Fall 2022

Reading and Composition (R&C)

The Roots of Objectivity and Scientific Language
R1A section 1 : English Composition in Connection with the Reading of French Literature
Fall 2022
Class No: 32478
4104 Dwinelle Hall
TTh
Ty Blakeney
11am-12:30pm
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 whose work engages with scientific objectivity in different ways. These will be supplemented by brief theoretical texts that will help frame our readings.

Texts:
Ezra Klein, “The Sam Harris Debate”
Claude Bernard, An Introduction to the Study of Scientific Medicine
Marcel Proust, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Bloom
Georges Perec, “An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris”
Francis Ponge, The Nature of Things
Rouch and Morin, Chronicle of a Summer (1961)

English Composition in Connection with the Reading of French Literature
R1B section 2
Fall 2022
Class No: 30725
180 Social Sciences
TTh
TBD
9:30-11 am

Undergraduate Courses 

Introduction to Romance Languages and Linguistics
C26
Fall 2022
Class No: 32455
182 Dwinelle
MWF
R. Weiher, G. Licata
12-1pm
The dissemination of Romance languages across the world tells stories of nation-building, colonization, immigration, and assimilation, with written records that trace back to a common linguistic ancestor, Latin. Taught in English, this course introduces students to Romance linguistics through a socio-historical perspective, requiring that students understand how the evolution of Romance varieties has been shaped by European and global history. After a brief introduction to core fields in linguistics (phonetics/phonology/ morphology/syntax/pragmatics), students will apply these concepts through various analytic approaches to understanding language, including but not limited to historical, variationist, and anthropological.

Une république, une langue: The French Language and France
43A : Aspects of French Culture
Fall 2022
Class No: 26225
166 Social Sciences Building
MWF
M. Arrigo
11am-12pm
While one might deem the observation that in 2022 the French language is spoken throughout France as excessively self-evident, a quick turn to the annals of history shows that this was not always the case. In 1794, in the midst of the French Revolution, a report submitted a report to the National Convention estimated that only 3 million people in France were capable of speaking French, leaving 6 million French citizens ignorant of the national language. Its author, the Abbé Grégoire, called for the universalization of French language for the benefit of the new republic and its citizens. Since this time, the French language has established itself as one of the pillars of French national identity, alongside liberté, égalitéand fraternité.

In this class, we will explore questions surrounding the French language including but not limited to: the sociolinguistic history of the French language, the role of linguistic purity and French’s relationship to other global languages such as English, its relationship to the concept of citizenship and role in shaping French nationalism, the language as an instrument of power but also resistance and contestation, the linguistic legacies of France’s colonial era, the language as an instrument of French geopolitical soft power, and recent attempts to adapt a language first codified starting 16th century to its 21st century reality. Students will read and explore a variety of literary, cinematic, and scholarly texts in order and leave the class with a better understanding of the complex nature of the French language’s status as a French cultural keystone as well as a greater critical understanding of language as a dynamic feature of national and cultural identity.

Readings and texts:

Readings will be done in English; we will read texts spanning from the 1500s to the contemporary moment. Contemporary films will also be shown.

Paris: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Romantic City
80 : The Cultural History of Paris
Fall 2022
Class No: 30748
222 Wheeler
MWF
N. Paige
12-1pm
This class will offer students a historical exploration of the urban artifact that is Paris. Proceeding “forensically,” we will peel back what is visible to today’s observer in order to uncover the competing ambitions, economic pressures, and ideologies that have produced one of the most visited cities in the world. Thus, students can expect to gain knowledge of the city’s built environment and how and why it looks like it does. We will be reading a variety of texts (novels, plays, and memoirs or parts thereof; poems; ephemeral pieces; selections from historical and sociological studies), viewing a number of films, and looking at a lot of visual works (paintings, engravings, maps). A brief data science unit studying recent trends in gentrification will complete our semester.

Reading and Writing Skills in French
102
Fall 2022
Class No: 21391 (section 2)
110 Barker
MWF
TBD
10-11am
Readings:

Course Reader; other readings as assigned by Instructor

Course Description:

French 102 is the gateway course to the upper division in French. Students build on the solid foundation in the language and culture acquired in French 1-4 by broadening and deepening their ability to read and write about French texts in an academic context.

Students read a selection of works from different media and genres including short stories, poems, plays, letters, essays, paintings and films. Through close reading, students develop their analytical ability in French, paying particular attention to the different kinds of choices that writers make, and how these choices contribute to the making of meaning. Students also develop their skills as writers of academic French, focusing both on the content of their written work and on its form.

By the end of the course, students are ready to meet the reading and writing requirements of upper division courses in the French department.

Prerequisites:

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 at frendept@berkeley.edu to confirm placement.

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 1 course requirement in French major or French minor.

Reading and Writing Skills in French
102
Fall 2022
Class No: 21390 (section 1)
126 Wheeler
TTh
TBD
9:30-11am
Readings:

Course Reader; other readings as assigned by Instructor

Course Description:

French 102 is the gateway course to the upper division in French. Students build on the solid foundation in the language and culture acquired in French 1-4 by broadening and deepening their ability to read and write about French texts in an academic context.

Students read a selection of works from different media and genres including short stories, poems, plays, letters, essays, paintings and films. Through close reading, students develop their analytical ability in French, paying particular attention to the different kinds of choices that writers make, and how these choices contribute to the making of meaning. Students also develop their skills as writers of academic French, focusing both on the content of their written work and on its form.

By the end of the course, students are ready to meet the reading and writing requirements of upper division courses in the French department.

Prerequisites:

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 at frendept@berkeley.edu to confirm placement.

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 1 course requirement in French major or French minor.

Class and Gender on the French Stage
103A : Language and Culture
Fall 2022
Class No: 21399
126 Wheeler
TTh
S. Maslan
11am-12:30pm
How did the French see class and gender difference performed on the stage? In the theater, after all, everyone is playing a part, what does it mean that a lowly actress might play the part of a queen? What happens when, onstage, a slave and a master exchange costume and position? What about cross-dressing: how should we understand meanings created when gendered roles are flipped? How did plays create and negotiate gender roles? How were actors and actresses (who came from the lower classes up until the 20th century), regarded by the public? When was “celebrity” invented? What did it mean to ordinary people in the audience to see actors and characters violate the norms and expectations of class and gender hierarchy? Did theater turn the social world upside down? Did it provide a safety valve to let pent up social pressures escape as some social theorists conjecture?

We will study the structures and practices of neo-classical French theater and discuss the radical changes in theater during the 20th century. We will study historical context, censorship, critical and audience reception, costume, acting, and more.

We will start with Molière and work our way up to the twentieth century. We will watch performances on video, as well as read the texts. Authors include Molière; Beaumarchais; Jean Genet. In the last week of class, students, in groups, will perform scenes from Le Dieu du carnage.

Reading Literature in French, 1100 to 1500, through the Lenses of Gender, Animality, and Cultural Difference
112A : Medieval Literature
Fall 2022
Class No: 30749
206 Dwinelle
MWF
Johannes Junge Ruhland
2-3pm
In this introductory course, we will read representative texts of literature written in French and
Occitan between 1100 and 1500. We will pay especial attention to how gender, animality, and cultural
difference played a role in the doing and undoing of communities. What does it mean to be a woman
writer when most things were written by men? What does it mean to be a man, at court or at war?
What did people learn when traveling to Asia, and how did it impact the way people conceived of
ethnicity and culture? How did medieval writers and readers think of animals and themselves in the
world? How can one be sincere when copying a love-poem? What does consent mean from one
setting to another?

We will address these cultural questions with special attention to literary form in works like Marie de
France’s Lais, Machaut’s Jugement du Roi de Bohême, and Alain Chartier’s Belle Dame sans merci. We will
also look at how these texts were transmitted through manuscripts. Feedback-heavy
assignments will help students improve their writing and speaking skills, their analytical acumen, and
their overall cultural and literary understanding of the late medieval period.

The course will be taught in French, and no knowledge of Old French, Latin, or Occitan is required.
All readings will be done in modern translation. Assignments and discussions are all in French.

Staging Tyranny in France from Jean Racine to Aimé Césaire (1600-2000)
121A : Theme, Genre, Structure
Fall 2022
Class No: 31050
124 Wheeler
TTh
D. Blocker
9:30-11 am
Tyranny often plays out as a bewildering spectacle. This class will observe the theatricality of tyrants from a literary perspective, asking why and how, in the French-speaking theatrical tradition — from the 17th century until today — so many major plays were centered on figures of authoritarian rulers. For what reasons was the spectacle of tyrants so important for the development of French classical theater — and why did such spectacles remain pervasive on the French-speaking stage well into the 19th and 20th centuries, i.e. even after the French Revolution? Conversely, in what ways did the depiction of these authoritarian rulers shape not only French theater, but also France’s understanding of monarchical power, and, later on, its conceptions of the ideal polity? Conversely, how are efforts to resist tyranny portrayed, especially tyrannicide? Is a play centered on tyranny always, in some way, a play about freedom? This class offers an extensive and detailed survey of French drama over four centuries, with emphasis on genre development and dramatic theory. Based on the study of works by major French and Francophone authors, it also functions as an introduction to French and Francophone political culture, allowing for the parallel exploration of how the French-speaking world imagines political rule across its history. Films and recordings will be used to support students’ reading of the plays assigned. All readings, class discussions, and course work are done in French.

Bodies, Affects, Gender, and Aesthetics: Literary Depictions of Embodiment in Modern French Literature
140A : French Literature in Translation
Fall 2022
Class No: 30750
209 Dwinelle
TTh
Alexis Stanley
2-3:30
What makes a literary depiction of the body “modern”? How have the expressive capacities and poetic potentials of the human body been rearticulated across diverse literary movements within the field of French literature? In this course, students will read several works associated with key developments in French literary history in order to examine relationships between textual descriptions of embodiment, the question of “modern” evolutions in literature, and the historical or socio-political contexts in which these innovations emerged. Course themes will include: the relationship between bodily affects and human psychology; morality and the pursuit of bodily pleasures; the body as a work of art; sexual and textual economies of the body; neurohumanities and bodily memory; bodily paradigms of gender and feminism.

“Noir et fier de l'être”: Celebrating Black Lives in the Francophone World
141 : French Studies in an International Context
Fall 2022
Class No: 30752
87 Dwinelle
MWF
Amber Sweat
1-2 p.m.
From the pivotal Haitian revolution, to the delicious world of Afro-pean cuisine, to the vibrant dances of Zouk and le Hip Hop, this upper-division French class celebrates the presence of Black lives in the Francophone world. Combatting the systemic erasure of Blackness and Black people from European narratives, we will work to unearth Black beauty and subjectivity in a vast array of literature, film, songs, and social media from France, Haiti, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Black American populace. What does it mean to investigate race in a historically color-evasive space such as France? What might we consider about the Hip Hop pillar of breakdancing/bboying making its debut in the Paris Olympics, or the critical interconnections between race and sports? How does transnationalism impact Black populations, such as Franco-American expatriation in the Jazz Age and the presence of Senegalese tirailleurs in Vietnam? How does the Black Francophone subject present themself in traditional forms such as literature versus novel media such as the Internet? Moreover, how can we all – as teachers and learners – configure our own social identities in this investigation of the Black Francophone world, especially considering its and our cultural idiosyncrasies? This class will be taught completely in English with texts in English. All films will have English subtitles. Several texts will be offered in French for departmental majors and minors who wish to refine their French comprehension.

Introduction to French Linguistics
146A
Fall 2022
Class No: 23189
126 Wheeler
MWF
R. Kern
11am-12pm
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 domaines indiqués ci-dessus, avec des exercices pratiques pour concrétiser les principes présentés. Nous considérerons les différences (considérables !) entre le français parlé et le français écrit, nous étudierons la langue dans le contexte de son emploi dans la communication (y compris la communication en ligne), et nous finirons par appliquer des approches linguistiques à l’analyse de la conversation.

Revolution and Terror, 1793-1794
161B : A Year in French History
Fall 2022
Class No: 25463
258 Wheeler
TTh
S. Maslan
2-3:30pm
For many of us, the grisly image of the guillotine stands for the French Revolution itself. But the guillotine cannot begin to answer the question “what was so revolutionary about the French Revolution?” Why do so many historians consider the French Revolution to be the decisive rupture with the past and the origin of our political present? The French Revolution was the first time that ordinary people played a central role on the stage of history. We will study the Revolution’s upending of political structures (the end of the monarchy and the creation of the first modern mass Republic) as well as its invention of new democratic cultural and social forms. We will study the Revolution’s effects on the family, religion, art, and even on language. We will try to understand what the Terror was through our study of primary texts, images, and secondary readings. We will read revolutionary speeches, newspapers, plays, and poems.

We will also devote significant time and attention to the Haitian Revolution. We will seek to understand the relation between the two revolutions, and we will study the Haitian Revolution on its own terms as an autonomous world-historical event.

Students will conduct individual research on primary materials (either digitized or in the Doe or Bancroft libraries) from the revolutionary era.

Introduction to French Cinema
170 : French Films
Fall 2022
Class No: 25194
B-4 Dwinelle
TTh
M. Sidhu
12:30-2pm
French 170 explores the rich history of French-language cinema in terms of larger issues in French and Francophone cultures and
politics. We will examine some of the major movements in French film style from poetic realism to the Nouvelle Vague. In addition to
the study of seminal French-language films, we will also read works of film theory, which ask how film is a distinctive medium of
expression and can take up issues of gender, class, and race. This class also introduces the study of the moving image. Students will learn how to analyze a film closely through examining how all the film elements work together to produce meaning. This course is a prerequisite for French 177 and 178, though students who have taken French 177 or 178 may take this course.

This class is open to both French and Film majors, though a knowledge of French is required (Film students will not be assessed on
their competency in French). Students counting this course towards the major or minor in French must submit all written work in
French. Class discussions are in French.

Additional information:
All films will be available for streaming. Students will watch films independently before class on Thursday.
The screenings at 2:30 (STD 101) will not take place this semester, but you must enroll in this study section.

Religious Fanaticism, Toleration, and Laicity in France from the Wars of Religion to the Terrorist Attacks of 2015-2016
171A : A Concept in French Cultural History
Fall 2022
Class No: 30692
104 Social Sciences
TTh
D. Blocker
12:30-2pm
When, in the course of 2015, Islamist terrorist attacks hit Paris twice, the French immediately contextualized what was happening to them within a century-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-sellers 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 laicité. 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 laicité) and 5) the separation of Church and State (1905). We read literary works, see films and study current essays. We also read 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. All readings, class discussions and course work are done in French.

Perceptions of Islam in Contemporary France
185 : Literature and Colonialism
Fall 2022
Class No: 30753
81 Evans
TTh
S. Tlatli
11-12:30pm
Dans ce cours, nous explorerons la situation de l’Islam dans la France contemporaine. Nous analyserons cette question en relation avec la question de l’identité nationale française. Peut-on, dans la France contemporaine, être à la fois citoyen français et musulman? A partir de cette question fondamentale, nous discuterons de diverses exemples extraits de l’actualité française: Quel est le rôle de la religion dans la société française contemporaine qui se présente comme laïque? Quel est le statut du voile en France? Quelle importance la guerre en Syrie et la radicalisation islamique occuppent-elles dans la perception de la population musulmane? Quel a été l’impact des attaques terroristes de 2015 sur le débat idéologique et politique? Telles sont certaines des questions dont nous débattrons, en nous fondant sur des évènements historiques précis, mais aussi sur des analyses sociologiques, politiques et littéraires. Un “reader” est disponible à “Copy Central.”

Graduate Courses

Proseminar
200
Fall 2022
Class No: 21375
4226 Dwinelle
F
M. McLaughlin
1-2pm
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.

Word, Image, Visuality in Romance Literature and Art
C203 : Comparative Studies in Romance Literatures and Cultures
Fall 2022
Class No: 32444
6331 Dwinelle
W
H. Lange
4-7pm
This course engages with large disciplinary and interdisciplinary questions in the Romance languages and literatures, history, and the arts and humanities by investigating relationships between verbal and visual languages in all shapes and forms. Taught with object lessons in the Bancroft and the Berkeley Art Museum, the class will explore topics including, but not limited to, visual narratives; emblemata; iconography and iconology; ekphrasis in prose, lyrical, and dramatic works; visual poetry; metaphors, topoi, and motifs in the shared Romance language tradition; visual and musical elements in drama and opera; in general the multiple relationships between word and image in the tradition of Christian art and writing since Augustine, and their modern reformulations proposed by authors such as Italo Calvino with their involvement in experimental literature, linguistics, and the classical / medieval / early modern traditions of European literatures.

Depending on linguistic and foreign language preparation and preferences of the students, the class can either stay in the ancient, medieval, and early modern / Renaissance worlds, or occasionally include modern (19th-20th to contemporary) examples across the fields and Romance languages, e.g. imagery in poetry by Ungaretti, Apollinaire, and Montale.

This course is designed to connect with other and further studies in adjacent fields - including but not limited to Medieval Studies, Renaissance & Early Modern Studies, critical theory, and interdisciplinary studies. No previous art history preparation required.

(Teaching) Translation Theory and Practice
205 : Translation Theory and Practice
Fall 2022
Class No: 30754
4226 Dwinelle
W
M. McLaughlin
1-4pm
This seminar has two main aims. The first is to explore translation studies and translation theory. Through readings, activities and class discussions, you will develop a good understanding of the history and current state of both of these fields. The second aim of the seminar is to bring theory into practice. You will utilize your knowledge on translation theory as a guiding framework to understand how translation is taught. Then, you will develop your own course on an aspect of translation. Although this seminar is taught in the French Department, you do not need to have knowledge of French to enroll.

The Violence of History in the Colonial and Contemporary Maghreb
251 : Francophone Literature
Fall 2022
Class No: 25465
4226 Dwinelle
Tu
S. Tlatli
2-5pm
In this seminar we will explore the relationship among national belonging, religion and sacrifice. In his essay, “Pro Patria Mori”, Ernest Kantorowicz asks a fundamental question about the nature of individuals’ sacrifice for their homeland : Should death for the homeland be understood in a religious perspective, as the gift of the self for the mystical body of the state? Such an interrogation links patriotism to sacrifice. The relationship between sacrifice and the religious realm is extremely significant in our contemporary moment and deserves to be interrogated from new perspectives. This seminar will analyze the transformations that have affected the Muslim world and more specifically the Maghreb and Algeria, in its relation to death, war, violence and sacrifice. What are the various interpretations of this new configuration of religion sacrifice and death? To which extent does it participate to a new religious paradigm? What is the ideological status of the figure of the Martyr? What kind of transformations took place in the concept of nationalism since the years of liberation and nation building, in the Maghreb? Literary readings include texts by Assia Djebar (L’amour, la fantasia, La Femme sans sépulture, Le Blanc de l’Algérie), Kateb Yacine (Nedjma, Le cadavre encerclé) and by Tahar Djaout: (Le dernier été de la raison.) Theoretical essays will help us situate our directing theme. They include excerpts from Freud, Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, Talal Asad and Veena Das. The course is taught in French, discussions can be held in English, as most theoretical and literary readings are available in English.

"French Theory" via Rousseau
274 : Traditions of Critical Thought: French Theory
Fall 2022
Class No: 30756
4226 Dwinelle
Th
W. Burton
1-4pm
In this seminar, we will approach “French theory” and “French feminism” at an oblique angle by studying their appropriations of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Since those labels emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, controversies have dogged the writers and texts associated with them: critics have questioned the coherence of the terms, the intellectual rigour of authors so designated, and their very Frenchness. Yet many “French theorists/feminist” raised the latter issue themselves by interrogating the notion of national belonging in their lives and work. Scholars have also highlighted the ways in which their turn to Germanophone maîtres à penser (Freud, Heidegger, Marx, Nietzsche) effectively distanced them from French intellectual traditions. And of course, their greatest success came in the United States rather than France. On the other hand, Rousseau—despite his self-identification as a citizen of Geneva and his unrelenting criticism of France—has been given a central place in French intellectual history: indeed, has been literally Pantheonized. Reading the French theory/feminism corpora from the marginal place that Rousseau occupies in them, then, will afford us the opportunity to rethink how these writers position themselves within and against francophone philosophical and literary traditions. The class will end with a consideration of the conflicts caused by the reimportation of “French theory/feminism” from the United States into the French academic system.

Our work on these texts will be historicising. As such, our readings will be divided into three groups, broadly: (1) material by Rousseau; (2) French theory/feminist texts about or influenced by Rousseau; (3) historiographic treatments of French theory/feminism. This three-pronged method will allow us to reconstruct in part the intertextual and historical horizons in which these corpora emerged. Texts may be read in French or English (where translations or English versions exist); discussions in English. Readings might include texts by Althusser, Césaire, Cixous, Derrida, Fanon, Foucault, Kofman, Lévi-Strauss, and Wittig, as well as Rousseau’s second Discours, the Essai sur l’origine des langues, and excerpts from other works (notably Du contrat social, Les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire and Rousseau, juge de Jean-Jacques).

Tentative list of required books

Most texts will be supplied through pdfs made available on bCourses and/or in a course reader.

Aimé Césaire, Discours sur le colonialisme

Hélène Cixous, Les Rêveries de la femme sauvage

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes

—, Essai sur l’origine des langues

Monique Wittig et Sande Zeig, Brouillon pour un dictionnaire des amantes