Fall 2018

Reading and Composition (R&C)

This Land is Mine: Contending Territory, Contending Narrative
R1A, section 1 : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Fall 2018
Class No: 21495
Instructor: M. Arrigo

Readings/Films:

‘Trial by Combat’ – Shirley Jackson; Persepolis (film); A Tempest – Aimé Césaire; Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys; The Stranger, Albert Camus; The Meursault Investigation, Kamel Daoud

Course Description:

As the old saying goes, history is written by the victors. However, other discursive realms are not so neatly conquered. In literature and cinema, fictional retelling remains a powerful tool for contesting dominant narratives. This course aims to look at how textual production has served to aid in questioning the dominant and imagined mapping of territories and narrations tied to them, challenging dominant thinking, showing that no lines (or words) drawn over a space are ever truly settled.

Along with this literary and cinematic exploration, this class will cover the basics of academic essay writing in the form of literary analyses.

Additional Information:

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

"Surrounded by Unknown Things" -- Narratives of Panic, Paranoia, and Mistaken Identity
R1B (Section 1) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Fall 2018
Class No: 21475
Instructor: T. Sanders

Readings/Films:

Writing Analytically, 7th edition

Course Reader to include following authors/titles:

First Meditation, Descartes
The Tell-Tale Heart, Poe
Le Horla, Maupassant
The Call of Cthulhu, Lovecraft
The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (television series, The Twilight Zone), Serling
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (television series, The Twilight Zone), Serling
La Vénus d’Ille, Mérimée
Les Diaboliques (film), Clouzot
The Turn of the Screw, James
The Shining (film), Kubrick
Jealousy, Robbe-Grillet

Last Year at Marienbad (film), Resnais/Robbe-Grillet

Additional short texts will be required via notification from Instructor

Course Description:

In this course, we will encounter written and visual texts whose unreliable narration, unsettling narratives, and enigmatic endings summon the reader to intervene in the story. If the characters in these works find themselves questioning their reality, we as readers are pulled into their world and are faced with task of constructing a coherent narrative — and meaning — of our own. We will also reflect critically on the function of literary genres and writing modes. We will encounter short stories, novellas, novels, television episodes, and films which span the realms of horror, mystery, the fantastic, the weird, the French “new novel,” and film noir, among others.

RIB is intended to introduce students to, and develop their skills in‚ research-based literary analysis. To this end, we will work on interpreting literature, producing close readings, developing solid literary arguments, understanding literary theory, conducting and presenting outside research, and analyzing and critiquing theoretical work in class discussions and writing
assignments.

Additional Information:

French R1B satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition Requirement. Classes are conducted in ENGLISH

Reading Between -- Finding Form in the Interstices of French and Anglophone Literature and Visual Media
R1A (Section 2) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Fall 2018
Class No: 21496
Instructor: V. Bergstrom

Readings/Films:

Jealousy (Alain Robbe-Grillet), Remainder (Tom McCarthy); films & visual works will be viewed in class; poetry selections will be prepared in a course reader.

Course Description:

In this course, we will undertake a sustained practice of reading between: between lines, between chapters, between film frames and between artworks arranged in an exhibit. In doing so, we will attend to the ways blank space—be it typographic, photographic, aural, physical, or indeed psychic—functions technically to produce relations between form and content, to distinguish one medium from another (e.g. celluloid film vs. digital), and to define genres within a given medium (e.g. poetry vs. prose). Throughout the semester, we will interrogate preconceived ideas of negative and positive space in works of literature and visual media, and develop analytical tools for confronting works that challenge that distinction in various ways.

We will begin the semester with Chris Marker’s short film La jetée, considering this film’s use of still images as a way of orienting ourselves within a technical understanding of form and its effect on narrative continuity. Moving through works by novelists (Alain Robbe-Grillet, Tom McCarthy), poets (Guillaume Apollinaire, Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Pierre Alferi), photographers (Eadweard Muybridge, Steven Pippin, Alix Cléo Roubaud), and filmmakers (Marker, Agnès Varda, Hollis Frampton), students will hone their analytical skills as they consider how the interstices within an artwork can be understood as the weight-bearing elements of their form, as potentially invested with significance, and therefore as essential to the observation and evaluation of cultural works.

Additional Information:

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

Ut Pictura Poesis, Paris-New York: Trans-Atlantic Exchanges between Poets and Painters, 1850 to the Present
R1B (Section 2) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Fall 2018
Class No: 21476
Instructor: M. Evans

Readings/Films:

Course Reader; see Description

Course Description:

Ut Pictura Poesis, “As is painting, so is poetry” wrote the Roman poet Horace, a rather prophetic statement given the number of poets that have been fascinated by, even sought employment in the visual art world.

In this course we’ll examine the poetic tradition often called ekphrasis (poetry about the visual arts, painting most often) as it informs the cultural exchanges between poets writing in America and France, above all the two competing capitols of the art world, Paris and New York. Focusing on ekphrastic poems and poets’ art criticism, we’ll explore how poets use writing about painting to articulate their about what poetry is and what its relationship to the world is or could be.

Reading excerpts along the way from the classic formulations of the relationship between poetry and painting by Horace, Lessing, and Plato, we’ll look at poetry and art criticism by Charles Baudelaire, Guilliaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Pierre Reverdy, Gertrude Stein, Mina Loy, reading this work in relation to the schools of Realist and Impressionist painting, and later on the Dada and Cubist movements. Over the second part of the semester, we’ll look closely at the American Abstract expressionist painters and read the New York poets John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, and Barbara Guest, considering the marked influence of French poetry on their own writing about painting. Time permitting, we’ll read texts by Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Aimé Césaire, Francis Ponge, Anne Portugal, and André du Bouchet.

Students can expect to complete a number of assignments designed to fine-tune interpretive and analytical writing skills across different types of objects (poems and paintings, in this case). But as this course fulfills the university’s R1B requirement, we’ll spend a lot of time thinking about and developing larger research projects, understanding secondary texts related to our topic, and presenting arguments in dialogue with larger scholarly conversations.

Students can expect to complete a number of assignments designed to fine-tune interpretive and analytical writing skills across different types of objects (poems and paintings, in this case). But as this course fulfills the university’s R1B requirement, we’ll spend a lot of time thinking about and developing larger research projects and connecting out analytical writing with the scholarly field at large. Each week students can expect to read a number of poems as well as art criticism, essays, and scholarly writing. Students will be asked to prepare short presentations on these sources over the course of the semester.

All reading and discussion will be done in English, with many texts translated from French. Students will be expected to produce a number of short papers (2-3 pages in length) in response to set questions and exercises, as well as two drafts of a longer final paper on a topic students will begin to develop in the second half of the semester.

Additional Information:

French R1B satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition Requirement. Classes are conducted in ENGLISH

The Roots of Objectivity and Scientific Language
R1A (Section 3) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Fall 2018
Class No: 25267
Instructor: T. Blakeney

Readings/Films:

Texts: Ezra Klein, “The Sam Harris Debate”

Samuel George Morton, Crania Americana

Claude Bernard, An Introduction to the Study of Scientific Medicine

Nouvelle Iconographie de la salpêtrière

Émile Zola, “The Experimental Novel”

Émile Zola, Thérèse Raquin

Georges Perec, “An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris”

Course Description:

This course will trace the discursive roots of the modern forms of scientific knowledge. Why are some forms of knowledge deemed “scientific” while others are not? What kinds of linguistic practices make a text appear objective? What methods? Does our definition of objectivity change over time? How does scientific knowledge relate to state power? How can literary reading methods be applied to scientific texts, and what can we learn from these close readings?

We will read and analyze wide variety of primary texts: modern scientific articles, 19th-century pseudoscientific texts in the fields of phrenology and early psychology (Morton and Charcot), 19th-century texts that are still considered scientific today (Bernard), and the texts of several literary authors who claim that their texts are scientific (Zola) or mimic scientific writing in their literary work (Perec). These will be supplemented by brief theoretical texts that will help frame our readings.

SPOILER ALERT -- The Text as Object of Study
R1B (Section 3) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Fall 2018
Class No: 24140
Instructor: K. Levine

Readings/Films:

Writing Analytically by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen, 7th Edition

Letters from a Peruvian Woman by Françoise de Graffigny, trans. David Kornacker (MLA Texts & Translations, ISBN 978-0873527781

Course Reader

Course Description:

We will begin this course with the question of what it means to read a text analytically – how does reading “critically” differ from reading “for pleasure”? In this R1B, the second of the Reading and Composition requirements, you will develop your skills in research-based literary analysis through seminar-style class discussions, one-on-one meetings with your instructor, and peer workshops.

The selection of French texts in translation we will read come from a range of historical periods, from the medieval to the modern, and all take an interesting variety of forms, from lyric poetry to epistolary novel; in general, these texts discuss romantic love and (spoiler alert!) there aren’t many truly happy endings. But our work won’t be focused on plot: instead, you’ll be reading in order to practice developing observations into clear, persuasive interpretive claims, making arguments using well-chosen textual evidence, conducting research, and using academic conventions to bring your work into conversation with other scholars.

Additional Information:

French R1B satisfies the second half of the Reading and Composition Requirement. Classes are conducted in ENGLISH

Undergraduate Courses 

Surfing the French New Wave
24 : Freshman Seminar

Fall 2018
Class No: 24484
Instructor: N. Paige

Readings/Films:

Films discussed include works by Godard, Truffaut, Varda, Rohmer, and Resnais, just to name a few.

Course Description:

The French New Wave is perhaps the most emblematic moment in modern cinema, one that continues to inspire filmmakers from Los Angeles to Teheran to Hong Kong. This seminar will give students the opportunity to explore a dozen or so movies from this extraordinary flowering of filmmaking talent in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Films discussed include works by Godard, Truffaut, Varda, Rohmer, and Resnais, just to name a few. We will also be reading some important short essays from the period that will help bring the films’ preoccupations into focus.

Students will be able to stream subtitled versions of the films on their own schedules. No knowledge of French is expected.

Additional Information:

Course taught in ENGLISH. Students will be able to stream subtitled versions of the films on their own schedules. No knowledge of French is expected. Priority enrollment for Freshmen.

Introduction to French Cinema
43B : Aspects of French Culture

Fall 2018
Class No: 24151
Instructor: D. Young

Readings/Films:

French Film: Texts and Contexts, eds. Susan Hayward and Ginette Vincendeau, TBC; see Description for films to be studied.

Course Description:

This class, taught in English, with movies in English subtitles, introduces students to the history of French (and francophone) cinema. Cinema is often said to begin in the Grand Café in Paris in 1895, with the Lumière brothers’ projection of Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory. Since then, French cinema has played a key role in defining the artistic possibilities of the medium. In this course, we will watch some of the most important and influential works from each decade, spanning narrative, experimental, and documentary forms, as well as films that challenge these distinctions. Each screening will be accompanied by critical and theoretical readings that place the films in their social, political, artistic, and intellectual contexts.

Movies screened will be English subtitled, and topics may include poetic realism, Occupation-era and postwar cinema, the French New Wave, the rise of feminist film-making, French queer cinema, postcolonial cinema, and cinema in the age of digital media. While emphasizing formal analysis, we will approach cinema as one of the key cultural technologies that has shaped our contemporary ways of imagining race, class, gender, sexuality, love, the family, the nation, friendship, and life under capitalism.

There will be occasional mandatory on-site film screenings Mondays 4-7 in some weeks, with streaming options available in other weeks.

Additional Information:

This course satisfies the College of Letters and Science breadth requirement in Historical Studies or in Social and Behavioral Sciences. Course taught in English; knowledge of French not required. There will be occasional mandatory on-site film screenings Mondays 4-7 in some weeks, with streaming options available in other weeks.

Writing in French, 3 sections
102

Fall 2018
Class No: 21493
Instructor: N. Paige; R. Shuh; N. Timmons

Readings:

Course Reader; other readings as assigned by Instructor

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:

French 102 is open to students with a B- grade or above in French 4 at UC Berkeley. Students who have taken the equivalent of a third-year college-level French course elsewhere may enroll in French 102, and should contact the French Undergraduate Advising Office regarding French placement procedures by email at frendept@berkeley.edu.

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. Satisfies Letters and Science breadth requirement in International Studies.

Writing and Filming the French Empire
103A : Language and Culture

Fall 2018
Class No: 21494
Instructor: S. Tlatli

Readings/Films:

A reader from “Copy Central” will be available. See Description for list of films.

Course Description:

Dans ce cours, nous analyserons la problématique qui accompagne la création et la consolidation de l’empire colonial français pendant les dix-neuvième et vingtième siècles. Notre matériel sera aussi bien littéraire que cinématographique. Nous analyserons la manière dont certains auteurs français décrivent l’empire colonial ainsi que la manière dont l’empire colonial est constitué comme un objet visuel: dans la propagande française pro-coloniale, mais aussi dans les films contemporains. Nous analyserons les différentes expositions coloniales qui présentent la splendeur des colonies: la “plus grande France”. Nous discuterons la manière dont la vie aux colonies est devenue l’objet de récits et d’analyses selon Tocqueville, Albert Camus et Marguerite Duras. Nous analyserons également un ensemble de films parmi lesquels: “Indochine”, “Rue case-nègre” et “Chocolat”.

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 1 “Elective” requirement in the French major. Satisfies course requirement in French Minor. Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Arts and Literature or International Studies.

Poetry and Politics in Renaissance France
116A : Sixteenth-Century Literature

Fall 2018
Class No: 31045
Instructor: D. Blocker

Readings/Films:

Clément Marot, L’Adolescence clémentine (1532) and other selected works ; Joachim du Bellay, Les Regrets (1558), Le Poète courtisan (1559) and excerpts of La Défense et illustration de la langue française ; Pierre de Ronsard, selected Odes (1550-1552) and Discours (1562-1563), Agrippa d’Aubigné, selections from Les Tragiques (1616 ; books 1, 2 and 5), Francois de Malherbe, selections from his Poésies.

Course Description:

While prose writers Michel de Montaigne and François Rabelais remain the two most frequently studied authors of 16th century France, French poetry, in the Renaissance, also developed in striking and enticing ways. Though the wars of religion at times weakened the authority of the French monarchs, they rarely ceased to maintain, in their immediate entourage, court poets, who were both eager to serve their powerful patrons, desirous to develop new poetic language, and enthusiastic about experimenting creatively with poetic forms. Some of these poets’ efforts seem to intriguingly parallel, in the realm of language and poetry, the France monarchy’s effort to stabilize France’s political and religious turmoil. But much of the work of these poets also consisted in a systematic exploration of the power of their own voices, thereby leading to the development of new tools and tonalities for the crafting of lyrical poetry.

This class will carefully explore excerpts of the works of five major poets of 16th century France (Clément Marot, Joachim du Bellay, Pierre de Ronsard, Agrippa d’Aubigné and François de Malherbe), examining both how they relate to power in their writings and in what ways their positions as court poets allowed them to work towards the renewal of French poetry. Their poetry will be read in modernized editions and the focus will be on careful close-reading and contextualization, rather than on reading exhaustively. This class is suited to all lovers of poetry. But it will also interest students desirous to develop a contextualized understanding of French literary history. No prior knowledge of early modern French literature is necessary.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or equivalent.

Additional Information:

No prior knowledge of early modern French literature is necessary This course satisfies one “Literature/Genre” or one “Elective” course requirement in the French major; satisfies one Historical Period requirement in French major. Satisfies 1 course requirement in French minor.

Satisfies L & S breadth requirement in Arts and Literature or International Studies. Priority enrollment for declared French majors.

The Prose Poem
119B : Nineteenth-Century Literature

Fall 2018
Instructor: S. Guerlac

Readings:

Readings will include works by authors such as Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Bertrand, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud and Valéry.

Course Description:

The distinction between prose and poetry seemed self-evident until the 19th century. Poetry required specific attention to formal features such as rhyme and meter. Prose involved rhetorical attention, but followed logics of narrative or discursive thought.

In the 19th century, all of this changes. Poetry tends toward the unmarked language of free verse, prose becomes increasingly “poetic,” and writers experiment with a new, mixed genre, the prose poem. These are short texts, dense with meaning, that invite a reconsideration of what literature is. We will learn how the prose poem, initially inspired by formats of visual art (painted “tableaux,” but also photographs) evolved into explorations of language, meaning and “literarity.” Baudelaire will be a central figure for us as we will study both his poetry (Les Fleurs du Mal) and his prose poems (Spleen de Paris). After careful consideration of 19th century poems, prose works and prose poems, we will end with prose poems by the celebrated 20th century poet Paul Valéry (Poésie perdue).

Prerequisites:

French 102 or equivalent.

Additional Information:

This course satisfies one “Literature/Genre” or one “Elective” course requirement in the French major; satisfies one required course in French minor. Satisfies Letters & Science breadth requirement in Arts and Literature or International Studies. Priority enrollment for declared French majors.

The Cultures of Franco-America
142AC

Fall 2018
Instructor: K. Britto

Readings:

Selected Readings — see Description.

Course Description:

(Please note: This course fulfills the Berkeley campus American Cultures (AC) requirement. The course will be taught in English, and knowledge of French is not required).

In this course, we will consider a broad range of literary and cultural texts that emerge out of the long history of the French in North America and of Americans in France. Our readings will include novels, poetry, and short stories—including the earliest known work of African American fiction, written in French and published in Paris in 1837. Alongside these literary texts produced by French writers in America and American expatriates in France, we will consider travel narratives and missionary accounts describing interactions between European and Native American populations; historical, ethnographic, and political writings; foodways and other popular cultural forms such as music, comic strips, films, and television programs.

Throughout the semester, our discussions will focus on the politics of representation— we will work to understand the processes through which categories of “race” are shaped over time through the interplay between Anglo- and Franco-American cultures and ideologies, even as these categories are challenged from the perspectives of minority populations. As we trace these processes of racialization, we will be particularly attentive to intersections between “race” and class, gender, and sexuality; at the same time, we will consider the ways in which all of these categories of identity are inflected by language, by regional and national forms of belonging and exclusion, and by the presence of “mixed-race” communities.

Over the course of the semester, our readings will include selections from the following texts/authors: The Jesuit Relations, François René de Chateaubriand, Alexis de Tocqueville, Hippolyte Castra, Armand Lanusse, Victor Séjour, Kate Chopin, Louisiana Story (dir. Robert Flaherty), Jean Arceneaux, J’ai été au bal (dirs. Blank & Strachwitz), James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Bennett, Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker (cinematic performances), William Gardner Smith, M.F.K. Fisher, Samuel Chamberlain, Julia Child, Michael Pollan.

Prerequisites:
No knowledge of French is required. All lectures and discussions in English.

Additional information:
Satisfies UC Berkeley American Cultures requirement; satisfies 1 “Outside Elective” in the French major; satisfies one course requirement in the French minor.

Introduction to French Linguistics
146A

Fall 2018
Class No: 24393
Instructor: R. Kern

Readings:

Léon, P., & Bhatt, P. (2017). Structure du français moderne: Introduction à l’analyse linguistique, 4e édition. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. (ISBN-13: 978-1551309606)

Course Description:

Ce cours est destiné aux étudiant(e)s qui désirent se familiariser avec les bases de la linguistique française. Aucune expérience en linguistique n’est requise, mais une bonne connaissance du français parlé et écrit s’impose. Le cours abordera les domaines principaux de la linguistique : la phonétique et la phonologie, la morphologie, la syntaxe, la sémantique, et la pragmatique, ainsi qu’une brève introduction à la sociolinguistique. Le but sera de présenter des concepts et des outils essentiels qui permettront une exploration ultérieure plus approfondie. Nous commencerons par un bref survol historique pour encadrer la discussion de notions telles que « langue », « langage », « signe », « mot », « phrase » et « grammaire ». Ensuite nous explorerons les sous-disciplines indiquées ci-dessus, avec des exercices pratiques pour concrétiser les principes présentés en classe et dans le manuel. Nous considérerons les différences entre le français parlé et le français écrit, nous étudierons la langue dans le contexte de son emploi dans la communication, et nous finirons par appliquer des approches linguistiques à l’analyse de la conversation.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or equivalent.

Additional Information:

This course satisfies 1 “Culture” or 1 “Elective” requirement in the French major. Satisfies 1 required course for the French minor. By exception, Fall 2018: Satisfies Phonetics requirement in French major.

Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Social and Behavioral Sciences or International Studies.

Women and Writing in France, 1500-1800
150A : Women in French Literature

Fall 2018
Class No: 31049
Instructor: S. Maslan

Readings:

Marguerite de Navarre, L’Heptaméron; Louise Labé, Sonnets; Lafayette, La Princesse de Cleves; Molière, Les Femmes savantes; Riccoboni, Ernestine; Laclos, Les Liaisons dangereuses; Stael, De la littérature.

Course Description:

“Dans ses meubles, dût-elle en avoir l’ennui, / Il ne faut écritoire, encre, papier, ni plume./ Le mari doit dans les bonnes coutumes, écrire tout ce qui s’écrit chez lui.” Molière, L’École des femmes

This course will explore the relation between women and writing from the sixteenth through the end of the eighteenth centuries in France. We will study women writers, but we will also explore discourses about women and writing. We will read forms of writing traditionally associated with women– such as letter writing—that may not typically be included in the category of “writing” as well as novels, plays, and poems. We will seek to understand what writing meant to women: how it helped them form their own identities, explore and construct the self, and to participate beyond the domestic sphere.

We will study how the broader culture thought about women and writing: was writing transgressive or dangerous? Was it ridiculous? Was it a mode of creating and affirming community? Why were women readers and writers sometimes depicted as either sexual predators or, equally dangerous, distinctly uninterested in men? Recent critics have brought much early modern women’s writing back into the center of literary and scholarly discussion, but some scholars resist the notion that women made a significant contribution to the world of letters: one scholar has gone so far as to argue—ingeniously—that the great poet Louise Labe didn’t really exist. She was, on this account, a mere “paper creature” invented by male poets! In addition to these topics, we will explore the material life of writing: paper, ink, pens, envelopes, desks, etc.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or equivalent.

Additional Information:

Satisfies 1 “Culture” or 1 “Elective” course requirement in the French Major. This course also satisfies 1 Historical Period Requirement in the French major. Satisfies 1 course requirement in French minor.

Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth requirement in Arts and Literature or International Studies. Priority enrollment for declared French majors.

Religious Fanatacism, Toleration, and "Laicity" in France from Wars of Religion to Terrorist Attacks
171A : A Concept in French Cultural History

Fall 2018
Class No: 31050
Instructor: D. Blocker

Readings/Films:

Agrippa d’Aubigné, Les Tragiques (book 1: “Les Misères”), Patrice Chéreau, La Reine Margot (1994) ; Voltaire, Traité sur la Tolérance ; Denis Crouzet and Jean Marie Le Gall, Au péril des guerres de religion (Paris, PUF, 2015) ; Jean Baubérot, Les sept laïcités françaises: le modèle français de laïcité n’existe pas (Paris, éd. de la MSF, 2015) ; Raphaël Liogier, Le Mythe de l’islamisation: essai sur une obsession collective (Paris, Le Seuil, 2012 and 2016) ; as well as excerpts from Gilles Kepel, Terreur dans l’Hexagone: génèse du djihad français (Paris, Gallimard, 2015) and La Laïcité contre la fracture (Paris, Privat, 2017).

Course Description:

When, in the course of 2015, Islamist terrorist attacks hit Paris twice, the French immediately contextualized what was happening to them within a centuries-long history. Historians, soon echoed by the media, started asking whether the country was experiencing a return to the wars of religion that had plagued France in the second half of the 16th century. Voltaire’s Traité sur la Tolérance (1763), which critiques religious fanaticism and advocates for the tolerance of Protestantism, was suddenly propelled to the top of the nation’s best-seller lists.

This course investigates the cultural lens through which the French tried to make sense of the terrorist attacks of 2015-2016 by engaging in the historical exploration of three tightly intertwined concepts in French history: religious fanaticism, toleration, and laicity. To do so, the class focuses on five formative historical moments in French culture: 1) the wars of religion (and in particular the massacre of the Saint-Barthélemy, in 1572), 2) the Edict of Nantes (1598) and its Revocation (1685), 3) the Enlightenment’s embracing of religious toleration (centered on a study of Voltaire’s position), 4) the French Revolution (which gave birth both to Terror and to laicity) and 5) the separation of Church and State (1905).

We will read literary works, see films and study current essays. We will read also journalistic articles, view public television shows (one on l’affaire Calas and the other on the separation of Church and State) and listen to radio programs. The two main goals of the course are 1) to investigate France’s complex historical relationship to religion over four centuries, and 2) to examine whether this relationship can in any way explain why the country recently became a central ideological target for Islamic terrorism.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or consent of instructor.

Additional information:

This course satisfies one “Culture” or one “Elective” requirement in the French major. Course also satisfies one Historical Period Requirement in French Major. Satisfies one course requirement in French minor.

Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Social and Behavioral Sciences or Historical Studies or International Studies.

Histoire et cinema en France (1900-2010)
178A : Studies in French Film

Fall 2018
Class No: 31048
Instructor: V. Vignaux

Films/Readings:

Course Description:

Dans ce cours nous nous intéresserons aux relations entretenues par le cinéma et l’histoire au cours du XXe siècle, en France. En suivant une perspective chronologique, l’étude de textes ou de films, courts ou long métrages, documentaires ou fictions, mais aussi cinéma militant, nous permettra d’évoquer les grands moments de l’histoire de France au XXe siècle. Seront ainsi envisagés les première et seconde guerres, la colonisation et la décolonisation, ou les mouvements sociaux et culturels, à travers la reconnaissance de l’autre, la jeunesse ou des femmes. Le cours abondamment illustré par des extraits de films permettra aussi d’évoquer les usages historiques du cinéma tels qu’ils sont théorisés dans l’histoire culturelle française.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or equivalent; French 170 or equivalent is recommended, or consent of instructor. Taught in French Film studies students should consult with instructor about language prerequisites

Additional Information:

This course satisfies 1 “Culture” or 1 “Elective” course requirement in the French major. Satisfies one course requirement in French minor.

This course also satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Arts and Literature or International Studies. Priority enrollment for declared French majors.

weekly screening: Tuesdays, 4-6, B-4 Dwinelle

Immigration and Migrations in Contemporary France
180D : French Civilization

Fall 2018
Class No: 31052
Instructor: S. Tlatli

Readings:

A reader from Copy Central will be available

Course Description:

Dans ce cours, nous analyserons les problèmes théoriques, culturels et politiques liés à la question de l’immigration en France des populations issues du Maghreb et de l’Afrique. Dans un premier temps, nous discuterons de la question de l’immigration de la population maghrébine vers la France, depuis les années cinquante et de ses conséquences dans le présent. Dans un deuxième temps, nous analyserons les nouveaux problèmes et les tragédies qui proviennent de la venue des réfugiés vers la France et vers l’Europe. Comment les guerres, en Lybie, en Syrie, en Afrique sub-saharienne affectent-elles le statut des réfugiés en France? Comment la question de l’Islam modifie-t-elle la perception des réfugiés? Ces questions rendront compte du statut des réfugiés dans la France contemporaine. Les textes que nous lirons seront aussi bien historiques, sociologiques que littéraires.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or consent of instructor.

Additional information:

This course satisfies 1 “Culture” or 1 “Elective” course requirement in the French major. Satisfies one course requirement in French minor. This course also satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Arts and Literature, Historical Studies or Social and Behavioral Sciences or International Studies.

French for Future Doctors and Scientists (DeCal course)
198 : Directed Group Study

Fall 2018
Class No: 32750
Instructor: R. Kern

Texts/Films

Course Reader

Course Description:

This 2-unit DeCal course serves to provide students with a broad knowledge of vocabulary in the medical and scientific fields. It assumes students have a general knowledge of the French language, and its grammatical structures. Students will not only expand their range of vocabulary, but they will also become more proficient in expressing themselves when utilizing these specialized terms. This course has been designed to prepare students interested in STEM to pursue careers that may require more specialized knowledge of French. Furthermore, taking this class will provide students with the foundation to prepare for the DFP Medical B2 exam. This course is conducted entirely in French.

Prerequisites:

Students should have a working knowledge of French (B- or above in French 3 or 4 years of high school French), and some background in the sciences. Students not meeting the course prerequisites may take the course with the instructor’s approval.

Additional Information:

This is a 2-unit course. Please select 2 units when enrolling in this course.

Graduate Courses

Proseminar
200

Fall 2018
Class No: 21469
Instructor: N. Paige

Course Description:

This course gives new graduate students a broad view of the French Department faculty, the courses they teach, and their fields of research. In addition, it will introduce students to some practical aspects of their graduate career, issues that pertain to specific fields of research, and questions currently being debated across the profession. All French Department graduate students are welcome to those meetings devoted to more general practical and intellectual topics. 1 unit.

Additional Information:

Course enrollment limited to new graduate students in French.

Reading and Interpretation of Old French Texts
211A

Fall 2018
Class No: 31053
Instructor: D. Hult

Readings:
La Chanson de Roland, ed. I. Short; Lais de Marie de France, ed. Harf-Lancner (IBN 978-2-253-05271-X); Chrétien de Troyes, 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.

The French Revolution
240A : Studies in 18th Century Literature

Fall 2018
Class No: 31054
Instructor: S. Maslan

Course Description:

This seminar will be a deep dive into the world-historical event that gave birth to modernity: the French Revolution

The seminar will offer students a foundation for understanding the extraordinary complexity of the Revolution itself. After getting up to speed quickly, we will devote most of our time to work on primary documents, works, and artefacts of the Revolution. The Revolution spurred and was shaped by the explosion of journalism—literally hundreds of newspapers sprang to life to life nearly immediately. We will read revolutionary journalists from the obscure to the famous (Camille Desmoulins), to the infamous (Marat). The Revolution also inaugurated a new era of oratory; we will read major speeches given in the National Assembly by Robespierre, Siéyès, Condorcet, and more. We will study some famous and some not so famous parlementary debates. We will study the politics of the street: marches, riots, and political posters (many of which are available for study in the Bancroft Rare Books library). We will study the Haitian Revolution, the world’s first successful slave revolution, and the relation between it and the French Revolution.

We will study the French Revolution’s re-invention of time and space: i.e. the invention of the Revolutionary calendar and of the metric system. We will ask some fundamental questions: do books make Revolutions? That is, what relationships can we establish between Enlightenment writing (especially that of Rousseau) and Revolution? Conversely, we will ask whether Revolutions can create art: we will study revolutionary theater (which, like the press, grew exponentially) and the great painter and revolutionary Jacques-Louis David; ask ourselves about the meaning and significance of minor literature and popular culture in shaping the Revolution; and seek to understand how the lines between art and propaganda are drawn

This seminar will immerse students in the specificity of the Revolution itself, and also help us examine even larger questions about the relation between art and history, artistic representation and political representation, and the relation between political and social equality. We will study revolutionary changes to language, law, conceptions of race, the family, the city of Paris, and much more.

All this, and the guillotine!

Romanticisms
250A : Studies in 19th-Century Literature

Fall 2018
Class No: 31055
Instructor: S. Guerlac

Readings:

Readings will include works by authors such as Germaine de Stael, Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Guizot, Victor Hugo, Michelet, Saint Simon, George Sand, Pierre Leroux, Flora Tristan, Nerval and Baudelaire.

Course Description:

Although we speak of “romanticism” in the singular, many romanticisms can be said to occur in France in the course of the 19th century – not only a “first” and a “second” literary romanticism, (represented by Hugo and Baudelaire respectively) but also romanticisms of the right (Chateaubriand the early Hugo) and of the left (later Hugo, George Sand) and non literary romanticisms. The French Revolution – the unfinished project that haunts the entire 19th century — generates forms and ideas that cross the territories of literature, social thought, and activism, resonating with attitudes of regret, possibility, and a certain urgency.

In this seminar we will open up the term “romanticism” to include various kinds of cultural production with a focus on issues that include poetic voice, historical and cultural time, social justice, utopias and maledictions. We will follow a more or less historical trajectory, beginning with early work by Germaine de Stael and Chateaubriand and moving through a “first” romanticism of Victor Hugo and a “second” romanticism of Baudelaire, passing through figures such as Michelet, George Sand and social thinkers such as Pierre Leroux and Flora Tristan. Time permitting, we will also consider developments in the visual arts such as lithography, the diorama and photography.

Poetics of Memory from the Shoah to the Refugee 'Crisis'
260A : Studies in 20th-Century Literature

Fall 2018
Class No: 31056
Instructor: D. Sanyal

Readings/Films:

Texts, films and photography by Alain Resnais, Claude Lanzmann, Jorge Semprun, Shumona Sinha, Sylvain George, Elizabeth Klotz and Nicolas Perceval, Marie Ndiaye, Philippe Lioret, Pascal Manoukian, Ai Weiwei, Richard Mosse, William Kentridge, Hélène Crouzillat and Laetitia Tura, Gianfranco Rosi and others.

Theoretical writings by Adorno, Arendt, Agamben, Balibar, Derrida, Didier and Eric Fassin, Lanzmann, Mbembe, Rancière and others will also help us tease out some continuities and discontinuities between postwar debates on representation- in the artistic sense and the juridico-political sense- and contemporary reflections on the refugee ‘crisis’.

Course Description:

This course takes as its starting point the emergence of particular conceptions of memory in the aftermath of World War Two. How do the poetics of memory forged in a postwar culture of trauma and testimony shape contemporary frameworks for envisioning today’s refugee “crisis”? What do they illuminate, and what are the limits of their purchase on the contemporary moment?

We will examine a range of cultural production with a particular focus on the following questions: How do various discourses of Holocaust memory, biopolitical theory, security, humanitarianism, and human rights help us think about bodies that are blocked, contained, or on the move? What happens to witnessing when it is transformed into aesthetic form? To what extent can cultural frames re-envision existing politics of representation when it comes to those who appear to have no rights? We will pursue these and other issues through close analysis of cultural productions (film, video, photography, fiction, poetry) along with writings in philosophy, biopolitics, aesthetics, human rights, citizenship studies, security studies, and border studies.

Teaching French in College: First Year
301

Fall 2018
Class No: 21492
Instructor: S. Chavdarian

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.