur Venus, roman materialiste (MLA 2004/ISBN 9780873529297)

Recommended Readings:

David Harvey, Paris, Capital of Modernity; TJ Clark, The Painter of Modern Life

Course Description:

This course explores the experience and representation of urban modernity in 19th century Paris. Drawing on classic literature of the period along with readings in cultural criticism and art history, we will consider the novel as a laboratory for new forms of knowledge and representation. Our readings address the revolutionary upheavals and cultural transformations of the period: the complex legacy of revolution; shifting configurations of class struggle; the shocks of industrialization and capitalism; theories of social reform and progress; the transformation of history and urban life into spectacle; shopping, fashion and consumer culture; new forms of private and public space; scientific and medical discourses on gender, class and race. Along with major social and historical transitions of the period, we will also address aesthetic movements such as realism, naturalism and decadence.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or consent of instructor.

Additional information:

This course satisfies 1 “Culture” or 1 “Elective” course requirement in the French major. This course also satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Social and Behavioral Sciences. Priority enrollment for declared French majors.

Vivre dans les colonies
185 : Literature and Colonialism

Fall 2013
Instructor: S. Tlatli

Readings:

Course reader. See course description.

Course Description:

Dans ce cours nous étudierons, à travers un ensemble de témoignages littéraires ainsi que de films, la manière dont des écrivains tels que Marguerite Duras, Albert Camus, Mouloud Feraoun, Jean Pierre Sénac et Amrouche, ont décrit leurs expériences vécues pendant la colonisation. Sur le plan historique, nous nous interrogerons sur la façon dont l’idéologie coloniale s’est adressé aux enfants à travers un réseau d’images et de récits. Les questions que nous poserons seront relatives à la manière dont l’idéologie coloniale est diffusée ou contestée par ce type de récit qui met en scène, un regard naïf celui de l’enfant. Nous essaierons ainsi de faire ressortir la complexité de la question de l’identité coloniale et nous analyserons le thème de l’appartenance à l’empire colonial. A partir de ce point de départ, nous interrogerons de manière plus historique les problèmes politiques et culturels qui se sont posés à la France en tant qu’empire.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or consent of Instructor.

Additional Information:

This course satisfies one “Culture” or one “Elective” requirement in the French major. Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Social and Behavioral Sciences or Historical Studies.

Graduate Courses

History of the French Language

201
Fall 2013
Instructor: M. McLaughlin

Readings:

Ayres-Bennett, Wendy (1996) A History of the French Language through Texts, London-New York: Routledge.

Recommended Readings:

Rickard, P. (1974, 1989) A History of the French Language, London: Hutchinson & Co; Battye, A.

M.-A. Hintze with P. Rowlett (2000) The French Language Today, London-New York: Routledge.

Course Description:

This course covers the history of the French language from its Latin roots through to contemporary usage. Both internal and external History will be considered so that students acquire a firm grounding in the linguistic evolution of the language, coupled with an understanding of its development in relation to a range of social and cultural phenomena. Particular attention will be paid, for example, to the question of standardisation, and to attitudes towards the French language in the sixteenth-, seventeenth-, eighteenth- and twentieth-centuries. The internal history of the language involves the development of the phonology, morphology, syntax and lexis of French. The course will be structured around our analysis of the wide range of texts presented in Ayres-Bennett (1996) that date from 842 CE to the present day.

Reading and Interpretation of Old French Texts

211A
Fall 2013
Instructor: D. Hult

Readings:

La Chanson de Roland, ed. I. Short; Le Roman de la Rose, ed. Strubel; Chrétien de Troyes, Romans; Tristan et Iseut, ed. P. Walter; Kibler, Introduction to Old French

Course Description:

Introduction to the study of medieval French language and literature of the 12th and 13th centuries. Through a careful analysis and critical interpretation of certain canonical works (La Chanson de Roland; Béroul and Thomas, Tristan; selected lais of Marie de France; selected romans of Chrétien de Troyes; Le Roman de la Rose) we will study Old French language and some main dialects; verse and prose composition; theories of the oral tradition; editorial problems; and the material aspects of the manuscript work (including some work on codicology and paleography). Class will be conducted in English.

Additional Information:

No previous knowledge of Old French language or literature is expected. This course fulfills the Medieval Literature component of the historical coverage requirement.

Travel and Narrative in Early Modern France
220A : Studies in 16th-Century Literature

Fall 2013
Instructor: T. Hampton

Readings:

Rabelais, Pantagruel, Quart Livre (ed. Demerson); Montaigne, Essais, Vol. 3; Voyage en Italie; Léry, Histoire d’un voyage faict en la terre du Brésil; Cartier, Voyages de Jacques Cartier; Thevet, Histoire de la France Antartique.

Course Description:

In this seminar we will study the intersection between major works of French Renaissance literature and the rich body of “travel literature” that begins to be produced during the period–both in response to the “voyages of discovery” to the Americas and Asia, and in response to increasing engagement between France and the Ottoman Empire. Beginning with a look at such canonical genres as the “natural history” and the pilgrimage narrative, we will study the ways in which conventions, clichés and material from travel begin to find their way into that discourse that would come to be called “literature”–poems, plays, essays, fiction. Among the topics to be studied: the “uses” of travel in non-travel writing; the depiction of the traveler’s body; the role of the “island”; the relationship between travel and translation; travel and diplomacy; travel and monstrosity. Works by figures such as Rabelais, Montaigne, and Ronsard will be read in dialogue with writing by various travelers and scribes such as Léry, Thevet, Cartier, Leo Africanus, and Pigafetta, as well as contemporary critics interested in the rhetoric of travel.

Louis XIV: The Court and Culture of Absolutism
230B : Studies in 17th-Century Literature

Fall 2013
Instructor: N. Paige

Readings:

Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves; Molière, L’impromptu de Versailles, Les Femmes savantes, Le Tartuffe; La Fontaine, Fables; Racine, Phèdre; Fontenelle, Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes; and other readings in excepted form.

Course Description:

This course, co-taught with Prof. Peter Sahlins (History), will introduce students to a range of work on early modern court societies via a consideration of the paradigmatic example of such a society, Louis XIV’s “absolutist” court. Moving out from the foundational studies of Foucault, Elias, and Marin, we will explore a number of more recent efforts — coming from the disciplines of both literary studies and history — to parse the historical and historiographical category of “absolutism” and some of the received ideas associated with it (the “Classical Age,” “subjectivity,” indeed “modernity” itself). Over the course of the semester we will examine a series of “sites” where the culture of absolutism took shape, from the gardens of Versailles and its festivals, to the salons of Paris, and finally to the court of Louis XIV. Central to our concerns will be the specific place and work of literature in the making of absolutist culture; as such, we will be reading a careful selection of canonical literary texts from the period (e.g., La Fontaine, Molière, Racine, Lafayette), alongside a range of other texts and archival documents. Coursework will be structured so as to allow students of other periods and national traditions to develop projects on their own specific interests.

Rewriting the Hexagon -- Metropolitan Reflections in Francophone Literature
251 : Francophone Literature

Fall 2013
Instructor: K. Britto

Readings:

forthcoming — please check back

Course Description:

For almost a century, francophone writers have been concerned with the various cultural, political, and economic dynamics that shape the experiences of colonial and postcolonial subjects who travel to France. In this seminar, we will read and discuss several texts, dating from the 1930s onward, that foreground movement to (and from) the metropole. Over the course of the semester, we will consider a number of interrelated questions: how do these texts reflect the profound psychic ruptures and geographic displacements that shape colonial and postcolonial subjectivity? What sorts of challenges do they pose to narratives of French national and cultural identity? How do they transform concepts of “home” and “nation,” “citizen” and “foreigner,” “French” and “francophone”? What forms of agency (or lack thereof) underlie these metropolitan itineraries, and how do the very terms within which travel to France is imagined shift over time? Specific readings TBA, but in addition to relevant critical/theoretical works, we will likely read texts by Ousmane Socé, Ousmane Sembène, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Maryse Condé, Gisèle Pineau, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Azouz Begag, Farida Belghoul, Alain Mabanckou, Fatou Diome, and Marie NDiaye.

Teaching French in College: First Year

301
Fall 2013
Instructor: S. Chavdarian

Readings:
Lightbown, How Languages Are Learned

Course Description:

This course (1) provides participants with an understanding of basic principles of first- and second-language acquisition and the theoretical underpinnings of commonly used language teaching methods, and (2) offers inservice training in teaching, in creating and adapting instructional materials, and in designing tests for use in the Lower Division Program in French. The two-hour weekly meetings consist of a one hour lecture/discussion and a one hour practicum. GSIs are also required to attend a pilot class, taught by Seda Chavdarian, on select dates and as indicated on the lesson plans. Enrollment in this course is required for GSIs in their first semester of teaching in the French Department.

Additional information:

Attendance at the appropriate session (301 for French 1; 302 for French 2) is required of all instructors teaching French 1 and 2 for the first time. GSIs are also required to attend a pilot class, taught by Seda Chavdarian, on select dates and as indicated on the lesson plans.