Fall 2009

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 FREN 0500 after FREN 0200.

NOTE: This is a year course. Enrollment limited to 18 per section.

Section 01: M,F 9-9:50 & T,TH 10:30-11:50
Section 02: M,F 10-10:50 & T,TH 10:30-11:50
Section 03: M,F 10-10:50 & T,TH 2-3:50
Section 04: M,F 11-11:50 & T,TH 9-10:20
Section 05: M,F 12-12:50 & T,TH 9-10:20
Section 06: M,F 2-2:50 & T,TH 1-2:20

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. Prerequisite: FREN 0200 or placement (Previous experience with French is required to take this class). Four meetings per week plus a 50-minute conversation section with TAs.

Section 01: W,F 9-9:50 & T,TH 9-10:20
Section 02: W,F 11-11:50 & T,TH 1-2:20
Section 03: W,F 1-1:50 & T,TH 2:30-3:50

INTERMEDIATE FRENCH II:
Continuation of FREN 0300 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.

Section 01: M,W,F 12-12:50
Section 02: M,W,F 1-1:50
Section 03: M,W,F 2-2:50

WRITING AND SPEAKING FRENCH I:
Prerequisite for FR 600. A four-skill language course that stresses oral interaction in class (three meetings plus one conversation section). Materials include audio CD, film, press articles, and literary excerpts. Writing is organized around specific tasks and systematic grammar practice.

Section 01: M,W,F 9-9:50
Section 02: M,W,F 11-11:50
Section 03: M,W,F 1-1:50
Section 04: M,W,F 2-2:50

WRITING AND SPEAKING FRENCH II:
Prerequisite for study in French-speaking countries. Continuation of FREN 0500. 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. Three meetings plus one conversation section.

NOTE: Students interested in Literature may register for section 05.

Section 01: M,W,F 9-9:50
Section 02: M,W,F 10-10:50
Section 03: M,W,F 11-11:50
Section 04: Cancelled
Section 05(L): M,W,F 2-2:50

From Courtly Love to Post Modern Desire
From twelfth-century courtly literature to contemporary film, this course explores the enduring romance between French culture and Eros. The ambiguities of desire are brought to the fore across changing religious and social contexts. Readings include Duras, Flaubert, Freud, and Baudrillard. Open to students who receive a 5 (AP test), 700 and above (SAT II) or with instructor's permission. Open to first year students only.

Lost in Translation: Les voyageurs français en Amérique de Chateaubriand à Baudrillard
What characterizes American culture? What does America stand for politically, culturally? These are some of the vexing questions major French writers asked themselves when they visited America. In this course we will study networks of ideas and images, which have shaped the dominant representations, and myths of America in novels and essays by French writers, thinkers, travelers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Two short papers and an oral exam.

For Undergraduates and Graduates
General prerequisite for all 1000-level courses except 1510: one course from among French 500, 520, 600, 750, or 760.

MASTERPIECES OF FRENCH LITERATURE FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE PRESENT: Littérature et culture: chevaliers, courtisans, sorcières et philosophes
From the Middle Ages to the Age of Versaille, this course will examine 6 foundational moments in French civilization: the Crusades, courtly love, humanism, the witch hunts, Cartesian reason, and the emergence of the autonomous self. Close scrutiny of literature and film will provide a window onto French civilization before the Revolution.

Section 01: M,W,F 2-2:50

EARLY FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE: Histoire de la langue fraçaise
We will examine the language interface between Gaulois, Francs, Vikings, and Romans; the voluntarism of French courts, 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 orthography, jeux de mots, pub, and langage des jeunes.

Section 01: T,TH 10:30-11:50

STUDIES IN FRENCH LITERATURE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: Histoires d’animaux
From fables and fairytales to postmodern pastiche, the presence of the animal, whether literal or allegorical, has worked as a critical counterpoint to that of the human. In this course we will consider some ways in which modern prose, poetry and film "think" - and increasingly mourn - humans' disappearing others. Authors include Michaux, Cendrars, Ponge, Bresson, Chevillard, Marker, Derrida.

Section 01: T,TH 2:30-3:50

STUDIES IN THE FRENCH THEATER: Le theater de la Belle Epoque
The civic festivities, universal expositions, bohemian gaiety, and commercial entertainments of the Third Republic are matched by a lively confrontation between vaudeville, naturalist comédie rosse, symbolist theater and the emerging absurd comedy of the anti-théâtre. We'll study representative plays by Claudel, Maeterlinck, Feydeau, Courteline, Rostand, and Jarry, comparing them with paintings and prints by Degas, Seurat, or Toulouse-Lautrec

Section 01: T,TH 1-2:20

SPECIAL TOPICS IN FRENCH STUDIES I: "French Lovers"; Séduction et libertinage sous l'Ancien Régime
A study of love and relationships in the Old Regime. The course will concentrate on the major actors (the libertine, the fop) , on the spaces (the boudoir, the salon, the garden), on social practices (conversation). Authors will include Molière, Mme de Lafayette, Crébillon fils, Laclos and film adaptations by Honoré, Frears, and Forman.

Section 01: T,TH 10:30-11:50

STUDIES IN FRENCH LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION: Fairy Tales and Culture
Fairy tales occur in almost every culture across the globe. If the genre has such broad appeal, it is because it encapsulates in (usually) succinct form many of the pressing concerns of human existence: family conflict, the struggle for survival, sexual desire, the quest for happiness, among many others. This course explores why writers and readers have been attracted to the fairy-tale form through a study of its key elements and its uses in adult and children's literature, book illustration, and film. Special attention will be given to French contes de fées, along with North American, English, German, Italian and selected non-Western fairy tales, organized according to folkloric tale-types. The course will be conducted in English. All readings will be in English, with French, German, and Italian originals on reserve at the Rock.

Section 01: M,W,F 11-11:50

FRENCH CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION : Nous et les autres: Les Francaís et le monde de la Renaissance à la Révolution
An exploration of early French encounters with and reactions to non-European cultures from 1500 to 1800. By studying travel narratives, essays, and fictional texts, we will examine the multiple ways that French identity attempts to come to terms with its "Others" during this crucial period of European colonial expansion. Besides secondary texts, readings include travel writings and fictional texts by Cartier, Thevet, Thévenot, Tavernier, Choisy, Molière, Galland, and Montesquieu.

Section 01:M,W,F 1-1:50

Youenn Kervennic

ADVANCED WRITTEN AND ORAL FRENCH: Le Voyage: Travels and Travelers.
This course will discuss various types of travels and travelers (tourists, missionaries, explorers, immigrants, etc.) as well as the different genres of writing (journals, novels, letters, science fiction, etc).
Follows FREN 0600 in the sequence of language courses Development of oral skills via presentations, debates, conversation, and discussion based on a variety of topics. Writing activities: essays, e-mails, commentaries, journals, etc. May be repeated for credit.

Section 01: M,W,F 1-1:50

Stephanié Ravillon

ADVANCED WRITTEN AND ORAL FRENCH: La Traduction
This course will be designed to expand students' range and appreciation of written styles and registers and will be based on translation exercises and texts reflecting different types of written and oral communication. Texts will range from literary texts (exerpts from novels, plays, comic books) to journalistic texts (articles from newspapers) and correspondence (letters, emails).
Follows FREN 0600 in the sequence of language courses Development of oral skills via presentations, debates, conversation, and discussion based on a variety of topics. Writing activities: essays, e-mails, commentaries, journals, etc. May be repeated for credit.

Section 02: M,W,F 12-12:50

Primarily for Graduates

STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL FRENCH LITERATURE : Arts de récit, 1100-1400
Readings and interpretations of major texts that illustrate the development of verse and prose narrative in French medieval literature, from the Chanson de Roland and early Arthurian romances to Froissart's Chroniques. Emphasis on relating questions of narrative aesthetics to important frames of political, social and cultural history.

Section 01: W 3-5:20

STUDIES IN FRENCH LITERATURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: Qu’est-ce que les Lumières?
An examination of major and minor authors of the French Enlightenment from the point of view of the capital ideas that have dominated the century: pleasure and taste, reason and violence, gender and race. Examines the reception of the Enlightenment by contemporary theorists and historians, principally Foucault, Habermas. Readings in Montesquieu, Godard d'Aucour, Denon, Graffigny, Boyer d'Argens, Diderot and Rousseau.

Section 01: F 3-5:20

STUDIES IN FRENCH LITERATURE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY:Baudelaire, Rimbaud et Mallarme

Section 01: M 3-5:20