• FOL 5934-01 French and Italian Renaissance
• FOL 5934-03 Post-Colonial Cultures in France
• FRE 5060 Graduate Reading Knowledge in French
• FRE 5900 Second Language Acquisition
• FRE 6925-01 Tutorial in Professional Issues
• FRE 6925-02 Focused Reading
• FRE 6925-03 Lecture Series
• FRW 5598 Studies in 20th Century Pre-War French Literature
• FRW 5745 French Literature of Québec : Introduction to Québec Literature

The Renaissance is a period of profound reconsideration of the place of the human being in its surrounding society. In an intense and fascinating convergence of Christian and Classical traditions, the Renaissance humanists and poets sought to define a new kind of individual, which is traditionally associated with our idea of ‘modernity’ (hence « early modern » as an alternative name for this period), but which is really a complex product of old and new. At the same time, in its questioning of moral, socio-political, literary and religious issues, Renaissance humanism also rejected dogmatism and felt the need to cover the complexities of human society in a variety of voices in debate. The humanist dialogues, literary texts which stage several interlocutors debating issues of the time, and other ‘open’ forms such as novella and poetry collections, are therefore crucial for our understanding of the humanist way of thinking and will be our main focus in this course. In this period, the Italian-French axis cannot be emphazised enough. Although Italy is traditionally considered the cradle of the Renaissance, the movement of European humanism is profoundly indebted to Franco-Italian cultural interactions. In this sense, this course will also explore the ‘dialogue’ between the Italian and French Renaissance.

In texts by humanists and poets such as Petrarch, Bruni, Alberti, Castiglione, Erasmus, Marguerite de Navarre, Du Bellay, Labé and Montaigne, we will study the way in which these authors imitate and emulate Classical authors in rhetoric and poetry, and analyze in depth the central questions of their ‘civic humanism’ : the humanist concern with the individual in its surrounding socio-political, literary and religious universe (the city-republic, the court, the academy, the family, marital life, etc.). This course will also focus on the place of woman and, to a lesser extent, the role of female authors, in this early modern humanism. The main objectives of the course will be : 1) to convey a sense of the originality and the innovative thought of the humanist debates, 2) to understand how these texts both reinterpret the past and form the basis of a 'modern' way of thinking, and 3) to gain a better understanding of the role of literary form in the shaping of early modern thought, e.g. the power of (vernacular) language, the interplay between rhetoric and poetry, the dynamics of dialogue, and the ‘poetics’ of the Renaissance novella.

This course will be thematic in nature, so that in each session we will combine and discuss texts from both the Italian and French Renaissance.

Taught in English, all readings in English translation, though texts will be available as much as possible in the Italian and French originals. All student work, such as midterm and final papers and weekly e-mailed reader responses, must be written in the student’s ‘target language’ (i.e. French or Italian).

International migration from former colonies has brought a new cultural vibrancy to France. This course focuses on the hybrid cultural practices being forged in France by new generations of writers, film-makers and musicians mixing elements from African, Caribbean, French, American and other sources. Particular attention is given to artists emerging from among France’s largest post-colonial minority, whose origins lie in the Maghreb, i.e. the North African states of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. The course is taught in French, their main language of statement. It explores their participation in a variety of cultural spaces and seeks to identify the extent to which these new voices are being marginalized or incorporated into the mainstream of French culture. Among the works studied are novels, films and television shows by writers and directors such as Azouz Begag, Mehdi Charef, Farida Belghoul and Yamina Benguigui. Azouz Begag will be in residence at FSU during the semester, and students will have the opportunity to meet with him. They will also be able to attend an international conference on Begag as well as a screening of the film adaptation of his novel, Le Gone du Chaâba.

Designed to present structures of the French language and vocabulary to prepare graduate students majoring in other disciplines to read learned journals, books, and monographs written in French useful for the student's research in humanities, natural or social sciences.

This course will serve as an introduction to the theories and research associated with second language acquisition (SLA). Why are adults generally unsuccessful language learners as compared to children (or are they?)? In this course, students will become familiar with the major research issues, both theoretical and empirical in nature, of this growing field. The goal of this research is to identify the principles and processes that govern second language learning and use. Study of this research will enable us to identify important factors in SLA as we seek to understand their impact on language learning. Topics to be discussed include but are not limited to: orders of acquisition, variability in learner language, input/output, social, cognitive, and affective factors affecting acquisition, naturalistic vs. tutored SLA, and language pedagogy. We will read both primary and secondary sources, including readings from The Study of Second Language Acquisition (Ellis, 1994), and engage in class discussions to enhance our understanding of SLA.

The course will introduce students to issues relevant to their professional and academic development, including library research and technology, time management, the MA examination process and the job interview process.

This one credit course will involve participation in eight qualifying lectures or conference presentations, to be chosen by the student from the following options: the Film and Literature conference, the Winthrop-King Institute of Contemporary French and Francophone Studies events, the Modern Languages Department Spring Colloquium, job candidate lectures and other approved campus-wide lectures. Coordinator: Brenda Cappuccio.

This course will emphasize texts that signal the new and at times contradictory tendencies in twentieth-century France's literary, visual, and in one instance, cinematic culture. We will begin with Marcel Proust's Un Amour de Swann which establishes one of the century's enduring ironies: the coupling of a classical prose style with a most untraditional sense of what constitutes social and private reality. Alfred Jarry's Ubu roi announces powerfully, if imperfectly, a rupture with the nineteenth century, and sacrosanct notions of aesthetic bienséance. If Jarry's revolt was personal and idiosyncratic, World War I gave anger a socially acceptable dimension for many. The surrealists enthusiastically participated in this reaction against bourgeois propriety, and in doing so demonstrated that an uneasy combination of Freud, leftist politics, artistic experimentation and sheer silliness could occasionally manage to produce enduring works of literary and visual imagination. While André Breton was churning out manifestoes proclaiming revolutions of varying coherence, Colette was quietly writing about women in love, even if the love was of the sort one dared not name. André Gide certainly named it in L'Immoraliste, and even if the word never appears in the novel, homosexuality became a legitimate motif in "serious" literature. Yet, if sexuality is a concern for both Colette and Gide, why, we must wonder, is French literature between the wars so uni-sexual? Where did all the women writers go?

The politically charged 1930s and the war that followed produced much that was new, and even more that appeared new. Sartre's Le Mur provides us the occasion to look at the recycled Romanticism known as existentialism, but along with it, the rise of Marxist theory, the intellectual ramifications of the Cold War, and the historical importance of structuralism. To do justice to the literature and art emerging in the immediate aftermath of World War II, we will cheat a little, and cover some texts that postdate the war. Camus's L'Etranger is not one of them, but a Foucauldian reading of this novel will allow us to look at one of France's most prominent theorists. Also, if Jarry's theater at the beginning of the century was widely viewed as absurd, we might just discover better versions of what he attempted to do in the Theater of the Absurd, which Beckett's Fin de Partie will represent for us. The course will end with an excursion into the dominant art form of the twentieth century. Jules et Jim is a film whose storyline spans the two world wars, and permits us to discuss briefly the visual revolution that movies produced. It will also provide us with some sense of the new, postwar sensibility.

Poetry and tales are at the true beginnings of literature in the province of Québec. Octave Crémazie, a poet, is the leading figure around 1860 of what will be inappropriately called later « the Patriotic School of Québec. » The novel around 1860 consists mostly of historical or adventure stories. Laure Conan in Angélie de Montbrun is probably the first novelist to analyze the psychological impacts of historical events on her characters. This course opens on a novel by a Frenchman who migrated to Canada in 1911, Louis Hénon’s Maria Chapdelaine. First published by installments in France, and as a book in Canada, it is still considered a masterpiece of regionalist Canadian literature. It was later published in book form in France in 1921, and was immediately successful and translated into all major languages of the world. Québec authorities names two lakes of the region Hémon and Chapdelaine in honor of the author. A film was made which will be shown in this class. The next novel, Bonheur d’occasion by Gabrielle Roy is an excellent example of the new Québec literature, free of European influences. The novel, published in 1945, received the Femina Prize in 1947. We will read five more modern novels, three recent plays and analyze several poems starting with Crémazie. Three films will be shown.