Spring 2024

Reading and Composition (R&C)

English Composition in Connection with the Reading of Literature
R1B

Spring 2024
Class No: 31045
DWIN262
TR
Instructor: Amber Patrice Sweat
12:30 PM - 1:59 PM
This course is designed to fulfill the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement. The primary goal of this course is to develop students' reading and writing skills through a series of assignments that will provide them with the opportunity to formulate observations made in class discussions into coherent argumentative essays. Emphasis will be placed on the refinement of effective sentence, paragraph, and thesis formation, keeping in mind the notion of writing as a process. Other goals in this course are a familiarization of French literature and the specific questions that are relevant to this field. In addition, students will be introduced to different methods of literary and linguistic analysis in their nonliterary readings.

English Composition in Connection with the Reading of Literature
R1B

Spring 2024
Class No: 31046
DWIN262
MWF
Instructor: Thomas Corbani
2:00 PM - 2:59 PM
This course is designed to fulfill the second half of the Reading and Composition requirement. The primary goal of this course is to develop students' reading and writing skills through a series of assignments that will provide them with the opportunity to formulate observations made in class discussions into coherent argumentative essays. Emphasis will be placed on the refinement of effective sentence, paragraph, and thesis formation, keeping in mind the notion of writing as a process. Other goals in this course are a familiarization with French literature and the specific questions that are relevant to this field. In addition, students will be introduced to different methods of literary and linguistic analysis in their nonliterary readings.

English Composition in Connection with the Reading of Literature
R1B

Spring 2024
Class No: 31047
EVANS41
MWF
Instructor: Rachel Pearl O'Shea
11:00 AM - 11:59 AM

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

It can be painful to leave home. And it can be painful to struggle with articulating one's feelings and experiences – whether one is emigrating for life or moving for a short period of time. In this course we will read texts across a number of genres – autobiographical texts, novels, essays – in which communicative difficulties arise in the context of displacement and emigration. Among the texts we will consider are Exile: According to Julia by Gisèle Pineau, Three Strong Women by Marie NDiaye, Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov, and Childhood by Nathalie Sarraute. We will be asking questions such as: what happens during these breakdowns in interpersonal communication, in which people are often speaking past each other and missing each other? How is language figured by these authors as doing something, rather than simply meaning something? Does this experience of language change with age? Does it change depending on the specific language, or is it a universal experience? The questions we will pose about the functions, capacities, and limits of language will enable students to think critically about their own linguistic practices, particularly in the context of improving their close reading and analytical skills. This French R1B course counts towards the second half of the university's Reading and Composition requirement. Knowledge of French is not required. We will be reading texts in translation.

Book order list:

Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (2000, Penguin Modern Classics)

Gisèle Pineau, Exile: According to Julia. Translated by Betty Wilson with an afterword by Marie-Agnès Sourieau (2003)

Nathalie Sarraute, Childhood. Translated by Barbara Wright, with a foreword by Alice Kaplan (2013)

Undergraduate Courses 

Breaking Language Barriers in the Academy
24 : Freshman/Sophomore Seminar

Spring 2024
Class No: 33320
DWINB3
T
Instructor: Mairi-Louise McLaughlin, Rebecca Tarvin
4:00 PM - 4:59 PM

The creation of knowledge is a universal enterprise that lies at the heart of the Academy. However, there are many barriers to effectively communicating and understanding knowledge. One major hurdle is the ubiquity of English as a central language for publishing and communicating academic research. This is an issue both for aspiring scholars who learn English as a second language while mastering complex topics as well as for members of our communities who would benefit from information that is currently unavailable in their primary language. This class offers an introduction to translation and multilingualism in the academy. It combines short readings and lectures with active hands on translation and multilingual communication experience. During the semester, students will each translate abstracts for three research papers into a second language or into another creative format that communicates the research to a broad audience. Students will present their translated works and their experiences creating them in a final presentation at the end of the semester. Students will leave the class with a better understanding of the relationship between language and the Academy and equipped with tools to help break down language barriers.

Prerequisites: Intermediate or Advanced proficiency in a language other than English is strongly recommended

Practical Phonetics and Listening Comprehension
35 : Practical Phonetics & Listening Comprehension

Spring 2024
Class No: 20779
DWINB3
TR
Instructor: Ariel Shannon
12:30 PM - 1:59 PM

This multimedia course concentrates on pronunciation and listening comprehension skills. Because it concentrates on the first task confronted upon arrival in a French-speaking country (to understand and be understood), it has traditionally been considered very helpful before study, work, or travel in a francophone country. Training in Practical Phonetics focuses on the traditionally more difficult areas for speakers of English, with priority given to errors that affect comprehensibility by natives. Training in Listening Comprehension includes both global comprehension activities and attention to discrete points –such as sound elisions or consonant assimilation– which make French difficult to understand. Use of a wide variety of text, audio and video documents, including radio and television. Students learn the International Phonetic Alphabet for reading purposes. Theoretical concepts are introduced as necessary. This course is conducted entirely in French.

Text: Abry and Chalandon, Phonétique : 350 exercices Prereqs: successful completion of French 3 at UC Berkeley, or equivalent.

Long Live the Revolution! / Vive la Révolution! 1789, 1848, 1968
43B : Aspects of French Culture

Spring 2024
Class No: 21400
DWINB4
MWF
Instructor: Susan A. Maslan
11:00 AM - 11:59 AM
Class will be taught in English.

In July 1789, the world’s first modern Revolution began in France and shook the world. The French Revolution swept away a state that had seemed stable and eternal. It abolished social hierarchy and state religion. For the first time, people of all classes and genders were not only in the street (that had happened before) they insisted on and partly won recognition as equal citizens. The great French Revolution terrified monarchs and inspired revolutionaries all over the world. It also profoundly shaped France’s sense of itself as a nation shaped by revolution and for which revolution was a kind of national trait. Thus it was that when the tensions and
contradictions of industrial capitalism and social and political conservatism came to a head, France exploded again in a revolution: the Revolution of 1848. The revolutionaries of 1848 saw themselves in many ways as reprising the Revolution of 1789, but they did not experience the same world-historical success: as Marx wrote of 1848 so famously, “the first time as tragedy,
the second time as farce.” 1848’s failure should not, however, obscure its audacious goals: the bring the Revolution not just to political life, but also to social and economic life. Moreover, the 1848 Revolution planted the tradition of revolution itself more firmly than ever in the national imagination. 1870’s Paris Commune was another deeply significant reminder of the centrality of
the revolutionary impulse. But we will spend more time on May-June 1968, when students, workers, intellectuals in a post WW II, post-colonial world, brought France to a standstill in the demands for deep cultural, economic, political, and social change.

In this course, we will study 1789, 1848, and 1968 and ask questions about the meanings and effects of revolution. We will read first-hand accounts and watch films from the 1960s and 1970s, in addition to reading works by historians, sociologists, novelists, and philosophers.

Advanced Reading & Writing
102

Spring 2024
Class No: 31260
DWINB3
TR
Instructor: Henry Ravenhall
11:00 AM - 12:29 PM

MUST HAVE TAKEN FRENCH 4 AT UC BERKELEY OR A FRENCH DEPARTMENT PLACEMENT TEST - For placement testing, please contact vrodic@berkeley.edu. Please adhere to these guidelines so instructors know you are ready for this course. 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.

Readings: Course Reader; other readings as assigned by Instructor Prerequisites: 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.

Advanced Reading & Writing
102

Spring 2024
Class No: 17746
HGYM245
MWF
Instructor: Rachel A. Shuh
10:00 AM - 10:59 AM
MUST HAVE TAKEN FRENCH 4 AT UC BERKELEY OR A FRENCH DEPARTMENT PLACEMENT TEST - For placement testing, please contact vrodic@berkeley.edu. Please adhere to these guidelines so instructors know you are ready for this course. 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.

Readings: Course Reader; other readings as assigned by Instructor Prerequisites: 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.

Advanced Reading & Writing
102

Spring 2024
Class No: 20355
DWIN4226
TR
Instructor: Liesl Yamaguchi
9:30 AM - 10:59 AM

All Work for This Class Conducted in French; Completion of FR102, Placement Exam, or Native Language Fluency Required for Enrollment. MUST HAVE TAKEN FRENCH 4 AT UC BERKELEY OR A FRENCH DEPARTMENT PLACEMENT TEST - For placement testing, please contact vrodic@berkeley.edu. Please adhere to these guidelines so instructors know you are ready for this course. 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.

Readings: Course Reader; other readings as assigned by Instructor Prerequisites: 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.

The Representations of Islam in Contemporary France
103B : Language and Culture

Spring 2024
Class No: 17747
DWIN262
MWF
Instructor: Thoraya S. Tlatli
1:00 PM - 1:59 PM

All Work for This Class Conducted in French; Completion of FR102, Placement Exam, or Native Language Fluency Required for Enrollment. Dans ce cours nous explorerons le rôle de la religion et surtout de l’Islam dans la France contemporaine. Nous analyserons cette question en relation avec la question de l’identité nationale. 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?

Mythologies of the Modern City
119A : Nineteenth Century Literature

Spring 2024
Class No: 31054
DWINB37
TR
Instructor: Liesl Yamaguchi
2:00 PM - 3:29 PM

All Work for This Class Conducted in French; Completion of FR102, Placement Exam, or Native Language Fluency Required for Enrollment. « Vers le but inconnu sans cesse elle s’avance. / On la nomme PARIS, le pivot de la France. » - Alfred de Vigny, « Paris » (1831) Why is it so impossible to think of Paris as anything other than a center, even the center, of all things French? While the construction of Paris as a metropole long predates the modern period, it was the nineteenth century that transformed the city into one we can recognize as the Paris of today: in terms of both its physical structure and its mythological status. In this course, we will study the literary construction of Paris as the center of the world, reading major novels, poems, and critical works that participated in crafting the mythology of the modern city. We will read texts by, amongst others, Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Charles Baudelaire, Émile Zola, Walter Benjamin, Edgar Poe, and Roland Barthes.

Conducted in French. Pre-requisite courses: French 102 or permission of the instructor. This course satisfies one “Literature/Genre” or one “Elective” course requirement in the French major; Satisfies one course requirement in the French minor; Satisfies L & S breadth requirement in Arts and Literature.

Engagement et écriture
120B : Twentieth Century Literature

Spring 2024
Class No: 31055
DWINB37
MW
Instructor: Michael Lucey
3:30 PM - 4:59 PM
All Work for This Class Conducted in French; Completion of FR102, Placement Exam, or Native Language Fluency Required for Enrollment.

Pour qui écrire? Pourquoi écrire? Qu’est-ce qu’écrire? : ce sont quelques-unes des questions que le philosophe Jean-Paul Sartre posait dans son livre Qu’est-ce que la littérature en 1947-1948. Douze ans plus tard, en 1960, le critique Roland Barthes posera deux questions un peu différentes: Qui parle? Qui écrit? Nous allons essayer de comprendre la différence entre les questions posées par Sartre (questions politiques?) et celles posées par Barthes (questions sur les notions de subjectivité et de textualité ?), l’importance de cette différence, et l’importance de toutes ces cinq questions pour la littérature et la culture française et/ou francophone du milieu du vingtième siècle jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Nous commencerons par la lecture d’une série de courts textes (contes, nouvelles, récits, essais, dialogues) par Sartre, Barthes, Samuel Beckett, Maurice Blanchot, Joseph Zobel, Sembène Ousmane, Simone de Beauvoir, Maryse Condé, et Marie NDiaye – des textes qui vont répondre d’une manière ou d’une autre aux questions posées par Sartre et/ou par Barthes. Ensuite nous étudierons une pièce de Nathalie Sarraute, Pour un oui ou pour un non (1981), deux textes d’Annie Ernaux (prix Nobel de littérature 2022), L’événement (2000) et Mémoire de fille (2016), une pièce de Jean-Luc Lagarce, Juste la fin du monde (1990), et un film d’Alice Diop, Saint Omer (2022). Ce sont des œuvres qui nous permettront de poursuivre les questions de Sartre et de Barthes (sur ce que c’est que le langage ou la littérature) par rapport à d’autres contestations dans le monde contemporain: les luttes féministes, les luttes de classes, les luttes LGBT et la lutte contre le sida, les luttes contre le racisme.

Livres à acheter: Annie Ernaux, L'événement (Gallimard-Folio) Annie Ernaux, Mémoire de fille (Gallimard-Folio) Jean-Luc Lagarce, Juste la fin du monde (Flammarion- Étonnants classiques)

ELLES: Solidarity, Desire, and Conflict between Women
121B : Literary Themes, Genres, Structures

Spring 2024
Class No: 21401
DWINB4
MW
Instructor: William Burton
9:30 AM - 10:59 AM
All Work for This Class Conducted in French; Completion of FR102, Placement Exam, or Native Language Fluency Required for Enrollment.

The feminist and lesbian movements of the 1970s imagined a utopia of solidarity between all women. But by the 1980s, many activists across the French– and English-speaking world determined that the mainstream movements’ treatment of decolonisation, language, race, and sexuality was inadequate and they founded their own groups. For the former, feminism represented the common will of womankind. But for the latter, the intersections between womanhood and other political issues sapped the viability of any singular definition of “woman.” Both this utopian drive and critiques of it inspired innovative literary and cinematic depictions of women’s relationships to each other: in solidarity and conflict, in friendship and love, and across generations. In this course, we will study an international selection of such works and the urgent personal and political questions they raise. What do women have in common? What do they owe one another? Where is the line between friendship and love? Is there a historical women’s and/or lesbian tradition? How does a heterosexual woman live a feminist life? Are motherhood and feminism compatible? Is lesbianism “the feminist solution”? How can white women and Black and Indigenous women work together? How to reconcile the demands of feminism and other ideologies (socialism, nationalism)?

BOOKS Brossard, Nicole. L'Amèr, ou le chapitre effrité. Montréal: Typo, 2013 [1977]. Condé, Maryse. Moi, Tituba sorcière... Noire de Salem. Paris: Mercure de France, 1986. 978-2-07-037929-3. Fontaine, Naomi. Shuni: Ce que tu dois savoir, Julie. Montréal: Mémoire d’encrier, 2019. 978-2-89712-654-4. Wittig, Monique. Virgile, non. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1985. 978-2-7073-1021-7. FILMS Pool, Léa. Anne Trister, 1986. Akerman, Chantal. Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. 1975.

Proust et la narratologie
123 : Prose Fiction

Spring 2024
Class No: 31056
DWIN4104
MW
Instructor: Michael Lucey
12:30 PM - 1:59 PM
All Work for This Class Conducted in French; Completion of FR102, Placement Exam, or Native Language Fluency Required for Enrollment.

Nous passerons la plupart de notre temps chaque semaine à lire attentivement les deux premiers tomes du grand roman de Marcel Proust, À la recherche du temps perdu: Du côté de chez Swann et À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. La Recherche, l’un des plus grands romans de toute la littérature, est composé de sept volumes, dont nous ne lirons que les deux premiers. Mais vous serez quand même des expert·e·s sur Proust à la fin du semestre, et prêt·e·s à continuer l’aventure. Nous réserverons un peu de temps chaque semaine pour la lecture d’un long essai par Gérard Genette, « Discours du récit », qui est à la fois une étude de Proust et un classique de la « narratologie »—l’étude de ce que c’est qu’un récit ou une narration. Le va-et-vient entre Proust et Genette nous permettra de poser des questions sur la valeur et aussi les limitations d’une lecture formaliste d’un roman, sur les caractéristiques particulières d’un roman « moderniste », et aussi sur les particularités de la Recherche. Comment décrire ce grand roman ? C’est : un roman sur la nature de l’expérience esthétique, un roman sur ce que c’est qu’un roman, sur ce que c’est qu’un narrateur, un roman sur ce que c’est que la mémoire et comment elle fonctionne, un roman sur le rapport d’un être humain au passage du temps, sur le rapport entre l’individu et le monde social, sur la nature du langage, sur la sexualité et la jalousie, sur les transformations qui bouleversent le monde au commencement du 20e siècle. Surtout, c’est une expérience de lecture à ne pas manquer.

Livres: Marcel Proust, Du côté de chez Swann (Gallimard-Folio) Marcel Proust, À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs (Gallimard-Folio) Gérard Genette, Figures III (Seuil-Points-Essais)

L'Oeuvre de Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695) : perspectives et contextualisations
126 : Senior Seminar

Spring 2024
Class No: 31057
DWINB33B
TR
Instructor: Deborah A. Blocker
2:00 PM - 3:29 PM
All Work for This Class Conducted in French; Completion of FR102, Placement Exam, or Native Language Fluency Required for Enrollment.

Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695) remains one of the most widely read 17th century French writers, alongside the playwright Molière (1622-1671). Some of his Fables — a grouping of 243 poems inspired by the tradition of Aesop’s tales — are read and studied to this day throughout the francophone world, where children are often introduced to them in grammar school. Yet, deciphering these carefully crafted narratives, set in the animal world, often requires much more than a child’s perspective. At once sophisticated, gallant, satirical and full of double (and even triple) entendre, these poems, read like riddles, and frequently contain critical, if not heterodox, insinuations. They were originally published with intricate engraved illustrations, the tradition of which proliferates to this day, in many different styles. In this class, we read the Fables (and their illustrations), very carefully, alongside several others of La Fontaine’s texts, including his Contes, which are frequently licentious, and his exquisitely narrated allegorical tale of the Amours of Psyché et Cupidon. To this end, we study rare editions of La Fontaine’s works on-line (through https://gallica.bnf.fr/) and in the Bancroft Library on campus. Through the lens of La Fontaine’s writings we also explore French society in the Old Régime, of which this poet was one of the most perspicacious observers. In the process, we interrogate the relationship of French classical authors to their aristocratic patrons, including the Sun King, with whom La Fontaine had distanced, yet persistent, interactions. But the main goal of this seminar — which requires no prior knowledge of 17th century France and is by no means restricted to seniors — is to develop the students’ capacities for close-reading and contextualization, as well as their ability to analyze the relationship between text and image. The class is in seminar format and will be conducted entirely in French. Students wishing to be introduced to research practices in literary studies (and in the humanities more generally) will be given the option of drafting a research paper at the end of the term, with individualized support from the instructor. This paper could later become the basis of a senior thesis in French.

Required books : 1. Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, édition de Sabine Gruffat avec une préface de Jean-Charles Darmon, Paris, Le Livre de Poche, 2002. 2. Jean de La Fontaine, Contes et nouvelles en vers, édition d’Alain-Marie Bassy, Paris, Gallimard, coll. Folio, 1982. 3. Jean de La Fontaine, Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon, précédé d’Adonis et du Songe de Vaux Poche, édition de P. Dandrey, B. Donné et C. Bohnert, Paris, Le Livre de Poche, 2021.

Une introduction au monde des arts et de la culture dans les pays francophones
137 : French for Professions

Spring 2024
Class No: 31058
DWIN254
TR
Instructor: Deborah A. Blocker
11:00 AM - 12:29 PM
All Work for This Class Conducted in French; Completion of FR102, Placement Exam, or Native Language Fluency Required for Enrollment.

This class offers an introduction to the art world and cultural institutions in France (and some francophone countries, such as Québec). We examine these domains as professional fields of practice, and the class is taught entirely in French. It aims to prepare students, both linguistically and culturally, to intern/work in (or with) French in a wide variety of public cultural institutions and private cultural enterprises. Coupled with a supervised internship in French in these fields, either abroad or locally, and two other French classes, this class leads to a certificate of French for Professional Purposes. In the class, we 1) reflect on how the arts and the notion of cultural heritage (patrimoine) are conceived of in francophone countries, 2) enquire into the history of how these perceptions came to be, 3) acquire an understanding of the economy of the cultural sphere, and of how public policies and private enterprises coexist within it and 4) investigate both the variety of ways in which cultural institutions are administered and financed in France today, and the history of these practices. Students will be asked to do short presentations in class on a variety of topics, and they will be guided through the definition of a professional project, as well as in the preparation of CV and cover letter in French, to support their internship/job applications. In the last third of the class, we collectively investigate six cultural institutions or enterprises (the Musée d’Arts de Nantes, the Musée de l’Immigration in Paris, the Comédie Française, the radio station France Culture, the publishing house Les Belles Lettres and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France). As their final project, students document and analyze a cultural institution of the choice, which could be one at which they aim to intern/work.

Required books : 1. Saez, Guy (éd), Institutions et vie culturelles, Les notices de la documentation française, Paris, CNFPT, 2004. 2. Benamou, Françoise, L’Économie de la culture, Paris, La Découverte, coll. Repères, (1996) 2017. 3. Mairesse, Françoise, Gestion de projets culturels : conception, mise en œuvre, direction, Paris, Armand Colin, 2020.

History of French Cinema: Politics and Aesthetics
140D : French Literature in English Translation

Spring 2024
Class No: 21402
DWIN188
TR
Instructor: Damon R. Young
3:30 PM - 4:59 PM

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-language cinema has played a key role in defining the artistic possibilities of the medium. In this course, we will watch and analyze a range of films, both well-known and less known, from within France and the larger French-speaking world, 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 explore the relation between film form, the production of meaning, the circulation of cultural fantasy, and the politics of representation. How do films “think”? What kinds of worlds do they not only document, but imagine and make possible? While developing a robust language for the analysis of film form, we will approach cinema as one of the key cultural technologies that has shaped our contemporary ways of imagining race, class, gender, and sexuality, the nation and its colonial and postcolonial legacies, and the affective life of the individual: love, family, friendship, and life under capitalism. To this end, we will read a number of works of philosophy and critical theory, all in English translation. The lectures and discussions are complemented by a weekly screening, which you must be able to attend to enroll in the course.

This course fulfills a major requirement for the French sequence [not sure which field]. The course is cross-listed as FILM 145 and is taught in English. There are no prerequisites but priority enrollment will be given to declared French majors. French majors must complete viewing, reading, and writing in French for major credit.

Rewriting France
141 : French Studies in an International Context

Spring 2024
Class No: 31059
DWINB4
TR
Instructor: Karl A. Britto
11:00 AM - 12:29 PM

"PLEASE NOTE: Discussions and readings for this class will be in English. For almost a century, francophone authors with ties to different parts of the former French empire have written about colonial and postcolonial subjects who travel into and out of France. In this class, we will discuss several texts, dating from the mid-twentieth century 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 cultural 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 such as “home,” “nation,” “citizen,” and “foreigner”? What forms of agency (or lack thereof) underlie these stories of migration? How do the political, social, and economic contexts that structure movement into and out of France shift over time?"

Authors considered will likely include: Chiekh Hamidou Kane; Ousmane Sembène; Alain Mabanckou; Fatou Diome; Azouz Begag; Leïla Sebbar; Gisèle Pineau; Faiza Guène.

The Cultures of Franco-America
142AC

Spring 2024
Class No: 31060
LEWS9
TR
Instructor: Nicholas Paige
12:30 PM - 1:59 PM

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. On the one hand our readings will include poetry, novels, and several 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; and other popular cultural forms such as music and comic strips, films. Throughout the semester, our discussions will focus on the politics of representation — which is to say that 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.

Le français comme langue mondiale
147 : Special Topics in French Linguistics

Spring 2024
Class No: 31061
DWIN B-37
MWF
Instructor: Richard Kern
2:00 PM - 2:59 PM
This course will be taught in French; Completion of FR102 or permission of instructor required for enrollment.

The traditional conception of the monolingual ‘native speaker’ of French applies only to a small minority of French speakers. This course will look at French as it is used around the world, in all its diversity. It will also consider the complex relationships between French and other languages spoken in France (and in other Francophone countries). We will begin by exploring language ideologies and criteria for determining the status of ‘languages’, ‘dialects’, ‘creoles’, ‘patois’, and so forth. We will study the linguistic features and cultural contexts of varieties of French spoken in France, as well as in other Francophone regions of the world. We will also take an historical perspective, exploring the dynamics of how French was taught and learned from medieval and early modern times to the colonial period and the current day in regions around the world. Finally, we will examine language policies in France and other Francophone countries and consider trends toward the future. In addition to the textbook, we will use the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie’s 2022 report La langue française dans le monde as well as a variety of sociolinguistic and historical readings. The course will be taught in French. No prior background in linguistics is required.

Textbook: Ball, R., & Marley, D. (2017). The French-Speaking World: A Practical Introduction to Sociolinguistic Issues, 2nd Edition. Routledge.

Psychoanalytic Theory and Literature
172A : Psychoanalysis & Literature

Spring 2024
Class No: 22115
DWIN235
MWF
Instructor: Thoraya S. Tlatli
11:00 AM - 11:59 AM
All Work for This Class Conducted in French; Completion of FR102, Placement Exam, or Native Language Fluency Required for Enrollment.

Le but de ce cours est triple. Il est premièrement historique; il s'agit de découvrir la naissance et le développement de la psychanalyse dans le contexte de la psychiatrie de l’époque. Il est deuxièmement théorique: il permettra de comprendre les principaux concepts de la psychanalyse et de la psychiatrie. Enfin, il est littéraire: il s'agira d'étudier, à travers une étude du surréalisme et de textes plus classiques, l’influence réciproque de la littérature et de la psychanalyse

Graduate Courses

History of the French Language
201

Spring 2024
Class No: 31048
DWIN4226
T
Instructor: Mairi-Louise McLaughlin
1:00 PM - 3:59 PM

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. The course will be structured around our analysis of the wide range of texts from different genres presented by Ayres-Bennett (1996) and which date from 842 CE to the present day. We will use the relatively new historical sociolinguistic approach to try to capture what Anthony Lodge (2009) has called “une image multidimensionnelle de la langue du passé”.

There is one required course book: Ayres-Bennett, Wendy (1996) A History of the French Language through Texts, London-New York: Routledge;

Linguistic History of the Romance Languages
C202

Spring 2024
Class No: 31673
DWIN6331
T
3:00 PM - 5:59 PM

Linguistic development of the major Romance languages (French, Italian, and Spanish) from the common Latin origin. Comparative perspective, combining historical grammar and external history.

Affect, Experience, Sensation: Reading Medieval French Literature in Manuscripts
210B : Studies in Medieval Literature

Spring 2024
Class No: 31049
DWIN4226
R
Instructor: Henry Ravenhall
2:00 PM - 4:59 PM

This course introduces graduate students to key texts of medieval French literature by examining, and reflecting critically on, the material forms through which it is transmitted. Manuscripts are sensuous objects that operate at the intersection of touch, sight, and sound, that add layers to the aesthetic experience, and that produce complex affective responses. A history of medieval French literature as seen through its manuscripts would look quite different to one based on modern critical editions: some of the most canonical texts survive in very few manuscripts, while lesser-known ones are sometimes copied and illustrated in dozens, if not hundreds. Thanks to the vast online availability of digitized manuscripts, this course centers the role that the material object plays in the mediation of literature through word, image, and parchment. Students will read a variety of twelfth- to fourteenth-century texts in their manuscript forms, playing close attention to page layout, text-image relations, variant readings, signs of reader response, and so on. Recent critical and theoretical scholarship on manuscript materiality will supplement students’ own engagements with specific medieval artefacts. Students will work towards a substantial research paper based either on a manuscript or corpus of manuscripts, inflected with their own theoretical interests. No prior knowledge of medieval French is required, although we will deal with linguistic and translation issues in the original language. Some training in language, codicology, and palaeography will be provided. One class will be held with the collections at the Bancroft Library. Texts will be available in modern French translation. Class discussion in English.

17th & 18th Century French Theater
245B : Early Modern Studies

Spring 2024
Class No: 31050
DWIN4226
M
Instructor: Susan A. Maslan
1:00 PM - 3:59 PM

Theater was France’s pre-eminent art form from the seventeenth- through the early nineteenth centuries. Theater was also a public, collective social experience as well as a cultural institution often in contention with other institutions—religious and political.

During the first half of the semester, we will pay special attention to problems of political theology, sovereignty, and voluntary servitude. In the second half, we will examine how the social came to occupy the position previously consecrated to the political. But these large conceptual patterns also allow plenty of room for discussion of other topics such as formal innovation, gender and sexuality, censorship, acting, the history of the family, and much more.

We will study some major plays of the 17th and 18 th centuries (Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Marivaux, Voltaire, Beaumarchais). We will seek to understand some of the important literary and aesthetic stakes of these works, as well as to investigate the social and political history of the theater (organization of theater troupes, audiences and their social composition, censorship practices, etc.). We will think about the role and the effects of genre (tragedy vs. comedy; the rise of “drame”.) We will study contemporary debates about the theater and trace theater’s importance as a crucible for the formation and expression of public opinion. We will study censorship—an ever-present force that shaped French theater. We will discuss representations of class and of gender. We will also study the representation of cultural others—e.g. Islam, the New World. We will examine anti-theatrical discourse and seek to understand how theater was simultaneously a sign of the French monarchy’s hegemony and a practice of dangerous subversion.

Readings will include Corneille, Polyeucte or Cinna, or Horace (au choix); Molière, Le Tartuffe ou Le Bourgeois gentilhomme; Racine, Athalie; Voltaire, Mahomet et Zaire; Marivaux, L’Île des esclaves and La Colonie; Beaumarchais, Le Mariage de Figaro, Citoyenne Villeneuve, Plus de batârds en France; La Nourrice Républicaine

“Race” and “Sex”: Entangled conceptual histories, 1945-1968
278 : Intellectual History

Spring 2024
Class No: 32934
DWIN4226
M
Instructor: William Burton
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM

In this research seminar, the students and professor will work together on elements of a conceptual history of “race” and “sex” in the period 1945–68. During these years, women across the French Empire gradually gained the right to vote (1944–58); the Second World War and the Holocaust ended (1945); the First Indochinese War took place (1945–54); and the Algerian Revolution began (1954). Both alongside and in the aftermath of these events, the concepts of race and sex underwent complex and interrelated rearticulations: these will be our object of study. Our focus will fall primarily on the pre-May 68 development of social-constructionist accounts (as opposed to essentialist ones). The first weeks of the seminar will be devoted to an introduction to the methods and problems of concept history, and then some general scholarship on the history of “race” and “sex.” Then we will read some text-moments selected for their importance or interest. These readings range across the fields of literature, philosophy, politics, and science, permitting us to see the mutations of our concepts across intellectual space-time. They represent a fraction of what our corpus could include; students will be encouraged to expand the scope through independent research as well.

Assignments will include two reading responses and a term paper. One goal of the reading responses will be to reconstruct the primary argument(s) of the author; their form is open (close reading, précis, or other). Reading responses will be due several days before class so everyone can read them and discuss. The term paper can be hermeneutic/interpretative and/or research-based. Students will briefly present their project for feedback during the last seminar meeting.

The class will take place in French, unless there is significant interest from non-francophone students, in which case we will make alternatives arrangements. Most (but not all) of the readings are available in English.

Readings

Jean-Paul Sartre, Réflexions sur la question juive (1946)

Aimé Césaire, Cahier d’un retour au pays natal (1947) and Discours sur le colonialisme (1950)

Simone de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe (1949)

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structures élémentaires de la parenté (1949) and Race et histoire (1952)

Octave Mannoni, Psychologie de la colonisation (1950)

Jacques Lacan, “La signification du phallus” (Écrits) (1958)

Albert Memmi, Portrait du colonisé, précédé du Portrait du colonisateur, with pref. by Sartre (1957)

Nathalie Sarraute, Le Planétarium (1959)

Frantz Fanon, Les Damnés de la terre, with pref. by Sartre (1961)

André & Simone Schwartz-Bart, Un plat de porc aux bananes vertes (1967)

Monique Wittig, Les Guérillères (1969)

Colette Guillaumin, L’Idéologie raciste (1972)

Teaching French at Berkeley / FR 2 Inservice Training
375B : Teaching French in College: Advanced First Year

Spring 2024
Class No: 31051
DWIN4226
W
Instructor: Daniel R. Hoffman
12:00 PM - 1:59 PM

The goals of this course are to discuss pedagogical concerns related to the content of French 2, presented in Chez Nous as well as broader issues relevant to language education, to provide a forum for discussing teaching-related questions and problems, to deepen a theoretical understanding of language learning processes, particularly those related to literacy and multiliteracies, and to offer participants practical experience in creating and adapting materials for instruction.

Teaching French in College: Second Year
375C

Spring 2024
Class No: 31052
Dwinelle 4226
TR
Instructor: Vesna Rodic
12:00 PM - 1:59 PM

French 375C provides readings and a forum for discussing topics in language pedagogy related to the intermediate level (study of grammar in review; continued study of culture; work on the writing process in L2) and experience in creating and adapting instructional materials for use in the UC Berkeley French discovery-centered language classroom. Also provides training in the development of a teaching portfolio in preparation for the job market. Seminar meets weekly for a two-hour session.

Selected seminar readings will be available on Bcourses. Prerequisites: French 375A and 375B. This course is required for all GSIs teaching French 3 or 4 for the first time in the French Department at UC Berkeley