FRW 5419 Studies in Medieval French Literature: Christine in Context (Grads only)
Dr. Lori Walters
TTh 3:35-4:50
In this graduate seminar we will study how the court poet and political commentator Christine de Pizan (ca. 1364-1430) functioned in a variety of contexts—historical, theological, art historical, poetical, national and supranational. This course will dovetail with the objectives of FSU’s History of Text Technologies Program (HOTT) in foregrounding the manuscript transmission of the texts studied. FRW 5419 will feature a guest lecture by Dr. Anne Coldiron of FSU’s Department of English, who will be offering a course on “The Tudor Christine” in Fall 2010. Christine in Context is offered in English, with most major readings available in English, Modern, and Middle French. A reading knowledge of modern French is desirable, but not required. Students desiring graduate credit in French will have the choice of doing written work in French or in English.
FRW 4433 / 5587 Littérature et société au dix-septième et dix-huitième siècles
Prof. W. Cloonan
MWF 11:15-12:05
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 “political scientist” than “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. Women played an active role in the salons which were the center of intellectual life for most of the century.
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. Taught in French.
FRW 4460 / 5595 Baudelaire et la modernité poétique
Dr. Aimée Boutin
TTh 2:00-3:15
Considered by many to be the father of modern poetry and an undisputed precursor of Modernism, Baudelaire modernized the sonnet, developed the prose poem and wrote important essays (on his contemporaries, on intoxicants, on music), translations (of E. A. Poe) and art criticism. We will examine Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal as well as his Spleen de Paris: Petits poèmes en prose, The Painter of Modern Life and selected essays in their broader literary, historical and critical context, relating the poems to his prose writings, comparing them to his contemporaries’ works and situating them in relation to figurative or critical concepts such as self and other, love and suffering, good and evil, memory and loss, time and space, spleen and ideal, flânerie and modernity. In the words of Claude Pichois, one of the foremost Baudelaire scholars: « L’œuvre de Baudelaire n’est pas une œuvre poétique parmi d’autres ; elle est une révolution, la plus importante de toutes celles qui ont marqué le siècle ; elle décide de ce qui désormais portera à nos yeux les couleurs de la poésie ». Taught in French, with readings available in the original French and in translation.
FRW 5775 Haiti Now: Contemporary Haitian Literature, Film, and Art (Grads only)
Dr Martin Munro
MW 3.35-4.50
Popular images of contemporary Haiti tend to focus on the economic and social problems of the nation. Behind these images lies one of the most sophisticated of all American intellectual and cultural traditions. This course exposes students to some of the most prominent examples of contemporary Haitian literature, art, and film. The aim is to provide students with an insight into the diversity and complexity of Haitian culture as it is now. Lectures will provide information on the historical and political contexts in which the works are being produced, and close readings of the works will reveal the ways in which authors, artists, and filmmakers are engaging with these contexts, whether they are living in Haiti, or overseas. No previous knowledge of Haitian culture is required. In French.
FRE 4930 / 5900 France and Algeria: National and Human Rights (in English)
Dr. Alec Hargreaves
MW 5:15-6:45
This interdisciplinary course examines the political and ideological struggles, which have been at work in relations between France and Algeria from colonial times to the present. Drawing on the work of writers, intellectuals, filmmakers, historians, politicians and activists, the course gives particular attention to the interplay between competing discourses of national and human rights. In advancing rival national claims, how far have French and Algerian political actors justified their positions in terms of human rights? In violent conflicts such as those opposing French and Algerian nationalists, to what extent is it possible to safeguard humanitarian interests? Can terrorism or torture be justified on political or ethical grounds? In the post 9/11 world, what lessons can be learned from the French experience in Algeria with reference to today’s war on terror? These are among the questions studied with reference to a range of printed, audio-visual and electronic documents. The course is taught in English. The core reading and viewing list, in English, is complemented by a supplementary list of materials in French which students competent in that language are encouraged to use. The course may be counted for major or minor credit in French provided the written work is done in French.
Other courses offered by other departments that may of interest:
The Bible and Power in Early Modern Europe: England and France XVIth-XVIIth Centuries
François Dupuigrenet Desroussilles
REL 6298-03 R 2:00-4:45
A large woodcut that represents Henry VIII distributing Bibles to his grateful subjects on the frontispiece of the 1540 “Great Bible” is evidence both of royal intervention in Bible publishing and of the biblical image that the English sovereign wanted to convey. Because printing of this book started in Paris but was halted by Francis I the episode has been routinely mentioned as an example of deeply opposite and almost timeless attitudes towards the Scripture between Reformed England and Catholic France. Recent research has shown on the contrary that during two centuries of almost incessant religious and political conflicts, from the Hundred Year’s War to the War of Spanish Succession, French and English people alike used the Scripture as a guide for religious belief, a set of cultural norms, and a political model, although biblical texts molded very different national identities on both sides of the Channel. The course is thus an exercise in comparative history. Because monarchs played a leading role in that dual history, from Henri VIII and Francis I to Louis XIV and the first Hanoverian sovereigns, it focuses on royal patronage of Bible publishing and Biblical scholarship as well as the multiple ways in which the ideological model of biblical kingship was interpreted in political and religious thinking, in literature and in the arts.
