Readings/Films:

Jane Austen, Emma

Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way

Colette, The Pure and the Impure

Rouch and Morin, Chronicle of a Summer

Chris Marker, Le Joli Mai

Agnès Varda, The Gleaners and I

The Real Housewives of New York

Course Description:

This course will explore the ways in which various aesthetic forms since the 19th century have become spaces for understanding the social world. We will begin with the nineteenth century “novel of manners” (Jane Austen’s Emma), exploring the status of the novel as a source of knowledge in distinction to philosophy and history. We will then trace the heritage of the novel of manners across the 20th century, through the modernist novel (Proust), journalistic writing (Colette), documentary (Rouch and Morin, Marker, Varda), and reality television in the present day (The Real Housewives). In each case, we will ask how the specificity of the form of these texts makes certain aspects of the social world visible and renders others invisible, and what information about the social world aesthetic forms are able to convey that other modes of understanding the social (statistics, for example) miss.

Additional Information:

Attendance is mandatory the first two weeks of classes.  This includes all enrolled and wait listed students.  Students who do not attend all classes during the first two weeks may be dropped. Students attempting to add this class during weeks 1 and 2 who did not attend the first day will be expected to add themselves to the wait list and attend all class meetings thereafter.  If space permits,  they may be enrolled from the wait list.

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

Section times and locations in the Schedule of Classes