COURSES
Not all advanced courses are offered every year. Students wishing to
major or minor in French should plan their program in consultation with
the department.
* = Pre-1800
# = Francophone
+ = Culture/civilization
FREN 001B-002B, 003B Intensive French
Students who start in the 00lB-002B sequence must complete 002B to receive credit for 001B.
For students who begin French in college. Designed to impart an active command of the language. Combines the study of grammar with intensive oral practice, writing, and readings in literary and expository prose.
1.5 credits.
FREN 001B, fall 2003. Netter, Cherel.
FREN 002B, spring 2004. Yervasi, Netter, Cherel.
FREN 003B, fall 2003. Blanchard, Cherel.
FREN 004. Advanced French: Nouvelles Voix Françaises
Transformations in French culture, literature, and society will be explored through literary texts as well as films, television programs, and the press. Particular attention will be paid to perfecting analytical skills in written and spoken French.
1 credit.
Fall 2003. Netter.
Spring 2004. Netter
FREN 004A. French Conversation
A 0.5-credit conversation course concentrating on the development of the students’ ability to speak French. May be repeated once for credit.
Prerequisite: For students presently or previously in FREN 004 or the equivalent Placement Test score.
0.5 credit.
Fall 2003 and spring 2004. Cherel.
FREN 012C. Cultures française et francophone+, #
Prerequisite: FREN 004, a score of 675 on the College Entrance Examination or 5 on the Advanced Placement (AP) Exam, or the equivalent with special permission.
Primary distribution course. 1 credit.
Spring 2004. Anyinefa
FREN 012C. Literature and Culture of Québec#,+
The topics discussed (the 1960s revolution in Montréal; nationalism, language laws, and ethnic minorities; the queer writings of Michel Tremblay and Nicole Brossard) will also allow us to define key concepts for the study of literary texts within a cultural context.
Prerequisite: FREN 004, a score of 675 on the College Entrance Examination or 5 on the AP Exam, or the equivalent with special permission.
Primary distribution course. 1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 012L. Introduction à l’analyse littéraire
Close reading of various texts (poetry, theater, and prose) from and beyond the Hexagon as an introduction to the central concepts and modes of literature and literary analysis in French.
Prerequisite: FREN 004, a score of 675 on the College Entrance Examination or 5 on the AP Exam, or the equivalent with permission.
Primary distribution course. 1 credit.
Fall 2003. Blanchard
Spring 2004. Rice-Maximim
Note: 012L or 012C is required to take any other French literature or culture courses.
FREN 022. Le Cinéma français: Le Cinéma de la ville
The history of French cinema is closely enmeshed with the development of the city. Films use the city to create setting, mood, tone and style but also to represent and re-imagine the changing urban spaces in which actions occur. We will examine a history of the French cinematic representations of the city in the culture of the modern urban. This course will focus on film aesthetics and close analysis of film texts.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 023. Topics in French Civilization #,+
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 024. Mysticisme et littérature maghrébine
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 025. Introduction to the Francophone World #,+
Introductory course to Francophone studies examines the French-speaking world and the historical relations among francophone countries. Close attention will be paid to Africa, the East, and their encounters with the West.
1 credit.
Spring 2004. Yervasi
FREN 028. Francophone Cinema: Configurations of Space in Postcolonial Cinema (Cross-listed as LITR 028F)
We will examine historical and social displacement and mobility through narrative technique and themes in West African cinema. Films engage contemporary issues of diasporic cultures, immigration, and politics as they allow us to question the representations of space and mapping; sex and mobility; class and geography; violence, national identity, and desire. Discussions will center on both metaphorical and physical displacement.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 030. Topics in 17th- and 18th-Century Literature: L’invention de la modernité féminine en France *
By reading two plays from the works of Molière, a selection of texts pertaining to controversies on the role of women in society, and then examining three iconic figures of the early modern woman (the mystic, the witch, and the shepherdess), we will first locate the gendered conception of knowledge that prevails at the origins of modernity. We will continue our investigation into the cultural history of women by studying how women writers, notably in novels, conversations, letters, fairy tales, and historical memoirs, defined a literary space that helped them in challenging the status quo. Reading materials will include texts from Madame de Lafayette, Madame de Sévigné, and Diderot.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 033. Le Monde francophone: fictions d’enfance #,+ (Cross-listed with Black Studies)
Study of the experiences of French-speaking peoples as reflected in various coming-of-age literary texts by Zobel, Condé, Ferraoun, Lefêvre, Carrier, Oyono, and so forth.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 036. Poésies d’écritures françaises #,* (Cross-listed with Black Studies)
A thematic study of poetry with an emphasis on both pre-18th-century hexagonal and contemporary African and Caribbean authors.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 037. La Ville occidentale dans la littérature francophone#
1 credit.
Fall 2003. Anyinefa
FREN 040. Théâtre francais: Pouvoir et résistance *, + (Cross-listed with Interpretation Theory)
The course will explore the works of Molière and Voltaire, among others, to provide a genealogy of the French Revolution.
1 credit.
Spring 2004. Blanchard.
FREN 060. Le Roman du 19e Siècle
A study of the main themes and technical innovations in narrative fiction as it reflects an age of great sociopolitical change. Based primarily on novels of Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, and Zola.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 061. Odd Couplings: Writing and Reading Across Gender Lines
A comparative study of texts by men and women interrogates the role played by gender-identity construction in writing and reading.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 062. Le Romantisme
The trauma of the Revolution of 1789 gave birth to the individual even as it put the very concept of individual agency into question. We will interrogate the theater, poetry, and prose of this period as imaginary, sometimes almost magical, solutions to cultural, political, and personal dislocations.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 065. Poésie de la modernité de Baudelaire aux Surréalistes
Poetic texts of the 19th/20th centuries will be our guide to analyses of the phenomenon of urban modernity and of poetic vision at key historical moments. The study of poems, historical documents, photography, and film will help establish connections between poetic writing and other arts. Students will improve their written and oral expression in French as they develop a writing practice.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 066. Mode, modernité, littérature
Based on works by 18th- and 19th-century authors (including a novel by Emile Zola, poems by Baudelaire, fashion journalism, and historical documents on costumes), our inquiry will define how French fashions and tastes reveal the relation between texts, economic realities, and gender in the age of the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 067. Twentieth-Century French Theater: Reading and Performance
This course focuses on the study of French theatre and performance. Topics include re-writings of classical models; allegories of war; explorations of sexual, racial, ethnic identities and of such leading philosophies as existentialism and surrealism; and new forms of dramatic expressions and theatrical experience. Readings will include plays and essays by Anouilh, Artaud, Beckett, Cixous, Cocteau, Genet, Ionesco, and Sartre.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 070F. Caribbean and French Civilizations and Cultures #,* (Cross-listed with Black Studies and as LITR 070F)
Study of the history of the French overseas departments with collateral readings of literary texts.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 071F. French Critical Theory: From Foucault to Baudrillard (Cross-listed as LITR 071F and with Interpretation Theory)
An introduction to the major thinkers of post-modernity (Barthes, Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, and Baudrillard). We will read at the crossroads of literature, philosophy, history of science and art to examine how the question of visual perception and representation has informed the critique of traditional conceptions of the textual sign. Taught in English.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 072. Le Roman du 20e Siècle: Women in the Literary Field
In this in-depth study of the novel in France, we look at how women’s writing in the literary field participates in and reflects the changing cultural and sociopolitical movements throughout the century. Topics will include gender representation, social constructions of femininity, and theories of feminisms. Readings will be drawn from the works of Colette, Simone de Beauvoir, Charlotte Delbo, Assia Djebar, Marguerite Duras, Christiane Rochefort, Françoise Sagan, Nathalie Sarraute, Leila Sebbar, and Monique Wittig.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 073. Roman et cinéma: Revolutionizing Everyday Life
In this course, we will focus on French novels and films as they reflect, reinforce, and critique French society from the early 1950s through the end of the 1960s. We will study fiction and film in relation to modernization, decolonization, and the growing discontent of youth culture in 1960s with theoretical guidance from Henri Lefebvre and the Situationnistes. Close readings of fiction and films will allow us to draw conclusions about the relationship of new cultural movements—consumer culture, radical political movements, youth culture, and the women’s movement—to France and French society.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 074F. Desire and Displacement (Cross-listed with Interpretation Theory as INTP 091 and as LITR 074F.)
What is your desire? Where did it come from? Where is it going? This course examines the intersection of desire and displacement as elaborated in philosophical, psychoanalytical and theoretical thought.
1 credit.
Spring 2004. Axel and Yervasi.
FREN 075F. Haïti, the French Antilles, and Guyane in Translation (Cross-listed as LITR 075F and with Black Studies)
Study of literary texts and their rewri[gh]ting of the local colonial history.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 075F. French Language Attachment to Haïti, the French Antilles, and Guyane in Translation
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 076. Ecritures au féminin# (Cross-listed with Black Studies and Women’s Studies)
A study of the work of women from Africa, the Caribbean, France, and Québec. Material will be drawn from diverse historical periods and genres.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 077. Prose Francophone: littérature et société# (Cross-listed with Black Studies)
Close readings and discussions of works from the first and the new generations of writers from the Francophone world. Topics will include the impact of the oral tradition, aesthetics, politics, and the role of the writer.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 078. Théâtre et société+ (Cross-listed with Black Studies)
Close examination of plays and their staging from and beyond the Hexagon.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 079. Scandal in the Ink: Queer Traditions in French Literature (Cross-listed as LITR 079F)
In this course, we will use contemporary lesbian/gay/queer theory to reconsider French literary tradition(s). Writers will include Nicole Brossard, Colette, Michel Foucault, Jean Genet, André Gide, Hervé Guibert, Guy Hocquenghem, Violette Leduc, Marcel Proust, and Monique Wittig. Christiane Rochefort and Renée Vivien, among others.
1 credit.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 091. Special Topics:
1 credit.
Fall 2003. Staff.
FREN 093. Directed Reading
SEMINARS
FREN 102. Baroque Culture and Literature: The Comic World of Molière* (Cross-listed with Interpretation Theory)
The seminar is designed to acquaint students with the major works of Molière and 17th-century French culture. We will investigate his political relationship with Louis XIV at Versailles, the discourse on early modern feminism of the précieuses and femmes savantes; the critique of religious hypocrisy, and the influence of early modern notions of anthropology (most notably medicine) on Molière’s representation of identity. These aspects will be brought forward through close attention to the poetics of comedy and court spectacles.
2 credits.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 104. Stendhal et Flaubert
2 credits.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 105. Proust
2 credits.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 106. Poésie symboliste: Autour de Mallarmé
Centering on Mallarmé’s poetry, critical essays and society, we will examine the Parisian literary avant-garde in late 19th century. Readings will include the work of other poets within the Parnassian, symbolist, and decadent movements.
2 credits.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 108. Le Roman du 20e siècle: Modern and Contemporary Novels
From realism to the nouveau roman to experimental writing, from Proust to Pennac, this course looks at the interconnections between novels and history, visual culture, and theoretical questions of representation. Discussion will center on thematic developments of these intersections, and readings will be taken from a wide selection of writers from throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
2 credits.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 109. Le Romantisme
The trauma of the Revolution of 1789 gave birth to the individual even as it put the very concept of individual agency into question. We will interrogate the theater, poetry, and prose of this period as imaginary, sometimes almost magical, solutions to cultural, political, and personal dislocations. Particular attention will be paid to questions of gender and power.
2 credits.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 110. Histoires d’îles+
Through the study of poetry, prose, theatre, non-fictional texts and films from and about the French Antilles, Guyane and Haïti, we will examine the re-wri(gh)ting of the French colonial narratives by authors such as A. and I. Césaire, L-G. Damas, G. Dambury, E. Glissant, D. Maximin, Monchoachi, E. Ollivier, X. Orville, S. Schwarz-Bart, Marie Vieux, etc.... Topics discussed will include: the impact of the historical, political, cultural and social revolutions on the local communities and the former colonial power, the poetics of memory, the styles used to translate the complexity of the new Caribbean consciousness, the dialogues with Africa, America and the West, among others. Note that there will be a conference on March 20th on "Poétiques du monde francophone: discours et contre-discours / Discourse and Counter Discourse: Poetics of the Francophone World". Authors and critics of some of the films and works discussed in the seminar, and in the other French courses taught in the section in the spring, will be present. The day will end with a performance of some of the works of fiction read during the semester in the French literature courses.
2 credits.
Spring 2004. Rice-Maximim.
FREN 111. Espaces francophones #,+
2 credits.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 112. Ecritures francophones: fiction et histoire dans le monde francophone#,+ (Cross-listed with Black Studies)
Historical and literary examination of texts from Africa, the Caribbean, and Vietnam.
2 credits.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 113. Voyage et littérature
Through a study of French and Francophone texts, we will examine the relationship between literature and travel in terms of physical and spiritual journeys: whether it is a march toward humanity or one toward inhumanity, the adventure often both involves a loss of self and a search for knowledge.
2 credits.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 114. Théâtre d’écritures françaises+ (Cross-listed with Black Studies)
A close examination of plays in French, from and beyond the Hexagon. Topics discussed will include representation of collective consciousness, myths and politics in post/neocolonial situations, theater and therapy, rituals and subversion, the different theatrical texts, and staging.
2 credits.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 115. Paroles de femmes# (Cross-listed with Black Studies and Women’s Studies)
Close reading of texts of women writers from Africa, France, the French Antilles, and Vietnam. Love relationships being one common theme, we will particularly focus on their cultural, feminist, aesthetical, and literary differences, among others.
2 credits.
Not offered 2003-2004.
FREN 116. La Critique littéraire: Racine, Rousseau, Baudelaire, Proust
This seminar’s first and principal goal is to foster a direct and in-depth discussion of the works of four major figures of French literature. Readings include: Racine’s Phédre, the autobiography of Rousseau titled Les Confessions, Baudelaire’s poetic masterpiece Les Fleurs du mal, and the first tome of A la Recherche du temps perdu. Also, we will define the principal strands of thought in French literary criticism by supplementing the core readings with a selection of crucial studies on these four authors.
2 credits.
Fall 2003. Blanchard.
FREN 180. Thesis
FREN 199. Senior Honors Study
* = Pre-1800
# = Francophone
+ = Culture/civilization