FRE 3420 French Grammar & Composition I

Prerequisite FRE 2200 or its equivalent. An in-depth study of French grammar emphasizing some subtleties of written expression. (Sample Syllabus)

 

FRE 3421French Grammar & Composition II

Prerequisite FRE 3420 or its equivalent. Further study of the subtleties of written expression in the French language.
(Sample Syllabus)

 

FRW 3100 French Literature from Origins to the 18th Century

This course is a survey of French literature from the Middle Ages through the Seventeenth Century. The course aims at acquainting the student with the major genres and movements of each period, while perfecting his/her command of written and spoken French. This course has an important cultural component. Students will view videos (on the medieval cathedral of Chartres and a dramatization of a Molière play) and recent movies (Le Retour de Martin Guerre and Tous les Matins du Monde). Syllabus

 

FRW 4433  William Cloonan
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century French Literature

This course deals with the way the evolutions in French literature over approximately two centuries parallel the evolutions in French society. In the seventeenth century, when France was an absolute monarchy ruled by a king who thought God had appointed him to the task, the predominant literary form was theater. The tragedies (Corneille and Racine) were resolutely heroic and set in distant times and places, while the comedies (Molière) were closer to the experiences of daily life, but in each case the theater came to provide a form of social criticism. Theater was essentially a male domain, and to the extent that women were interested in writing (Madame de Scudéry, Madame de Lafayette), they expressed in the allegedly inferior form of prose fiction.

The eighteenth century witnessed a decline in absolutism and a rise in importance of the bourgeoisie. With the exception of a sort of melodramatic theater associated largely with Diderot, drama declined in importance (although it would experience a renaissance with Beaumarchais on the eve of the French Revolution) and prose fiction and the essay became the lucrative artistic forms. Indeed, the increasing financial viability of prose led men to enter into the field, and by so doing largely push women out of literature and into the salons.

Concomitant with the rise of the bourgeoisie as a social class, was the increased involvement of middle class people, primarily, but not exclusively male, in the intellectual agitation of the century. Loosely grouped together as philosophes (the word is closer in meaning to A political scientist @ than A philosopher @, writers like Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu raised issues about social justice, the nature of a just State, and the meaning of individuality which would play a role in the outbreak and evolution/devolution of the French Revolution.      

This course will discuss the correlation between literature and society as it manifested itself in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While the primary texts will be literary in nature, extensive use will be made of the visual arts of this period in order to develop ideas raised in class discussion.

 

FRE 4500 Civilization of Contemporary France

How do the French throw a dinner party? How do they consider work and leisure? What is the role of the president in French politics? How do you ask someone to go out on a date with you in France? How do the French see the United States? What are the rules of conversation in France? How does immigration change French culture? Etc. These are but a few of the many questions that this course will attempt to answer in an in-depth exploration of contemporary French culture and civilization. This course will consider both culture with a small “c” (everyday life, conversation, popular and youth culture), and culture with a capital “C” (arts, politics, religion, immigration, etc.). Apart from a course book, there will be a wide range of materials to help you grasp the variety of modern French culture: films, web resources, music, newspaper articles, TV and radio-broadcastings, etc. The course will give you an understanding of: a) the evolution of French society since 1968; b) France’s social, religious, political, artistic and technological aspects; c) France in its international context: its role in the European community, the relationship with the US, and its post-colonial identity; and d) this course will facilitate your adaptation to French culture in view of a future stay in France.
Some of the themes that will be studied in the course are:
Daily life of the French, in the city, in the country: work, leisure, sport, housing, holiday, cooking, etc. etc.

• Gender relations in modern French society
• Social layers of the French society
• Immigration and the multi-cultural society
• French ‘manners’: ways of conversing, gestures, « do’s and don’ts » of social interaction, the dynamics of professional, personal, affective and family relationships
• Cultural life: literature, medias, the « intellos », the difference between popular and high culture
• Religious life
• The institutions of France: politics, the “état social”, the European Union
• The US as seen by the French
• France’s economy: technology, centralization and decentralization

 

FRE 4930.02 FRE 5900.02 Professor Alec G Hargreaves
Media and Minority in France

The mass media play a major role in both reporting and shaping relations between majority and minority ethnic groups. In France, immigrant groups from former colonies, most notably the North African states of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, have attracted huge media coverage especially with the growing visibility of Islam. Drawing on first-hand sources such as television, newspapers, cinema and the internet, this course focuses on three key aspects of the relationship between these minorities and the media in France: representation, production and reception. In examining media representations, we consider how far the dominant media may be said to construct one-sided or misleading images of minority groups. It is often said that misrepresentations can only be corrected through the participation of minorities in the production of media outputs. We test these claims by looking at TV programs and other media outputs produced by professionals of minority ethnic origin. Finally, we look at the reception of media outputs by majority and minority audiences, asking how far these audiences are fragmented or united in their patterns of media consumption. The course is taught in French, giving students the opportunity to research at first hand current media outputs in genres such as hard news, documentaries, sit-coms and reality shows. In French



FRE 4930/FRE 5900 Women and War in 20 th Century Literature and Film
Dr. Noémie I. Parrat

In this course we will explore the relation between women and war in two films and in a selection of texts by French and Algerian women writers. We will focus on World War II, on the conflicts between France and its colonies, namely Vietnam and Algeria, and finally on a purely feminist war. We will look at the social function of war in relation to the separation between the sexes. We will also consider the influence of maternity on woman’s role in war and, at the political level, the active or re-active agency of women in relation to decisions on war and peace.
      We will start with World War II and Marguerite Duras’ La Douleur, a journal de guerre on her awaiting her husband’s return from a concentration camp, Simone de Beauvoir’s Le Sang des autres, a novel on the notion of l’engagement existentialiste and the film “Hiroshima mon amour,” the screenplay of which was written by Marguerite Duras. We will then move to Kim Lefèvre’s Métisse blanche, an autobiographical account of a young girl whose father was a French soldier in Vietnam. We will then pay attention to the active role of women during the Algerian conflict with Yamina Mechakra’s La Grotte éclatée and the film “La Bataille d’Alger.” We will end this course by analyzing Monique Wittig’s Les Guérillères, a feminist novel using war as its principal metaphor.
      Critical and theoretical texts pertaining to women and war and to notions of gender will be read in conjunction with the primary literature. This course will be taught in French.