Fall 2007

BASIC FRENCH: A two-semester course. Five meetings a week for oral practice. One hour of work outside of class is expected every day (grammar/writing, oral practice, reading). An accelerated track enables qualified students to go directly to FR 50 after FR 20. See the explanation of year courses on page 32 of the CAB. Enrollment limited to 20.

Sections: TBA

INTERMEDIATE FRENCH I: A semi-intensive elementary review with emphasis on all four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing). Class activities include drills, small group activities, and skits. Class materials include an audio CD, videos, a French film, short stories, and various other authentic documents. Four meetings per week plus a 50-minute conversation section with TAs.

Sections: TBA

INTERMEDIATE FRENCH II: . Continuation of FR 30 but may be taken separately. A four-skill language course that stresses oral interaction in class (three meetings per week plus one 50-minute conversation section). Materials include audio activities, film, and a contemporary novel. Short compositions with systematic grammar practice.

Sections: TBA

WRITING AND SPEAKING FRENCH I: Prerequisite for FR 60. A four-skill language course that stresses oral interaction in class (three meetings plus one conversation section). Materials include audio CD's, films, press articles, and literary excerpts, as well as a multimedia exploration of Paris: "Dans un Quartier de Paris". Writing is organized around specific tasks and systematic grammar practice.

Sections: TBA

Introduction to the Literary Experience: Language course in which discussions and writing exercises are based on readings in French and Francophone literature. Includes grammar review and some film screenings. Students are expected to keep a reading journal and to write short response papers. Equivalent to FR 50 in language sequence.

Sections: TBA

WRITING AND SPEAKING FRENCH II: Prerequisite for study in French-speaking countries. Continuation of FR 50. Class time is devoted mainly to conversation and discussion practice. Writing instruction and assignments focus on essays, commentaries, and to a lesser degree, on story writing. Apart from reading assignments for discussion (press articles and literary excerpts), students select two novels to read.

Sections: TBA

FIRST YEAR SEMINAR: From Courtly Love to Post-Modern Desire (First Year Seminar):This course explores the enduring romance between French culture and eros. The ambiguities of desire are examined across changing religious, social, and esthetic contexts. Readings include Chrétien de Troyes, Molière, Flaubert, Barthes, and Duras. Enrollment limited to 20. Open to students who receive a 4 or 5 (AP test), 700 and above (SAT II) or equivalent. For first year students only.Written permission required.

Section: TBA

LOST IN TRANSLATION  : Les voyageurs français en Amérique: Is there a "true" America? In which ways is America different from Europe? What characterizes American culture? What does America stand for politically, culturally? These are some of the vexing questions major French writers and/or Statesmen or women asked themselves when they visited America. In this course we will study networks of ideas and images which have shaped the dominant historical representations and myths of America in novels and/or essays by French writers, thinkers, travelers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Two short papers and an oral presentation.

Section: TBA

For Undergraduates and Graduates
General prerequisite for all 100-level courses except 151: one course from among French 50, 52, 60, 75, or 76.

HISTOIRE DE LA LANGUE FRANÇAISE : We will examine the language interface between Gaulois, Franks, Vikings, and Romans; the voluntarism of French courts and grammarians, of the French Revolution or French feminists; the status and particularities of French in the European, American, and African francophone areas; "French conversation,"   "French politeness,"   French orthography, jeux de mots , pub and langage des jeunes .

Section: TBA

STUDIES IN FRENCH LITERATURE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Lire et voir le XVIIe siècle aujourd'hui: What uses does contemporary France make of 17 th -century culture?   We will approach this question by studying both 17th-century literature and recent films that portray texts, personalities, or events from the period.   We will highlight both continuities and discontinuities between the 17 th century and our own time.   Texts by Corneille, Cyrano de Bergerac, Lafayette, Molière, Pascal, Racine, Sévigné.   8 films.

Section: TBA

STUDIES IN FRENCH LITERATURE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: Décadence. Study of the notion of decadence in fin-de-siècle French culture.   From scientific theories of degeneration to literary representations of sexual perversion, writers of the period were consumed by the specter of moral decay and social disease.   This course will analyze fictional and non-fictional texts of the period by authors such as Péladan, Lorrain, Rachilde, Mendès, and Nordau.

Section: TBA

Contes et Nouvelles du Moyen Age: Storytelling in medieval courts, villages, and towns.   Works read (in modern French translation) include love tales, fables, magical yarns, chivalric adventures, comic escapades, earthy anecdotes, stories of warfare and politics. Class discussions investigate the tales and consider how medieval listeners and readers responded to them.   Brief background lectures on topics of medieval culture and history.

Section: TBA

STUDIES IN FRENCH POETRY:Le monde moderne et le poète: In this course on modernity in French poetry, we shall consider ruptures vis-à-vis the fixed forms of the poetic tradition (the alexandrin, punctuation, prosody, themes) as they both respond to and construct a changed world. Sessions will be organized around close readings of the work of poets such as Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Cendrars, Michaux, Césaire, Ponge, and Du Bouchet.

Section: TBA

FR0131

SPECIAL TOPICS IN FRENCH STUDIES I: Paris, ville des Lumières: Representations of the city; the crowd; the rise of the individual; the narrator as spectator and promeneur; narratives of social mobility; speed and circulation; sex and the city;   gender anxieties and myth of decadence; Paris as a cultural place.   Various authors to be studied:   Marivaux, Rousseau, Diderot, Mercier, Restif de la Bretonne.

Section: TBA

ADVANCED WRITTEN AND ORAL FRENCH. Follows FR 60. Development of oral skills via presentations, debates, conversations, and discussions based on various documents . Writing activities: essays, e-mails, commentaries, journals, etc. May be repeated for credit.

Section 1: CULTURA. This section is specifically designed for students preparing to go aborad next semester

Section 2:

FR0171

TOPICS IN FRANCOPHONE STUDIES- Black, Blanc, Beur This course examines how the ethnic make up of contemporary French society challenges its republican ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Violent clashes involving teenagers from immigrant descents and the police are recurrent. Anti immigration policies have also become a major component of political discourse. We will use literature; film, newspapers and popular musical forms to reflect on issues such as integration, identity, violence, race and class.

Section: TBA

Primarily for Graduates

STUDIES IN FRENCH LITERATURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: Bodies of Enlightenment An exploration of the body in the eighteenth-century in its multiple guises:   foreign and national; disciplined and idle; natural and mechanical; libertine and political.   Readings in   Prévost, Diderot, Rousseau, Boyer d'Argens, Sade.   Critical essays by:   Michel Foucault, Lynn Hunt, David Cottom, Dorinda Outram.

Section: TBA

STUDIES IN FRENCH LITERATURE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Baudelaire et Rimbaud, poète du XIXe siècle et du nôtre . In-depth study of two major poets of the European 19th century whose work remains especially pertinent today.

Section: M. 3:00- 5:20 PM (M Hour)