I propose to present a course I'll be teaching at Middlebury College this Fall for the first time. The course is geared toward undergraduate students in French at the advanced level (typically in their third or fourth year at Middlebury). In addition to presenting the syllabus, I'd be happy to discuss some of the challenges and successes encountered in teaching the course. In light of the explicitly "diverse" nature of the course, I believe it would be of interest to those attending the conference.

Course title: Imagined Communities in Modern French Fiction

Course description: We will examine imagined communities as they are portrayed in a variety of modern (post-1789) French and Francophone novels in which the association of individuals of distinct social, ethnic, racial and national origins engenders innovative forms of partnership. Whether the work discusses the encounter of Breton wanderer and Parisian revolutionary (Hugo), aristocratic monk and indigent peasant (Sand), Muslim boy and Jewish step-mother (Gary), Quebecois adolescent and Indian lover (Lalonde), Canadian expatriate and Algerian exile (Huston / Sebbar), each explores how characters of diverse backgrounds collaborate in the creation of new cultural practices.

Readings may include:
Victor Hugo: Quantre-vingt-treize (excerpts)
George Sand: Nanon
Michel Tournier: Vendredi, ou les limbes du Pacifique
Robert Lalonde: Le dernier été des indiens
Leïla Sebbar and Nancy Huston: Lettres parisiennes
Romain Gary: La vie devant soi
Sijie Dai: Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise