FRE 5900 - Media & Minorities in France – Prof. A. Hargreaves

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. Taught in French.

FRW 5586 Gender and Genre in French Renaissance Literature - Prof. R. Leushuis

Departing from a socio-historical context, this course will examine how literary genre shapes representations of and attitudes toward gender in the French Renaissance. How do specific literary forms, such as love poetry, humanist and courtly dialogue, Renaissance novella, and Montaigne’s essay depict, criticize, idealize, parody, glorify, vilify, etc., the masculine and feminine gender as well the interaction between the sexes as it is variously defined by courtly love, sexuality, friendship, marriage, and religious practices? In our readings, we will focus not only on how the various genres treat these issues, but also on whether and how authors tried to influence society, e.g. through exemplarity.

• This class will be conducted in French and all course work will be written in French.
• Undergraduates: FRW 3100 or FRW 3101 are prerequisite for this class.
• Graduates: this class will cover a majority of works on the MA reading list and thus forms an excellent preparation for your MA exams.
  

 

FRW 5587 - French Culture and Society in the 17 th Century – Prof. W. Cloonan

If theater was the most important art form in 17 th- century France, it is arguably because the notion of theater was a metaphor for society at large. So much of 17 th century life was predicated on show, on displaying oneself to the best possible advantage, on wearing the social mask appropriate to the occasion, and positioning oneself to be the main character in a drama of one’s own creation. An obvious example of the way this self-conscious social theatricality displays itself in 17 th century drama is the frequent use of the “play within a play,” wherein characters deliberately turn to dramatic techniques to resolve dilemmas. The fascination with theater is also apparent in the carefully “staged” paintings of artists like Poussin, as well as in architecture. Long before Mickey and Donald got around to it, French intellectuals had created the first theme park at Versailles. The importance of theater in the seventeenth-century should not, however, allow us to overlook  the incredible variety of activities taking place in other genres which were also considered “literary.” Philosophy was not an exclusively academic pursuit, but an exciting forum for intellectual discussion; sermons were intended to be at once edifying and a form of entertainment. Fairy tales were extremely popular, and the novel was just beginning to assert itself as a major force in French culture.The texts we shall study (see below) will reflect the variety of literary and cultural activities in 17 th-century France as they appear in the theater, prose works, and the visual arts.

1) Corneille, Horace and Illusion comique
2) Molière, Les Précieuses ridicules and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
3) Racine, Bérénice and Iphigénie
4) Descartes, Discours de la méthode. (extraits)
5) Bossuet, Sermon sur la mort
6) Madame de Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves
7) Pascal, Pensées (extraits)
8) Perrault, Selected fairy tales

 

FRW 5599 - French 20 th Century Literature - Memories and Fictions of Childhood– Prof. J. Tarpley

The extremely rapid pace of societal change in the 20th century made it possible for authors to look back upon their childhood from a point of view that seemed very remote.  At the same time, monumental historical events gave urgency to the need to preserve early memories as invaluable témoignages.  Starting from the tension between creative freedom and expectations of veracity, this survey course examines a selection of works from the 20th century (and one from the early 21st century) that present more or less novelistic descriptions of childhood.  Works by Proust, Perec, Camus, Duras, Ernaux, and Jardin will be supplemented by excerpts from other authors, critical readings, films, and attention to historical context.  This course will be taught in French.

 

FOW 5025 - Critical Theory – Prof. A. Boutin

This course introduces major critical theories and their relationship to the reading of world literatures. Some of the critical theories discussed include Formalism, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, Reception and Reader-Response theories, Deconstruction, feminism and theories of Gender, Cultural studies and New Historicism, and Postcolonial and Postmodern theories. The seminar format will enable students to discuss these theories collectively, as well as individually in an independent project.