FRE1120 - Elementary French I – Multiple Sessions

Oral comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing are stressed. May not be taken by native speakers. May not be taken concurrently with FRE 1121 and/or 2200.

 

FRE1121 Elementary French I – Multiple Sessions

Oral comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing are stressed. May not be taken by native speakers. May not be taken concurrently with FRE 1121 and/or 2211.

 

FRE2211 - Intermediate French – Multiple Sessions

Prerequisite: FRE 1121 or equivalent. Completes language requirement for baccalaureate degree. May not be taken by native speakers. Rapid review of basic French structures and introduction of some of the finer points of French grammar. May not be taken concurrently with FRE 1120 and/or 1121.

 

FRE2220 - Reading and Conversation – Multiple Sessions

Prerequisite: FRE2211 or equivalent. May not be taken by native speakers. Expansion of French reading skills while introducing the student to oral expression through a discussion of the readings. May not be taken concurrently with FRE 1120 and/or 1121.

 

FRE 3420 - French Grammar and Composition I – Dr. Cloonan

Prerequisite: FRE 2211 or its equivalent. An in-depth study of French grammar emphasizing some subtleties of written expression.

 

FRE 3421 - French Grammar and Composition II – Dr. Munro

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

 

FRE 3501 - Contemporary France – Dr. Parrat

We will study contemporary France through its languages, its regions, its religions, its education system, its economy, its politics, its media and its relations to Europe and the United States. France is a complex, composite entity. We will attempt to examine as many of its constituent parts as possible so as to better come to terms with this fascinating country. This course will be taught in French.

 

FRT 3520 – French Cinema (Films from Metropolitan France - in English) – Dr Leushuis

This course, taught in English, will introduce students to the rich history and development of the French cinema, from the first films of the Lumière brothers in 1895 until the youngest generation of French filmmakers. Within a chronological and thematic framework, we will analyze films from the major directors and movements of French filmmaking. One of the leading questions of this course will be: what makes French cinema particularly “French”? In order to answer this question, we will keep two sets of objectives in mind throughout the course: 1) to reach an understanding of French cinema in its relationship to modern France. What is the social, historical, and political context of the film? How does the film reflect this context and address its audience accordingly? 2) to study the contribution of French cinema to film as an art form. What was the unique creative vision of the director, screenwriter, producer, etc., and/or the ‘school’ to which they belonged? What were the esthetical and theoretical concerns of French cinema, how did these develop over time and how did the directors try to give shape to these concerns in the artistical elements of the movie. Please note: 1) this course fulfills credit toward the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics minor in World Literature & World Film; 2) this course fulfills credit toward a minor in French if this is your only French course taught in English. Otherwise, in order to let this course count toward a minor in French the rule for credit toward the French major applies (see #3); 3) this course fulfills credit toward a major (or minor in certain cases) in French if a substantial amount of the written work is done in French. Please see the instructor in the first week of classes to discuss this issue.
Films may include François Truffaut’s Day for Night [“La Nuit américaine”] The 400 blows [“Les quatre-cents coups”] and The Last Metro [“Le dernier métro”]; silent films by the Lumière Brothers, George Méliès, René Clair, and Louis Buñuel (Un chien andalou); Marcel Carné’s Daybreak [“Le jour se lève”]; Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion [“La Grande illusion”]; Marcel Carné’s Children of Paradise [“Les Enfants du paradis”]; Jean-Luc Godard’s, Breathless [“À bout de souffle”]; Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima mon amour; Bertrand Tavernier’s Life and Nothing But [“La vie et rien d’autre]; Philippe Faucon’s, La Trahison [“The Betrayal”]; and Agnès Varda’s Vagabond [“Sans toi ni loi”]

 

FRW 3101- Survey French Literature 18th Century to Present Day – Dr Boutin

This course will introduce you to a selection of well-known works of modern French/Francophone Literature and their cultural contexts. The readings have been chosen to exemplify the most significant literary movements of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including le siècle des Lumières, le romantisme, le réalisme, la modernité, dada et le surréalisme, l’existentialisme, and le nouveau roman. This course will be taught in French. By reading, writing and participating in French, you will increase your comprehension and oral proficiency in the language.

 

FRE 4422 - Advanced Grammar and Composition – Dr. Lori Walters

In this course students will improve their command of French grammar and stylistics by doing workbook exercises, by writing a series of short compositions and a final paper. They will also apply their newly acquired grammatical and stylistic know-how through class discussion.  

 

FRW 4420 – Senior Seminar- Voix de femmes au Moyen âge (Women’s Voices in the Middle Ages) - Dr. Lori J. Walters

In this course we will read, in modern French translation, a variety of secular and religious texts composed by medieval women in Latin or in the vernacular. The readings will include works by well-known writers such as the female troubadours, Hildegard of Bingen, and Christine de Pizan, as well as other, less familiar figures, such as Mechthild von Magdeburg. The class will be conducted in French.  In this advanced undergraduate course we will work on improving students’ oral and written communication through a series of short papers and class presentations.  Emphasis will be placed upon the correct expression of ideas in French. Modern French translations of all of the texts for the course, plus introductory materials, are present in the anthology that will serve as the basic textbook in the course, Voix de Femmes au Moyen Age (ISBN 2-221-06827-0).

 

FRW 4433 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 4433 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  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.

 

FRE 4930-01 France and Algeria: National and Human Rights
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.