Spring 2015

Reading and Composition (R&C)

(Un)authorized Readers -- Imitations, Rewritings, and other Fan Fictions
R1A (Section 1) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Spring 2015
L. Louie

Readings:

Lancelot, Chrétien de Troyes; Le Morte d’Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory; Hamlet and The Tempest, Shakespeare; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard; Une Tempête (A Tempest), Aimé Césaire. Course pack and films TBA.

Course Description:

In this class, we will read modern examples of imitation and rewriting (such as Aimé Césaire’s A Tempest, which reimagines Shakespeare’s Tempest from Caliban’s perspective, and the Baker Street Journal, which publishes academic articles treating the characters in the Sherlock Holmes stories as real historical personages) alongside examples of medieval and Renaissance continuations and rewritings, from the troubadour vidas and razos to Avellaneda’s continuation of Don Quixote. All these texts use another work of literature as their starting point, making them acts of reading, just as much as acts of writing.

Looking at this wide range of literature as “fan fiction” will allow us to consider how the roles of “author” and “reader” are shaped by history, society, technology, genre, and form, and how works of rewriting can be used to reposition these roles. We will think about reading and writing as practices that are historically situated and ethically charged, and ask how and why certain fan fictions are “authorized” while others are not.

Since the primary goal of this course is to develop students’ critical reading and writing skills, we will think about the academic paper as a a genre that (like fan fiction) requires an understanding of, and engagement with, the world of a literary text. We will also become “fans” of the analytic essay itself, seeking to understand its conventions and constituent parts in order to make our own interve

Additional information:

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

Violence, Politics, and the Graphic Novel
R1B (Section 1) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Spring 2015
A. Gabel

Readings:

JODOROWSKY and MOEBIUS The Incal (1981-1989) Jacques LOB and Jean-Marc ROCHETTE Snow Piercer: The Escape and Snow Piercer: The Explorers (1982-1983) Art SPIEGELMAN Maus (1991) Jacques TARDI Tardi’s WWI: It was the War of the Trenches (1993) / Goddamn This War (2008-9) Marjane SATRAPI The Complete Persepolis (2000-3) Guy DELISLE Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (2003) June MAROH Blue is the Warmest Color (2010) Required Course Reader

Course Description:

In this course, we will analyze the graphic novel as an emerging media for the representation of history and violence. We will investigate how this form, an amalgam of both image and text, has arisen from earlier genres, from 16th-century image poems called emblèmes to late 19th- and early-20th-century experimentations in visual poetry (like Mallarmé’s Un coup de dés or Apollinaire’s Calligrammes), from early caricatures, illustrations, and political cartoons (like those of Gustave Doré and Nadar) to overtly propagandistic 20th-century cartoons and classic children’s comic books (like Tintin, Astérix, and Heavy Metal). In tandem, we will also consider politicized 19th-century paintings by Manet, Delacroix and others as well as a little 20th- and 21st-century French animation, in order to ask ourselves how graphic novels as an emerging medium both take on and subvert the stylistics and social codes performed by earlier image or image-text forms. Of special interest to us will be a discussion of why it is that in recent decades the graphic novel has proven itself to be a particularly apt form for the investigation of violent, socio-political events, such as the First or Second World War or the Iranian Revolution. While we will consider a few, seminal English-language texts, we will ask ourselves why has this been a preferred format of expression for French and Francophone authors and artists, particularly in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. What about the graphic novel, in spite of or indeed due to its roots in popular culture and children’s literature, resonates with these authors as a means of representing history? What does this genre have to offer for the critique of deeply ingrained, socio-historical violence, like xenophobia and homophobia? In short, why and how has the graphic novel become a political form?

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

Survival Crafts -- Remembering Catastrophe
R1A (Section 2) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Spring 2015
V. Brutsche

Readings:

TBA — please check back

Course Description:

How can we read in the wake of catastrophe? How does society remember – or forget – its traumatic histories? In this course, we will examine the nature of what we consider catastrophic, and explore how literature and film serve as collective remembrance of the past. Readings in this course will include texts (novels, short stories, and poetry) and films that depict a range of devastating historical events, such as revolutions, natural disasters, genocide, and forced displacement.

This course is designed to fulfill the first 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.

Additional information:

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

France & the U.S.A -- Cross-Cultural Encounters in Literature and Film
R1B (Sections 2 & 3) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation

Spring 2015
M. Koerner

Readings:

Texts and films to be studied include:

Gertrude Stein, Paris, France; Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast; William Gardner Smith, The Stone Face; James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room; Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (excerpts); Simone de Beauvoir, America Day By Day; Jean Baudrillard, America; Jean-Luc Godard, Made in the U.S.A.; Agnes Varda, Black Panthers; Vincente Minnelli, An American in Paris; Greta Schiller, Paris Was a Woman

Course Description:

This reading and composition course focuses on the relationship between French and American culture – the way each country has been perceived by the other – through a survey of writers and filmmakers who have made this relationship a central theme of their work. Over the course of the semester we will analyze literary texts written by Americans living in Paris, narratives written by French intellectuals travelling in the United States, as well as documentaries and feature films produced in both countries. What values, possibilities and forms of sociality have Americans associated with the “city of lights” or “gay Paris”? How have ideas about “America” circulated, both positively and negatively, among French thinkers, social critics and artists? In exploring the relationship between France and the United States, we will pay special attention to the ways issues of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality complicate our understanding of the way each culture appears to the other. Writing assignments will focus on the close analysis of texts and images, developing critical skills in thinking comparatively and historically, and producing compelling research questions for further inquiry and investigation. In addition to in-class writing exercises students should expect to write three short response essays (2-3 pages), an extended analysis of one literary text or film (4-5 pages), and a final research paper (8-10 pages).

Additional information:

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

Upper-Division Courses 

Writing in French, 3 sections ("W")
102

Spring 2015
R. Shuh, E. Colon, D. Blocker

Readings:

Course Reader

Course Description:

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

Prerequisites:

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

Additional information:

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

Writing and Filming the French Empire ("W")
103B : Language and Culture

Spring 2015
S. Tlatli

Readings:

Course Reader

Course Description:

Dans ce cours nous analyserons la manière dont des auteurs français et francophones des dix-neuvième et vingtième siècles décrivent l’empire colonial français. Nous lirons des genres littéraires variés : l’autobiographie, la poésie, l’écriture de journaux et le récit d’expériences fictives. Nous essaierons de comprendre la complexité de l’identité coloniale et nous analyserons également les thèmes de l’appartenance nationale et de la décolonisation. Albert Camus, Mouloud Feraoun, Marguerite Duras, Fadhma Amrouche, Aimé Césaire sont parmi les auteurs que nous analyserons. Nous verrons 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 College of Letters and Science breadth in Arts and Literature. This course is designated as “W” (writing intensive) in the French major.

Discourses of Love in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period ("W")
103A : Language and Culture

Spring 2015
D. Hult

Readings:

TBA

Course Description:

Since the beginnings of French literature, authors and poets have been fascinated by the human and spiritual dimensions of love, sometimes conflicting relations between emotional attachment and carnality, between human love and love of God, between private desires and the constraints of society, between fidelity in marriage and the temptations of adultery. Through reading and discussion of a broad variety of works extending from the twelfth to the eighteenth century, we will attempt to sort out some of the major aspects of this seemingly inexhaustible theme while at the same time seeing how different eras and authors diverged in their treatment of it.

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” and 1 “Historical Period” requirement in the French major. Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Arts and Literature. This course is designated as “W” (writing intensive) in the French major.

Hearts, Minds, Bodies -- The French Novel in the Enlightenment ("W")
118A : Eighteenth Century Literature

Spring 2015
N. Paige

Readings:

Prévost, Manon Lescaut

Charrière, Lettres de Mistress Henley

Graffigny, Lettres d’une Péruvienne

Montesquieu, Lettres persanes

Voltaire, Zadig

Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses

Diderot, Le Neveu de Rameau

Course Description:

The Enlightenment was a moment of huge upheaval in relation between self, society, and the physical world: the “New Philosophy” of methodical doubt was brought to bear on European customs, religions, and beliefs, often in the hopes of aligning society with natural laws; the gradual weakening of the société d’états (a kind of caste system of social division) necessitated new ways of thinking about what tied human beings together. We’ll be reading a series of key novels from the period that help bring this upheaval into focus. These include Prévost’s great novel of male aristocratic anxiety, Manon Lescaut; Graffigny’s feminist not-a-love-story, Lettres d’une Péruvienne; Voltaire’s face-off between corrupt and mendacious rulers and the ideal of a government of reason, Zadig; Laclos’s libertine masterpiece of eroticism run amok, Les Liaisons dangereuses,; and Diderot’s Le Neveu de Rameau, a vertiginous dialogue novel in which no belief is safe.

Prerequisites: French 102 or consent of Instructor.

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

Photography and Literature in 19th Century France
119B : Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture

Spring 2015
S. Guerlac

Readings:

See Course Description

Course Description:

In our digital age we have grown used to the idea that technology changes how we see. But when photography was invented in France in 1839 (the daguerreotype) it came as a shock and created a sensation. In the course of the 19th century photo-technologies will develop rapidly, leading up to the invention of the Kodak point and shoot camera toward the end of the century. These new technologies of vision had an impact on writers and on writing practices. Lamartine liked to have his portrait taken. Victor Hugo had hoped to publish a photo- illustrated edition of his poems; he set up a photo studio for his sons while living in exile in Guernsey and staged numerous photographs. Flaubert will accompany his friend Maxime du Camp on photo shoots in Egypt. Zola will become an amateur photographer. And then there was the fashion of “spirit photographs,” believed to present traces of the souls of the dead.

In the context of Romanticism the daguerreotype opened up new dimensions of space and time; it made it possible to stay at home and yet see distant places, thereby encouraging an interest in exoticism. Photography appeared to stop time in images of crumbling ruins or architectural monuments. It became associated with scientific observation, setting a new standard for literary description – “À mon avis,” wrote Zola, “vous ne pouvez pas dire que vous avez vu quelque chose à fond si vous n’en avez pas pris une photographie révélant un tas de détails qui, autrement, ne pourraient même pas être discernés.» For others, however, photography opened up spaces of fiction and dream; it influenced writers of fantastic tales.

In this course we will consider visual material (early photo albums such as the Excursions Daguerriennes, celebrity portraits by Nadar, images of photojournalism and commercial portrait photography) as well as literary works by authors such as Rodenbach ( “Bruges – la-morte”), Balzac, Zola, Gautier and Villiers de l’Isle – Adam in an effort to explore relations between photography and literature during the century that invented photography.

Prerequisites:
French 102 or equivalent or consent of instructor.

Additional information:

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

Albert Camus ("R")
126 : Senior Seminar

Spring 2015
D. Sanyal

Readings:

L’Etranger, La Peste, La Chute, Les Justes, L’Exil et le royaume, Le Dernier homme

Recommended: (all in folio edition)

Le Mythe de Sisyphe, L’Homme Révolté, Actuelles: Chroniques Algériennes,

Olivier Todd, Albert Camus: Une Vie

Course Description:

One of the most important intellectual figures of the 20th century, Albert Camus continues to provoke debates on literature, politics and ethics. Initially hailed as a philosopher of the Absurd, he was a Resistance fighter during the Occupation and emerged from World War Two as an exemplary committed intellectual, only to be dismissed as a naïve moralist during the Cold War, and accused of colonial nostalgia during the Algerian war. More recently Camus has been rehabilitated and discussed in all sorts of fascinating ways: as an exemplary writer of the Holocaust, a proponent of multiculturalism, a postcolonial theorist, a critic of fundamentalism, and even, as an intellectual ally in the US war on terror…

This course will investigate the many faces of Albert Camus by reading his major literary works in relation to his other writings at particular historical junctures. We will also examine the critical approaches and cultural trends that have led to the tumultuous afterlife of his works.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or equivalent.

Additional Information:

Senior standing recommended, but not required. This course is designated as an “”R”” (Research-Oriented) course in the French major sequence.

Passions and Fortunes in 19th-Century Paris
140C : French Literature in English Translation

Spring 2015
D. Sanyal

Readings:

Balzac’s Père Goriot in the Norton Edition, ISBN 039397166X

Flaubert’s Sentimental Education in Penguin Classics, ISBN 0140447970

Zola’s Nana in Oxford World Classics, ISBN 0192836706

Rachilde’s Monsieur Vénus in the Modern Languages Association English translation edition ISBN 0873529308

Recommended: David Harvey, Paris: Capital of Modernity

Course Description:

This course explores the experience and expression of urban modernity in 19th century Paris. Drawing on works by Balzac, Baudelaire, Zola and Rachilde along with readings in cultural criticism, literary theory and art history, we will focus on the novel as a laboratory for new forms of knowledge and representation. In these classic tales of the city, ambitious young men and women embark on a perilous journey of passion, fortune and education. Their trajectories shed light on key aspects of nineteenth-century urban life: the social possibilities opened up by revolution; the emergence of consumer culture; the shocks of industrialization; the texture of everyday life; shifting configurations of class struggle; gender and the demarcation of public and private space; the body as commodity and spectacle; new forms of visual culture. In the course of our readings we will also address the salient historical transitions and aesthetic movements of the period.

Prerequisites:

No language prerequisites. Course open to all students.

Additional Information:

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

Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Arts and Literature.

La langue des médias
147 : Special Topics in French Linguistics

Spring 2015
M. McLaughlin

Readings:

See Course Description below

Course Description:

The aim of this course is to investigate the language of the French news media using tools and methods from linguistics. We will examine three types of media: print media (newspapers, magazines, periodicals), broadcast media (radio, television) and digital media (websites, blogs, social media). We will look at the use of a whole range of linguistic features across the different media from different formatting and layout choices, through spelling and grammar to vocabulary. Examples of some of the most interesting features include words borrowed from English, the passive voice, regional or non-standard language, headline structure and different kinds of speech reporting. The course also includes a substantial research component which will give students the chance to design and execute their own investigation of a particular aspect of the language of the media.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or consent of the instructor.

Additional Information:

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

Translation Methodology and Practice
148

Spring 2015
M. McLaughlin

Readings:

Hervey, Sándor and Ian Higgins, (2002) Thinking French Translation

Course Description:

The discipline known as ‘translation studies’ is a relatively new field and yet it has much to offer the practicing translator. This course brings together aspects of translation theory and translation methodology in order to develop our skills as translators. During the course we will translate both from French into English and from English into French, paying particular attention to the linguistic differences between the two languages that pose problems for translators. One of the main methodological questions addressed by the course is how the practice of translation varies according to genre: from the translation of poetry, through scientific translation to subtitles and dubbing in film.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or equivalent, or consent of instructor.

Additional Information:

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

Introduction to French Cinema
170 : French Films

Spring 2015
U. Dutoit

Readings:

Journot, Le vocabulaire du cinéma; Pinel, Le montage; Siety, Le plan

Course Description:

L’inverti: A quoi penses-tu, Geneviève?
Geneviève: Je pense à un mot de Chamfort que je considère presque comme un précepte.
L’inverti: Et que dit-il ton Chamfort?
Geneviève: Il dit que l’amour dans la société c’est l’échange de deux fantaisies et le contact de deux épidermes…
— in La Règle du jeu, by Jean Renoir

This course will consider cinema as the art of movement, and violence and sensuality as manifestations of this movement. We will study the basic vocabulary of cinematographic language using films by Renoir, Vigo, Resnais and Godard. The interactions of the different mechanisms of film language will allow us to explore the creation of non-passive cinema. In addition to scheduled course meetings there is a weekly screening on Wednesdays, 4-6.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or consent of instructor. Film Studies students should consult the instructor about French language preparation and prerequisites.

Additional information:

Weekly film screening (required): Wednesdays 4-6 in B4 Dwinelle. Satisfies one “Culture” or one “Elective” course requirement in the French Major. This course also satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Arts and Literature. Priority enrollment for declared French majors.

Louis XIV, Versailles, and the Culture of Absolutism
180B : French Civilization

Spring 2015
N. Paige

Readings:

Molière, Le Tartuffe

Molière, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme

Racine, Bajazet

Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves

Fontenelle, Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes

Course Description:

In 1661, following the death of his prime minister Mazarin, the young Louis XIV decided not to appoint a successor; instead, he would exercise personally what he called le métier de roi. Louis’s subsequent reign, which comprised an unprecedented reorganization of state institutions, has since been seen as both an end and a beginning. An end, because these years brought to its apogee a type of monarchical power, now known as “absolutism,” that was already in steep decline even before the king’s death in 1715; a beginning, because on another level the political and cultural world under Louis XIV evolved in a decidedly modern direction. This class will examine the cultural ferment of this time, a ferment that took place both with and against absolutism. We’ll study the royal culture of spectacle—notably the chateau and gardens of Versailles—and read texts both by people who lived at court and by those who could only speculate about what went on there. We’ll spend time with the two great playwrights whose careers were profoundly bound up in Louis XIV’s patronage, Racine and Molière. And we will look at critiques of courtly spectacle and the emergence of a new, post-absolutist conception of the world that looks forward to the Enlightenment’s private pleasures. Books on order will be supplemented by primary and secondary resources on bCourses, as well as a number of films.

Prerequisites:

French 102 or consent of instructor.

Additional Information:

Satisfies 1 “Culture” or 1 “Elective” requirement in the French major. Satisfies 1 Historical Period requirement in French major. Satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Arts and Literature or in Social and Behavioral Sciences. Priority enrollment for declared French majors.

Crises of Convention in Pre-Revolutionary France
183A : Configurations of Crisis

Spring 2015
D. Hult

Readings :

See Course Description below.

Course Description:

This class will study a sequence of high-profile literary quarrels, debates and causes célèbres, extending from the Middle Ages to the late seventeenth century, that served to crystallize prevailing notions of propriety, decency, verisimilitude and what might generally be called the “natural”–in the face of works that seemed to flout convention through their promotion of what their critics deemed obscene, unnatural or unrealistic. In each case we will proceed through the reading of a text and a critical analysis of documents surrounding that text. Cases will include: the Quarrel over the Romance of the Rose instigated by Christine de Pizan (15th century); the fictional “trial” of the Belle Dame sans Mercy of Alain Chartier (15th century); Du Bellay’s Défense et illustration de la langue française as a polemical rejection of the language and poetry of the Middle Ages, one of numerous treatises spread across the first half of the sixteenth century that set the stage for the codification of the French language as we have come to know it; Corneille’s Le Cid and the ensuing debate involving the recently formed Académie Française, which helped to set the foundations for “classical” theater; Mme de Lafayette’s Princesse de Clèves and the polemical responses it elicited. Readings and class discussions will be in French (Medieval works in modern French translation; later works in the original language).

Prerequisites: French 102 or consent of Instructor.

Additional information: This course satisfies one “Culture” or one “Elective” requirement in the French major. Satisfies on Historical Period requirement in the French major. This course also satisfies College of Letters and Science breadth in Historical Studies or in Social and Behavioral Sciences. Priority enrollment for declared French majors.

Graduate Courses

Authors, Readers and Censors in Early Modern Europe -- From the Printing of Books to the Management of Information (1450-1800)
245A : Early Modern Studies

Spring 2015
D. Blocker, D. Pirillo

Readings:

Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing, 1450-1800, translated by David Gerard, Verso, London and New York, 1976 and 2010. ISBN-10: 1844676331 and ISBN-13: 978-1844676330.
Mark Bland, A Guide To Early Printed Books and Manuscripts, UK/MA, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. ISBN-10: 1405124121 and ISBN-13: 978-1405124126. A Kindle edition is available from Amazon for $88 (but no paperback version exists).
Andrew Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance, Yale, Yale University Press, 2010. ISBN-10: 0300178212 and ISBN-13: 978-0300178210.
Course Description:

This seminar introduces students to the fundamentals of book history (the invention of the printing press, the material forms of the book, and the development and control of the book market), but also to what in the field is now called scribal culture, that is the continued circulation of manuscripts during the age of the printing press and, more generally, the lasting and constant competition between books and manuscripts in the high culture of early modern Europe. The class mainly investigates the development of the book and manuscript markets in light of the larger question of how the Renaissance and the early modern period came to terms with the ‘overload of information’ that marked the early age of print, adopting new strategies to gather, store and appropriate knowledge. Particular attention will be dedicated to examining how information (mundane, political, literary and artistic, scientific, etc) was produced and circulated, the guises under which it travelled, the ways in which it was policed and how it was received.

This seminar also has a practical purpose, which is to make students more capable of finding, describing, and adequately using the print and manuscript sources they will need to study in the context of their dissertations. All classes take place in the Bancroft Library and students will be exposed to a variety of rare materials during most sessions of the seminar. We also learn how to analyze and describe rare documents (bibliographical description) and we discuss how libraries and archives developed and are currently organized with respect to early modern materials. Finally, the course addresses the question of the growing availability of early modern print and manuscript sources over the internet, both investigating how they can be located and discussing the drawbacks of studying such materials in immaterial formats.

This course will be useful both to students of literature (in French, Italian, English, Spanish and Portuguese or German, as many of the fundamentals of book and information history are similar across Europe) and to historians in general. Historians of art, music and philosophy will also find the course of interest, given how important rare books and manuscripts are for these fields as well.

The course deals with Europe as a whole and is taught entirely in English and, but many of the rare books and manuscripts studied are in French or in Italian, because of the instructors’ current specializations. For those students wishing to do the assigned bibliography exercises on either French or Italian materials a reasonable reading knowledge of French and/or Italian is needed.For those students possessing reading knowledge neither of French nor of Italian, alternative bibliography exercises in either English, German, Hebrew, Latin and/or Ancient Greek can be set up, in consultation with the instructors. All students will however be required to read all secondary readings in the English language, even when mostly French and/or Italian materials are discussed therein.

Additional information:

The course deals with Europe as a whole and is taught entirely in English and, but many of the rare books and manuscripts studied are in French or in Italian, because of the instructors’ current specializations. For those students wishing to do the assigned bibliography exercises on either French or Italian materials a reasonable reading knowledge of French and/or Italian is needed.For those students possessing reading knowledge neither of French nor of Italian, alternative bibliography exercises in either English, German, Hebrew, Latin and/or Ancient Greek can be set up, in consultation with the instructors. All students will however be required to read all secondary readings in the English language, even when mostly French and/or Italian materials are discussed therein.

Littérature Francophone algérienne entre fiction et Histoire
251 : Francophone Literature

Spring 2015
S. Tlatli

Readings:

See Course Description

Course Description:

Dans ce séminaire, nous étudierons un ensemble de textes francophones algériens à partir d’une problématique historique, philosophique et littéraire. Il s’agira d’analyser l’écriture de l’histoire, les représentations de la violence, ainsi que la question de l’appartenance nationale, à travers des récits de fiction. Nos analyses nous conduiront également à lire des textes historiques, philosophiques et psychanalytiques afin de mieux cerner la pertinence des récits littéraires que nous lirons. La période historique que nous couvrirons s’étend de la conquête d’Alger jusqu’à la période contemporaine. Les principaux auteurs que nous lirons sont: Kateb Yacine, Assia Djebar, Mohammed Dib, Tahar Djaout et Nabile Fares.

Proust
265A : Modern Studies

Spring 2015
S. Guerlac

Readings:

See Course Description

Course Description:

In this seminar we will focus on just reading Proust. You will have a Reader with extensive selections taken from all the volumes of the Recherche. You can of course read more if you choose, filling in as much as you are able toward the ambitious goal of reading the entire Recherche. But this will not be required. Careful study of the extensive selections will give you a very good sense of the scale, movement and complexity of the work as a whole. We will try to read it afresh, not as a novel of recollection — of loss and recuperation though art — but as a novel of adventure where the adventure is living in time. There will be some critical readings, but the focus will be on careful study of the primary text with attention to a range of issues including memory, photography, sexuality, desire, improvisation, war, anti-semitism and general craziness.

French Theory
274 : Traditions of Critical Thought

Spring 2015
E. Colon

Readings:

See Course Description.

Course Description:

This seminar will introduce students to recent theoretical texts written in French and investigate their relationships with the “French Theory” of the 1960s and 1970s. Starting with a few key readings in French Theory, we will map out the different theoretical positions and philosophical traditions that the term covered, while also interrogating this very denomination to replace it in the American context of its creation, and the French context of its production. This will be a point of departure for a study of major theoretical texts written in French from the 1990s onwards, which will be contextualized in relation to earlier tendencies in French thought (reading, for instance, Rancière with and against Althusser, or Mbembé in relation to Foucault and Deleuze), and analyzed in relation to the more recent theoretical trajectories they participate in creating. After an introduction to contemporary theory centered on Derrida’s Spectres de Marx (1993), the seminar will be organized in four sections, which are designed to cover some of the central texts and issues in contemporary theory: 1) The question of community in a post/neo-Marxist, neo-capitalist context. 2) Race and biopolitics. 3) Globalization. 4) Contemporary renewals in the relations between philosophy, the aesthetic and the political, through some of Jacques Rancière’s key writings. For their oral presentations, students will be asked to study theoretical texts in relation to a literary or cinematic work. Ample room will be devoted to refining the methods we use when bringing texts and images in dialogue with theory. In addition to oral presentations, students will write a final research paper related to their own area of specialization. The seminar will be conducted in English. Readings will be in French.

We will most likely read (the entirety or excerpts of) the following texts:

Catherine Malabou, La plasticité au soir de l’écriture

Jacques Derrida, L’écriture et la différence

Michel Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité I, La volonté de savoir

François Cusset, French Theory

Jacques Derrida, Spectres de Marx

Maurice Blanchot, La communauté inavouable

Jean-Luc Nancy, La communauté désœuvrée & La communauté affrontée

Giorgio Agamben, La communauté à venir

Achille Mbembé, Critique de la raison nègre

Etienne Balibar & Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Classe. Les identités ambiguës.

Jean-Luc Nancy, La création du monde ou la mondialisation.

Jacques Rancière, La leçon Althusser; La mésentente; Politique de la littérature, La fable cinématographique.

Teaching French in College -- Advanced First Year
302

Spring 2015
S. Chavdarian

Readings:
Kern, Literacy and Language Teaching — Applied Linguistics

Course Description:

Provides an understanding of the teaching methods used in French 2, to help instructors effectively implement techniques specifically designed for the French language classroom at Berkeley. This course provides a forum for discussing issues in language pedagogy, and experience in creating and adapting instructional materials and designing tests for use in the UC Berkeley French language program. GSIs are also required to attend a pilot class, taught by Seda Chavdarian, on select dates and as indicated on the lesson plans.

Prerequisites: French 301

Additional information: This course is required for all GSIs teaching French 2 for the first time in the Berkeley French Department. This course is offered in the Spring semester only.

Teaching in French, Advanced Level
303

Spring 2015
D. Pries

Readings:

Course Reader

Course Description
Provides an understanding of the teaching methods used in French 3 and 4, to help instructors effectively implement techniques specifically designed for the French language classroom at Berkeley. French 303 provides a forum for discussing issues in language pedagogy, and experience in creating and adapting instructional materials and designing tests for use in the UC Berkeley French language program. Also provides training in webdesign and preparation for the job market. One two-hour meeting per week.

Prerequisites: French 301 and 302.

Additional information: This course is required for all GSIs teaching French 3 or 4 for the first time in the Berkeley French Department.