French Department Course Handbook 2014-2015
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French 235 (Spring)From Page to Stage: Candide, the Play This course will introduce students to the art of adapting a prose narrative for the stage using Voltaire’s short novel Candide. We begin by comparing narrative writing and dramatic writing to determine what is at stake when creating a viable theatrical piece. Students will work in teams to transform individual chapters of Candide into scenes. Participants will take turns being actors, directors and stage managers, and will practice diction, acting, and pronunciation in exercises aimed at improving their speaking skills. The group will produce a public performance at the end of the semester. Prerequisite: At least one unit of FREN 206, FREN 207, FREN 208 [2012-13], FREN 209 or above, an SAT II score of 690-800, an equivalent departmental placement score or an AP score of 5.  
Written and oral works: Regular preparation of an analysis of chapters of Candide and discussion in class. Students working in groups will have to submit an adaptation of some chapters of the novel. In addition, during the semester each student will have to submit the adaptation of two chapters of the novel. Each student will present in class an excerpt of a book or an article on adaptation of novel for the stage. At the end of the semester, for the public performance, each student will have a role either on stage or off stage. Reading list : Voltaire, Candide et l’optimisme Excerpts from : Dufiet & Petitjean, Approches linguistiques des textes dramatiques Sylvie Patron, Le narrateur : Introduction à la théorie narrative Pierre Larthomas, Le langage dramatique : sa nature, ses procédés Michel Pruner, L’analyse du texte de théâtre Thierry Gallèpe. Didascalies: Les mots de la mise en scène Marie-Claude Hubert éd. La Plumes du phénix : Réécriture au théâtre Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation Articles: Judith Miller, “From Novel to Theatre: Contemporary Adaptations of narrative to the French Stage.” John Perry, “Adapting a Novel to the Stage.”
We will read excerpts from the following texts: Stendhal, De l’amour.
Balzac, Physiologie du mariage (excerpt) Balzac, “La Femme abandonnée.” Maupassant, “Le testament,” in Contes de la bécasse Fragile institutions and inconstant feelings Musset, Les caprices de Marianne Caricatures and representations of bourgeois marriage Alexandre Dumas, Les 3 Mousquetaires, excerpts. Adultery in the novel (Stendhal, Flaubert) Stendhal, Le Rouge et le noir (excerpts from the novel and the Gazette des tribunaux relating “l’affaire Berthet”) Flaubert, Madame Bovary (excerpts from the novel and from the trial) George Sand, Indiana Assignments: Written assignments for this class will include a midterm paper (3-4 pages) and a longer (7-8 page) final paper. There will also be short response papers on assigned readings and an in-class presentation. de Tholozany
In our efforts to define the genre and grasp its multiple influences, we will investigate how comedy drew from other forms of theater that were popular in this period, such as the burlesque farces and the pantomime of the fairgrounds or the coups de théâtre of baroque tragicomedies. In so doing, we will begin to understand how notions of “high” and “low” comedy developed, and what place was given to satire, le ridicule, bons mots, and biting laughter, in contrast to the tradition of the Italian commedia dell’arte. Molière and Marivaux, arguably two of literature’s greatest comedic playwrights, will anchor our exploration of the formal conventions, themes, linguistic registers, tropes, and character-types that moved early modern audiences. We will ask how the influence of their patrons (Molière was Louis XIV’s favorite playwright) and their audiences (Marivaux wrote at the dawn of the Enlightenment) shaped their art. Students will come to recognize the meaning of modern-day references to “Molièresque plots” and the “Marivaudage” between two would-be lovers. Consideration of Corneille’s comedy as a precursor to Molière and Marivaux’s successes and of Beaumarchais as an heir to their legacy will round out our understanding of French comedic practices. Throughout our readings, an important component will be to reflect on shifting notions of the comical from the ancien régime to today. Recent stagings of Molière and Marivaux will fuel our discussions of the relevance of these works for twenty-first century spectators. Successful contemporary French comedies (from both theater and film) will complete our study of the comical genre.
Pierre Corneille, L’illusion comique Molière, L’Ecole des femmes, Le Misanthrope Marivaux, Le Jeu de l’amour et du hasard, L'Ile des esclaves Beaumarchais, Le Mariage de Figaro
Yasmina Réza, “Art” Students will write two 4-5 page papers, give an oral presentation and complete a final exam.
The course stresses the differences between French and English styles of writing, between the two cultures, and how translators engage these differences. Differences of register and dialect, as well as of country, will be discussed. The main activity of the course is the translation of texts from French into English or from English into French. Texts are taken from a wide variety of registers and genres — from advertising, cartoons, and magazine articles to literary criticism, novels, and poetry. Issues related to translation such as subtitling and dubbing movies will also be discussed. Texts: Robert Collins: Dictionnaire français-anglais / anglais-français Electronic booklet available on the CWIS
geographicallyyours.blogspot.com FRENCH 314 (Spring) A Cinematic History of Intellectual Ideas in Post-war France: The Politics of Art This course examines the various ideological turns and patterns in post-World War II France through the study of cinema. Proceeding from the assumption that aesthetics and politics are intertwined, the course will focus on form and content in order to examine the political engagement of filmmakers, overtly militant cinema, propaganda, and the shaping of moral spectatorship, in parallel with specific trends in French intellectual and political history. Our focus will be on the films of Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Chantal Akerman, Claude Chabrol, Mathieu Kassovitz, and Abdel Kechiche. Readings will include contemporary political philosophers Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou, and Étienne Balibar. Prerequisite: FREN 211 or, for students entering in 2014 or later, FREN 210; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above. How can one give a satisfactory account of French post-war cinema without at least questioning the relationship between aesthetic movements and processes, on one hand, and political practices, on the other? The radical avant-garde Situationist aesthetic made a strong statement after the war by contradicting the Platonic proscription of the poets and becoming a symptomatic example of the contemporary ebb and flow of aesthetics and politics. Proceeding from the assumption that aesthetic acts are configurations of experience that create new modes of sense perception and induce new forms of political subjectivity, this course will explore the connections between post-war political movements and aesthetic practices in French cinema. Film will include Godard’s La Chinoise and Histoire(s) du cinéma, Chantal Akerman’s Jeane Dielmann, Resnais’s Night and Fog, Agnès Varda’s Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse, Raymond Depardon’s Faits divers, Eric Zoncka’s La Vie rêvée des anges, Olivier Assayas’ Paris s’éveille. Films will be discussed with concepts provided by contemporary political philosophy including: Badiou, Alain. Démocratie, dans quel état? 2009. Badiou, Alain. Petit manuel d’inesthétique, 1998. Balibar, Etienne. Droit de cité. Culture et politique en démocratie, 2002. Rancière, Jacques. Le Partage du sensible, 2000. Rancière, Jacques. Malaise dans l’esthétique, 2004. Morari 
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FRENCH 315 (Fall) Two Women in Literature and Politics: Olympe de Gouges and George Sand The lives and writings of Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793) and George Sand (1804-1875) raise a critical question: does history shape writers, or do writers shape history? Olympe wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Women and campaigned for the right of women to divorce, and in her play L’Esclavage des Noirs she argues against slavery. George Sand, influenced by socialist ideas, writes novels and plays that question the social norms and gender roles imposed on women by the conservative society of the 19th century. We will discuss these two writers’ opposition to revolutionary violence and reflect on the ways in which their voices were ultimately silenced: Olympe decapitated by the guillotine, Sand marginalized as the "Bonne Dame de Nohant," the author merely of rustic novels. Prerequisite: FREN 211 or, for students entering in 2014 or later, FREN 210; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above.    
Written and oral work: Regular preparation of an analysis of the texts and discussion in class. One oral presentation, one paper (mid-term) and one final exam. Reading list : Olympe de Gouges, Mémoire de Mme de Valmont, excerpts
George Sand, Histoire de ma Vie, excerpts
Masson FRENCH 322 (Spring) France and Europe: Ambiguities, Obstacles, and Triumphs After an introduction to various social, cultural, and political aspects of contemporary France and the French, we will turn our attention to issues surrounding France's role in the project to unify Europe. We will investigate the tensions that arise as France commits more deeply to membership in the European Union, and how France is experiencing EU membership differently from its neighbors, in ways that reflect its unique history and culture. Readings will be drawn from a variety of disciplines, including texts by historians, political scientists, sociologists, and economists. Prerequisite: FREN 211 or, for students entering in 2014 or later, FREN 210; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above. Not open to students who took the same topic as FREN 349. In this course, we will investigate the tensions that arise as France commits more deeply to membership in the European Union. Readings will be drawn from a variety of disciplines, including texts by historians, political scientists, sociologists and economists. We will begin with an introduction to various social, cultural and political aspects of contemporary France and the French, with a focus on certain “Franco-French” concerns that may not be readily understood from an American perspective. As anyone who has recently visited a French bookstore can attest, France has become increasingly introspective, wondering what role it can and should play in the twenty-first century. Faced with the pressures of globalization, many French people are wondering whether France can remain an important force in international commerce and a significant voice in international politics without jeopardizing traditional French ways and the “exceptionalism” of French culture. These growing anxieties will set the stage for our analysis of France’s role in the European Union. This is a particularly exciting time to be studying France’s role in Europe, as the following pressing issues come to the forefront:
In the end, we will see that many of France’s anxieties and hopes for the Union are shared by other European nations, but that France is also experiencing membership in the European Union differently from its neighbors, in ways that reflect its unique history and culture. Because much of the course will focus on current issues, many of the readings will come from the internet. The class meetings will be organized in a seminar format, which means that group discussions will be just as important as lectures. Assignments will include short written assignments and quizzes, one presentation and one final research paper. Gunther FRENCH 324 (Fall) The Belle Epoque and the Emergence of Modern France The term belle époque (1880-1914) evokes images of Parisian boulevards, bustling cafés, glittering shop windows, and Montmartre cabarets, all symbols of modern consumer culture. No emblem of the era is as iconic as the Eiffel Tower, constructed for the World’s Fair of 1889 as a tribute to French technology and progress. During the years preceding World War I, Paris was the center of the European avant-garde—indeed, the capital of modernity. While cultural ebullience is its hallmark, this period also witnessed the definitive establishment of a republican regime, the expansion of an overseas empire, and the integration of the countryside into national life. Drawing on historical documents and literary texts as well as films, posters, and songs, this interdisciplinary course examines French culture, politics, and society during the era that ushered France into the modern age. Prerequisite: FREN 211 or, for students entering in 2014 or later, FREN 210; and one additional unit, FREN 213 or above. Not open to students who took the same topic as FREN 349. We will begin by examining the political situation of the Third Republic, in particular, the scandals that shook the regime, notably the Dreyfus Affair; the conflict of Church and State, and the expansion of an overseas colonial empire. Next, we will study French society of the Belle Epoque, exploring the family, the role of women, and the emergence of a working class and of consumer culture. In the final third of the course, we will study the literary and artistic achievements of the period, concentrating on the Parisian avant-garde, boulevard culture, the 1900 World’s Fair, poster art, and the birth of the cinema. Readings: Eugen Weber, France, Fin de Siècle Roger Shattuck, The Banquet Years Emile Zola, Au Bonheur des Dames Jules Ferry, La mission coloniale Baronne Staffe, Règles de savoir-vivre dans la société moderne (excerpt) Jacques Ozouf, Nous les maîtres d’école: Autobiographies d’instituteurs de la Belle Epoque (excerpt) Charles Rearick, Pleasures of Paris (excerpt) Jules Verne, Paris au XXe siècle Octave Mirbeau, Le journal d’une femme de chambre (excerpt) Films: Paris 1900 (documentary), Germinal, French cancan, Fantômas Work for this course: Two papers and an oral presentation. Datta FRENCH 333 (Spring) French Classical Tragedy: Corneille versus Racine: Rethinking the Parallel Ever since La Bruyère’s famous comment on Corneille and Racine—“The first depicts men as they should be, the second as they are”—critics have been tireless in pitting the two French tragedians against each other. In this course, we will take a critical look at the archetypal Corneille-Racine parallel in the light of important but marginalized playwrights such as Jean Rotrou, Tristan l’Hermite, and Catherine Bernard, whose works do not fit standard definitions of Classicism and tragedy. This encounter will lead us to question the notion of auteurs classiques and the seventeenth century’s status as the “Grand Siècle.” We will explore the many variations on the Corneille-Racine theme, asking if there is a “grand Corneille” and a “tender Racine,” and considering why in certain historical periods one playwright was considered to encapsulate “French values” and patriotism more than the other. Students will become familiar with an array of seventeenth-century tragedies and reflect on the process and politics of literary canonization. |
