Language Courses | R&C Courses | Upper-Division Courses
Language
Elementary French, first semester (Summer Session C -- 8 weeks)
1
Summer 2019
R. Kaur
I
Readings:
Chez nous: Branché sur le monde francophone, Media Enhanced 4th edition; Chez nous: Branché sur le monde francophone, Student activities manual, Media Enhanced 4th edition; Chez nous: Branché sur le monde francophone, Answer Key, Media Enhanced 4th edition; Recommended: Morton, English Grammar for Students of French
Course Description:
Introduction to Francophone cultures through speaking, listening, reading, and writing in French, with French as the exclusive means of communication. Emphasis is placed on developing student ability to create and to communicate with basic French structures and vocabulary. Linguistic and cultural competency is developed through oral exercises, individual and collaborative reports, class discussions, and the use of various media resources. Reading and writing are developed through both in-class and independent reading projects using the French Department Library, as well as through compositions and other written assignments. The program integrates all aspects of foreign language study through a process-oriented approach in compliance with ACTFL‘s Oral Proficiency and the 5Cs of the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning for the 21st Century. Cultural competency is also reinforced by exposure to French and Francophone worlds through various oral/aural exercises, written assignments, film clips and various media resources. The students will gain a historical perspective on French and Francophone cultures.
Prerequisites/Placement:
No previous French experience required. This course is also appropriate for students with one quarter of college-level French, 2 years of high school French, or less. For additional placement information please see Lower Division Placement Guidelines.
Additional information:
All sections are conducted entirely in French.
Elementary French, second semester
2
Summer 2019
L. Dixon
Readings:
Chez nous: Branché sur le monde francophone, Media Enhanced 4th edition; Chez nous: Branché sur le monde francophone, Student activities manual, Media Enhanced 4th edition; Chez nous: Branché sur le monde francophone, Answer Key, Media Enhanced 4th edition; Recommended: Morton, English Grammar for Students of French
Course Description:
Continuing development of students’ knowledge of fundamental structures of French, awareness of Francophone cultures, and their appropriate socio-linguistic application in both spoken and written communication. Class conducted entirely in French. Speaking ability is developed through oral exercises, individual and collaborative reports, class discussions and debates. Reading and writing are developed through both in-class and independent reading projects using the French Department Library, compositions and various written assignments. Students are introduced to French analytical writing through an exploration of various topics relating to contemporary French and Francophone societies. The course also includes the reading of authentic literature in the form of a modern play. The program integrates all aspects of foreign language study through a process-oriented approach in compliance with ACTFL‘s Oral Proficiency and the 5Cs of the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning for the 21st Century. Cultural competency is also reinforced through individual oral reports, class debates on issues affecting contemporary world societies, and the use of appropriate media resources including radio and television news, film clips, and cultural programs. Students will have the opportunity to do comparative studies on French and American cultures in terms of both personal and national identity. The class meets five days a week; it is conducted entirely in French; plan on daily oral and written exercises.
Prerequisites/Placement:
French 1 at UC Berkeley or 1 semester (or 2 quarters) of college-level French at another university or 3 years of high school French or consent of the instructor. For additional placement information please see Lower Division Placement Guidelines.
Additional information:
All sections are conducted entirely in French.
Intermediate French (Summer Session C -- 8 weeks)
3
Summer 2019
P. Lyons
Readings:
Required: Réseau: Communication, Intégration, Intersections, 2nd Edition, Pearson (Textbook, Student activities manual, and Answer key, access to My French Lab, and complimentary Oxford New French Dictionary); select outside readings
Please note: All of the required material (textbook, student activities manual, answer key and MyFrenchLab) will be available in package form at the Cal Student Store. In most cases, purchasing a package turns out to be cheaper than buying the components separately. Oxford New French Dictionary included in package.
Recommended: Morton, English Grammar for Students of French
Course Description:
This course is conducted in French. This is an intermediate language and culture class that aims to consolidate and expand the skills of listening comprehension, speaking, reading and writing in French. The course aims to promote cross-cultural understanding through the use of authentic materials such as literary and journalistic texts, multimedia, film, pop songs, and television/radio broadcasts, and other cultural artifacts. We will explore various topics such as self and family, education, human relationships, traditions, politics, and national identities, and compare American and other perceptions to those of the French and francophone world in whole class discussion, small groups and other collaborative formats. In addition to a review and refinement of grammar and vocabulary in a culturally rich context, students also experiment with their written expression through different formats, including analytical essays, journals, creative writing and independent projects using the Internet.
Prerequisites/Placement:
For students with one of the following: 4 years of high school French; a passing grade in French 2 at UC Berkeley; 2nd or 3rd semester college French; 3rd or 4th-quarter college French; a 3 on the AP French exam. For additional placement information please see Lower Division Placement Guidelines.
Additional information:
All sections are conducted entirely in French.
Advanced Intermediate French (Summer Session C -- 8 weeks)
4
Summer 2019
V. Rodic
Readings:
Réseau: Communication, Intégration, Intersections, 2nd Edition, Pearson (Textbook, Student activities manual, and Answer key); Jean-Paul Sartre, Huis-clos, (Gallimard, 2000). ISBN-10: 2070368076 and ISBN-13: 978-2070368075; selected outside readings
Recommended: My French Lab access; Morton, English Grammar for Students of French
The program uses the second edition only. All of the required materials (textbook, student activities manual, answer key and MyFrenchLab) will be available in package form at the Cal Student Store. In most cases, purchasing a package turns out to be cheaper than buying the components separately. Oxford New French Dictionary is included in package.
Recommended: Morton, English Grammar for Students of French
Course Description:
This course is conducted entirely in French. French 4 is an advanced intermediate language and culture class that aims to refine the skills acquired in French 3 or equivalent courses and to enhance students’ familiarity with French and Francophone literature. Emphasis is placed on the strengthening of oral and written expression in order to promote linguistic and cultural competences through an extensive grammar review and exploration of texts, visual and audio sources, multi-media, and other cultural artifacts. Topics covered include immigration and multiculturalism, France’s relations with other countries in Europe and around the world, Francophone cultures, identity, politics, the arts, and film. Various genres and visual and written forms are covered, including short stories, plays, poems, and films, studied in their literary and cultural contexts (history, philosophy, music, art). Throughout the semester, students share ideas in collaborative small groups and whole class discussion, continue to work on independent projects using the Internet, and explore new formats for writing in French, including expository writing, journalistic and creative writing activities, as well as visual and textual analysis in French.
Prerequisites/Placement:
For students with one of the following: a passing grade in French 3 at UC Berkeley; 4th-semester or 5th-quarter college French; a 4 or 5 on the AP French exam. For additional placement information please see Lower Division Placement Guidelines.
Additional information:
All sections are conducted entirely in French.
Reading and Composition (R&C)
A History of French Cinema Before the New Wave
R1B (Section 1) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation (Summer Session D -- 6 weeks)
Summer 2019
T. Blakeney
Readings/Films:
Directors treated include Jean Epstein, Germaine Dulac, René Clair, Jean Vigo, Jean Renoir, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Marcel Carné, Jean Cocteau, Max Ophüls, Agnès Varda, Roger Vadim, and René Clément. We will also look at influential English-language films by Otto Perminger and Alfred Hitchcock, and do comparative studies with certain New Wave films by Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut.
Course Description:
The history of French cinema has heavily weighted the New Wave as the beginning of cinematic modernity. The New Wave is the moment at which many critics see cinema moving from a popular form to a truly artistic one.
This class will explore the often disregarded “pre-modernity” of French cinema, from the era of impressionistic silent film of the 1920s to the so-called “cinema de qualité” of the 1940s and 1950s. We will analyze these films on their own merits, but we will also challenge the critical distinctions between popular and high art that the popular New Wave interpretation has imposed on many of these films. How has the derisive attitude of the influential New Wave directors impacted the way critics have seen these earlier films? How was the attitude of the male New Wave directors toward the more “feminine” cinema de qualité influenced by gendered and homophobic attitudes, and what value can we now find in this “feminine” cinema?
Additional information:
French R1B fulfills the second half of the Reading and Composition Requirement in the College of Letters and Science. Class conducted in ENGLISH.
Revolutionary Women
R1B (Section 2) : English Composition through French Literature in Translation (Summer Session D -- 6 weeks)
Summer 2019
T. Sanders
Readings/Films:
Writing Analytically, 8th edition
Olympe de Gouges, Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen
Mary Wollstonecraft, Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark
Isabelle de Charrière, Three Women
Germaine de Staël, Corinne, or Italy
Claire de Duras, Ourika
George Sand, Indiana
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818 text)
Course Description:
In this course, we will read female writers whose works forcefully articulate the concerns of women during a time of revolution.
The iconic Storming of the Bastille took place on July 14, 1789, yet suffrage would not extend to French women until 1944. In fact, although women played a decisive role in the fall of the Ancien Régime, the following years saw startling setbacks for women, culminating in the establishment of the Napoleonic Code in 1804, which affirmed and strengthened the legal right of men to control the lives of women.
As these events unfolded, a number of remarkable women took to the pen and wrote eloquently to their moment, pleading not only for their own rights, but also for the abolition of slavery. Moreover, they challenged social and literary conventions and intervened thoughtfully in the key political, philosophical, and aesthetic debates that would shape modern Europe. We will explore the literary genres, modes, and movements in which they operated, including the conte philosophique, the sentimental tradition, epistolarity, travel literature, Gothic aesthetics, and Romanticism; and we will reflect critically on their relation to history and politics.
Additional information:
RIB is intended to introduce students to, and develop their skills in‚ research-based literary analysis. To this end, we will work on interpreting literature; producing close readings; developing solid literary arguments; understanding literary and critical theory; conducting and presenting outside research; and analyzing and critiquing theoretical work in class discussions and written assignments.
French R1B fulfills the second half of the Reading and Composition Requirement in the College of Letters and Science. Class conducted in ENGLISH.
Upper-Division Courses
Negotiating Alterity and Identity in Franco-American Encounters
42AC : Cultures of Franco-America (Summer Session D -- 6 weeks)
Summer 2019
E. Linares
Readings/Films:
Course Description:
In his travel essay “Equal in Paris,” James Baldwin writes of the French, “I did not know what they saw when they looked at me. I knew very well what Americans saw when they looked at me.”
In this course, we will explore the politics of identity and representation in the long history of contact between the French in North America and Americans in France. In our close readings of a wide range of literary and cultural texts—including novels, poetry, and short stories—produced in the context of Franco-American encounters, we will trace the formation of “race.” Our analyses will attend to variant ways of constructing otherness in Franco-American and Anglo-American approaches to racialization.
In addition to literary texts written 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; theoretical texts on “race”; historical, ethnographic, and political writings; research on language and identity; and popular cultural forms such as music, comic strips, films, news articles, and television programs.
Additional Information:
Satisfies American Cultures requirement.
Course taught in English. Knowledge of French not required.
Students are encouraged to procure the Course Reader in advance of the first class meeting in order to complete introductory readings.
Form and Function -- French and Francophone Literature through a Linguistic Lens
121A : Literary Themes, Genres, Structures (Summer Session D -- 6 weeks)
Summer 2019
Elyse Ritchey
Readings/Films:
See Description.
Course Description:
Linguists have often used literary texts as valuable sources of information about written and spoken norms, the social factors that inform language practices, and the evolution of languages over time. In turn, literary scholars have enriched their own work with ideas based in linguistic thought, from the study of stylistics to theories in linguistic anthropology.
In this course, we will analyze literary works in French by using resources from linguistics. Among the matters that we will investigate are the ways in which authors portray class and gender through language, how voice is attributed to characters, and how poets harness sound and structure to create melody and meaning. The class will take up literary works from a variety of genres, dating from the medieval to the present day. Students will gain a deeper appreciation of the expressive resources of the French language as well as of the ways in which linguistic transgressions shape literature. Works we will study include Marivaux’s Le jeu de l’amour et du hasard, Chrétien de Troyes’s Le chevalier de la charrette, and Ionesco’s La cantatrice chauve, along with a variety of shorter texts and poems.
Prerequisites:
French 102 or consent of Instructor.
Additional Information:
Satisfies 1 “Literaure/Genre” or 1 “Elective” course requirement in French major; satisfies one “Historical Period” requirement in French major; satisfies 1 course requirement in French minor. Satisfies Letters and Science breadth requirement in Arts and Literature or International Studies.