Hervé Picherit

FLAGS:   Wr
DESCRIPTION:
The objective of this course is to hone advanced listening, speaking, reading and writing skills in French.  The communicative tasks of the course are built around a semester-long “channel surfing” of French television designed to introduce the class to authentic topics, genres, vocabulary and levels of discourse.  Students will reprise these elements in their own production, which will consist mainly of writing scripts for various genres of programs, and recording short television shows, both scripted and spontaneous.  The goal of these exercises is to help students review, expand and combine individual language skills into a new relationship with French as a living and lively language.

Please check back for updates.

This advanced language course has as its main goal broadening your sense of the action and function of language beyond expression. In other words, the subject of this course is not what language can say, but what it can do. In particular, we will examine the grammatical, rhetorical and stylistic demands and assets of the French language in contrast with English. This course is designed to train you to recognize and analyze these attributes. More importantly, however, this course sets out to teach you how to produce these varied effects in written language, ultimately, in the service of your own self-expression.

What happens to a text when its creator is also its subject?  It is from this recursive feature of autobiography — and of modern autobiography in particular — that emerge the tensions of a highly complex genre.  While promising an accurate, sincere — if not unmediated — representation of its subject, autobiography also owes a literary tithe to the conventions and traditions of an old, and highly codified literary genre.  

What hope is there of conveying an authentic vision of oneself within a prescriptive mode of writing?  What happens when an author’s life experience does not fit the codes of the autobiographical genre?  What are we to make of autobiographies that become a reflection of an author’s writing, rather than of his or her life?  What is the status of false autobiographies?  Of autobiographical texts that adopt the fictional mode?  Or of autobiographies that are about someone other than the author?

In this course, we will examine texts that challenge or rewrite the narrative code of self-writing throughout the 20^th century; we will consider the memoir’s role in representing gender and gender identity; we will analyze the literary phenomena of “auto-fiction,” ”exofiction,” as well as the autobiographical novel; and we will study literary theories that seek to define autobiography.

This advanced language course has as its main goal broadening your sense of the action and function of language beyond expression. In other words, the subject of this course is not what language can say, but what it can do. In particular, we will examine the grammatical, rhetorical and stylistic demands and assets of the French language in contrast with English. This course is designed to train you to recognize and analyze these attributes. More importantly, however, this course sets out to teach you how to produce these varied effects in written language, ultimately, in the service of your own self-expression.

Please check back for updates.

The main goal for this course is the acquisition of the intellectual and interpretative tools specific to analyzing the unique ways in which film portrays women and, more generally, questions of gender and gender identity.  In what ways does cinema uphold traditional gender structures?  In what ways does film undermine it?  How and why might films do both at the same time?  This course aims to convey the complexities of representing gender through visual media, and is designed to help students engage with these images critically. The final goal for the course is the acquisition, in French, of the vocabulary related to cinema production, description and interpretation. The course will encourage students to establish links between the films shown in the class, but also with representations of women in other media. Most importantly, the class is designed to cultivate film literacy, allowing students both to engage critically and create with this medium.

The weekly film showings will serve as the framework for the course, providing the major topics of discussion for the class. To encourage rich and pertinent discussions, we will use the textbook Film Studies as well as supplemental materials such as articles, film clips and internet resources about women in film. The book Le vocabulaire du cinéma will serve as a reference for the class to prepare for the film exam, film review and film project.

There will be frequent in-class assignments based on the film viewings and the readings, as well as a mid-semester exam. Students will be expected to write 8 short film responses, to write a film review, to take a film exam, complete a film project and to write their reflections on the final film project. The film responses are short reflections (250-300 words) on the course’s films. The film review is a longer written assignment (1250-1500 words) where you will present an organized analysis of a film. The film exam will test your knowledge of film techniques. The final film project is the production of a short film (10 to 20 minutes) that engages with the course theme of cinema and memory. The reflections on the final film project (1250-1500 words) is a personal contemplation on your work creating a film and on your peers’ films.

Course description:

The objective of this course is to hone advanced listening, speaking, reading and writing skills in French.  In addition to the textbook, this course will have us study authentic French television, radio and print publications.  Students will reprise elements from these media in their own production, which will consist of scripting and recording various genres of television and radio programs.  Students will also write articles for different types of print publications.  In particular, we will explore stylistic conventions appropriate to descriptions, critical essays, argumentative essays, narrative style and literary style.  The goal of these exercises is to help students review, expand and combine individual language skills into a new relationship with French as a living and lively language.  Finally, because of our use of authentic material, the course will also introduce you to many aspects of French and Francophone culture.

Texts:

A vous d'écrire: Atelier de français (Student Edition)

Workbook to accompany A vous d'écrire: Atelier de français

Contrastes: Grammaire du français courant (2nd Edition)

Additional readings and clips will be available on Blackboard

This advanced language course has as its main goal broadening your sense of the action and function of language beyond expression.  In other words, the subject of this course is not what language can say, but what it can do.  In particular, we will examine the grammatical, rhetorical and stylistic demands and assets of the French language in contrast with English.  This course is designed to train you to recognize and analyze these attributes.  More importantly, however, this course sets out to teach you how to produce these varied effects in written language, first through imitation and, ultimately, in the service of your own self-expression.

Please check back for updates.

DESCRIPTION:

This course will examine film’s capacity to create, transform or even falsify memory. In particular, we will examine how this apparently “objective” medium complicates the very notion of recollection and, as such, disrupts our sense of identity.

The class is designed to help students engage critically with visual culture. We will draw attention to the fact that film is a highly constructed medium, and that even the most “objective” images are the result of conscious or unconscious choices by its producers. This aspect of film cuts across genre from comedy to suspense, from popular movies to art house film. The theme of memory brings to the fore film’s capacity to influence, if not manipulate, the viewer. What’s more, this course situates contemporary cinematic trends in the larger context of film history. In short, this course offers students a critical gaze onto the contemporary world—one that is more and more defined by visual media.

TEXT:

Le vocabulaire du cinéma by Marie-Thérèse Journot

Précis d’analyse filmique by Anne Goliot-Lété and Francis Vanoye

Film Art: An Introduction, Ninth Edition by David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson

Tentative film list:

1. Early Lumière brother films; early Méliès films; early Dadaist films (1895-1920's)

2. J'accuse by Abel Gance (1919)

3. L'année dernière à Marienbad by Alain Resnais (1961); Toute la mémoire du monde by Resnais and Marker (1956)

4. La Jetée by Chris Marker (1962); Sans soleil by Chris Marker (1983)

5. Le mépris by Jean-Luc Godard (1963)

6. Le chagrin et la pitié by Marcel Ophuls (1969)

7. Le dernier métro by François Truffaut (1980)

8. Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma by Agnès Varda (1995)

9. Se souvenir des belles choses by Zabou Breitman (2001)

10. The Dreamers by Bernardo Bertolucci (2003)

11. Caché by Michael Haneke (2005)

12. Le scaphandre et le papillon by Julian Schnabel (2007)

13. Persopolis by Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud (2007)

14. Les plages d'Agnès by Agnès Varda (2008)

15. L’illusionniste by Sylvain Chomet (2010)

GRADING:

Prospectus                                                               5%

Kick-off Talks                                                           10%

Scene Analysis 1                                                      15%

Scene Analysis 2                                                      15%

Class Attendance, participation and daily work           15%

Midterm Exam                                                         15%

Final Paper                                                              25%

This advanced language course has as its main goal broadening your sense of the action and function of language beyond expression.  In other words, the subject of this course is not what language can say, but what it can do.  In particular, we will examine the grammatical, rhetorical and stylistic demands and assets of the French language in contrast with English.  This course is designed to train you to recognize and analyze these attributes.  More importantly, however, this course sets out to teach you how to produce these varied effects in written language, first through imitation and, ultimately, in the service of your own self-expression.

The course is organized around five main units (le mot, la phrase, le paragraphe, le message, l’action).  I will provide the main readings, as well as additional materials, including texts, videos and audio recordings.  The mains readings will be passages from the writings of Madame de Lafayette, Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Marguerite Duras and Julien Gracq.  These readings will provide us with “material” with which we will work in class.  The supplemental materials are designed to help you develop your language skills and, as such, are just as important as the main readings.  You will be responsible for the homework as presented on the syllabus, including the readings and viewings.  Keeping up with this work will helps us use the classroom as it should be, as our practice and workspace where we will hone your language skills. Since this course is designed to help you master a set of skills, it is geared towards helping you practice those skills.  As such, you will have various forms of in-class work, ranging from targeted exercises to practice essays.  Outside of class, your main work will be reading and writing, but you should expect and be ready for other exercises including group work.  In short, this advanced language course requires regular and sustained practice throughout the semester.

The course grade will be based on the following elements:

1.  Exercices de style….….……………………………………….….….…………….30%

2.  Final writing project…..……………………………………………………………25%

3.  Rhetoric and grammar exam.....………………………………………….…………20%

4.  Daily work………........………………………………………….….……………...15%

5.  In-class participation…………………………..……………………….…………...15%

Course description:

The objective of this course is to hone advanced listening, speaking, reading and writing skills in French.  In addition to the textbook, this course will have us study authentic French television, radio and print publications.  Students will reprise elements from these media in their own production, which will consist of scripting and recording various genres of television and radio programs.  Students will also write articles for different types of print publications.  In particular, we will explore stylistic conventions appropriate to descriptions, critical essays, argumentative essays, narrative style and literary style.  The goal of these exercises is to help students review, expand and combine individual language skills into a new relationship with French as a living and lively language.  Finally, because of our use of authentic material, the course will also introduce you to many aspects of French and Francophone culture.

Texts:

A vous d'écrire: Atelier de français (Student Edition)

Workbook to accompany A vous d'écrire: Atelier de français

Contrastes: Grammaire du français courant (2nd Edition)

Additional readings and clips will be available on Blackboard

Description:

This course will examine the function and form of the French avant-garde as it translates into different media.  We will consider whether the avant-garde forms a unified movement across media, and how strongly medium influences experimental artistic production.  We will pay particular attention to cinema’s influence—as an entirely new medium—on the avant-garde.  Along with providing a survey of the major movements, the class will interrogate the political, aesthetic, narrative and social functions of the avant-garde.

Readings:

Jarry, Ubu roi;

Rachilde, Alfred Jarry ou le surmâle de lettres

Séverine, Sac à tout: mémoires d’un petit chien

Georges Darien, Le voleur;

Jean Vigo, Zéro de conduite (film)

Apollinaire, « L’esprit nouveau et le poètes »; Les mamelles de Tirésias et sélection de poèmes

Dada : manifestes, sélection de poèmes et de court-métrages ;

Germain Bonnet, L’affaire Barrès. Première avant-garde : Écrits choisis de Louis Delluc ;

René Clair, Paris qui dort (film) ;

Germaine Dulac, La fête espagnole (film) ;

Musidora, Soleil et ombre (film) ;

Abel Gance, La roue (film) ;

Jean Epstein, La glace à trois faces (film). Surréalisme : manifestes et sélection de poèmes ;

Buñel & Dali, Un chien andalou ;

Hugnet & d’Ursel, La Perle (film). Deuxième avant-garde (cinéma pur):  Germaine Dulac, La coquille et le clergyman (film) ;

articles du Cahier du mois (1925) ;

René Clair, Entr’acte (film) ;

Fernand Léger, Le ballet mécanique (film) ;

Henri Chomette, Cinq minutes de cinéma pur (film) ;

Marcel Duchamp, Anemic cinema (film) ;

Man Ray, Emak Bakia (film) Antonin Artaud, Le théâtre et son double ;

Jean Genet, Les bonnes Lettrisme : Isidore Isou, Manifeste de la poésie lettriste ;

Isidore Isou, Traité de bave et d'éternité (film)

Situationnisme : Guy Debord, Rapport sur la construction des situations suivi de, Les situationnistes et les nouvelles formes d'action dans la politique ou l'art ; La société du spectacle

Hurlements en faveur de Sade (film) Le nouveau roman : Robbe-Grillet, Pour un nouveau roman;

Duras, L’amant ;  Le nouveau cinéma : Resnais, L’année dernière à Marienbad (film) ;

Chris Marker, La jetée (film);

Georges Franju, Le sang des bêtes (film) ;

Agnes Varda, Cléo de 5 à 7 Oulipo : Queneau, Abrégé de littérature potentielle ;

G. Perec, La vie : mode d’emploie 

Theory readings drawn from :  Poggioli, The Theory of the Avant-garde Bürger, Theory of the Avant-garde

Grading:

The course grade will be based on the following elements:  1.  Final conference presentation and hard copy (5-7)

This advanced language course has as its main goal broadening your sense of the action and function of language beyond expression.  In other words, the subject of this course is not what language can say, but what it can do.  In particular, we will examine the grammatical, rhetorical and stylistic demands and assets of the French language in contrast with English.  This course is designed to train you to recognize and analyze these attributes.  More importantly, however, this course sets out to teach you how to produce these varied effects in written language, first through imitation and, ultimately, in the service of your own self-expression.

The course is organized around five main units (le mot, la phrase, le paragraphe, le message, l’action).  I will provide the main readings, as well as additional materials, including texts, videos and audio recordings.  The mains readings will be passages from the writings of Madame de Lafayette, Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Marguerite Duras and Julien Gracq.  These readings will provide us with “material” with which we will work in class.  The supplemental materials are designed to help you develop your language skills and, as such, are just as important as the main readings.  You will be responsible for the homework as presented on the syllabus, including the readings and viewings.  Keeping up with this work will helps us use the classroom as it should be, as our practice and workspace where we will hone your language skills. Since this course is designed to help you master a set of skills, it is geared towards helping you practice those skills.  As such, you will have various forms of in-class work, ranging from targeted exercises to practice essays.  Outside of class, your main work will be reading and writing, but you should expect and be ready for other exercises including group work.  In short, this advanced language course requires regular and sustained practice throughout the semester.

The course grade will be based on the following elements:

1.  Exercices de style….….……………………………………….….….…………….30%

2.  Final writing project…..……………………………………………………………25%

3.  Rhetoric and grammar exam.....………………………………………….…………20%

4.  Daily work………........………………………………………….….……………...15%

5.  In-class participation…………………………..……………………….…………...15%

FREN 381 M: Critical Approaches to Lit

Course Description:

This course is an introductory survey of the major critical approaches to literature and culture.  In this class, we will consider the fluid boundary between literature, culture, society and criticism; theory as an intellectual and emotional means of understanding the past and present; as well as theory’s capacity to present and unveil different “ways of being in the world”.  In particular, the goal of this course is to cultivate our sense of theory as a means of developing one’s own scholarly perspective.  In this light, we will begin the semester with each student presenting a “statement of critical identity” to the class.  The purpose of this exercise is to have you imagine yourself beyond your role as a student, and instead as a reader—in the most profound sense of this word—of culture.  Though this statement is not the final word on you as a scholar—indeed, this course should help you refine, if not revise it—, it will be a starting-point from which we can better understand what is at stake for us in our work.  Indeed, I encourage each student to consider the theoretical texts from the perspective of these “stakes”, with the goal of creating together a more complete picture of how different critical approaches illuminate and interact with different issues and texts.  It is in this spirit that the course is designed to provide students with a basic theoretical “tool kit” to build upon and personalize.  Finally, this survey aims to provide students with the means of engaging at a high level of critical sophistication with other scholars.

Course Texts:

Selections from The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism

Selections posted on Blackboard

Course Grade:

Theory responses: 10%

1 Short paper: 15%

Participation:  15%

3 presentations: 20%

1 final paper: 40%

DESCRIPTION:

There are three main goals for this course.  The first is the acquisition of the intellectual and interpretative tools specific to film comprehension, analysis and creation.  The second is the establishment of a sense of the French New Wave movement and its influence on subsequent artistic and commercial films.  The third main goal for the course is the acquisition of the vocabulary related to cinema production, description and interpretation.  The course will also encourage students to establish links between the films shown in the class, but also with other media.  Most importantly, the class is designed to cultivate film literacy, allowing students both to engage critically and create with this medium.  Assignments will include short, online film responses, one written movie review, a film exam, the creation of a student film, and written reflections on the film project.

TEXT:

Film Art, 10th edition by David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson

Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts by Susan Hayward

Films :

Les 400 coups

Tirez sur le pianiste

À bout de souffle

Pierrot le fou

Cléo de 5 à 7

La pointe courte

La jetée

Le joli mai

Hiroshima mon amour

L’année dernière à Marienbad

Ma nuit chez Maude

Les bonnes femmes

GRADING:

1.  Class attendance, participation and daily work (throughout the semester)……..15%

2.  8 Short film responses………………………………….………...…………...…15%

3.  Written Movie Review…….……………………….……………………...........15%

4.  Film exam ……..…...…………………………..…………………………….....20%

5.  Final film project ……..……………………..……………………………….....20%

6.  Reflections on the final film project ……….…………………………………...15%

Course description:

The objective of this course is to hone advanced listening, speaking, reading and writing skills in French.  In addition to the textbook, this course will have us study authentic French television, radio and print publications.  Students will reprise elements from these media in their own production, which will consist of scripting and recording various genres of television and radio programs.  Students will also write articles for different types of print publications.  In particular, we will explore stylistic conventions appropriate to descriptions, critical essays, argumentative essays, narrative style and literary style.  The goal of these exercises is to help students review, expand and combine individual language skills into a new relationship with French as a living and lively language.  Finally, because of our use of authentic material, the course will also introduce you to many aspects of French and Francophone culture.

Texts:

A vous d'écrire: Atelier de français (Student Edition)

Workbook to accompany A vous d'écrire: Atelier de français

Contrastes: Grammaire du français courant (2nd Edition)

Additional readings and clips will be available on Blackboard

This advanced language course has as its main goal broadening your sense of the action and function of language beyond expression.  In other words, the subject of this course is not what language can say, but what it can do.  In particular, we will examine the grammatical, rhetorical and stylistic demands and assets of the French language in contrast with English.  This course is designed to train you to recognize and analyze these attributes.  More importantly, however, this course sets out to teach you how to produce these varied effects in written language, first through imitation and, ultimately, in the service of your own self-expression.

The course is organized around five main units (le mot, la phrase, le paragraphe, le message, l’action).  I will provide the main readings, as well as additional materials, including texts, videos and audio recordings.  The mains readings will be passages from the writings of Madame de Lafayette, Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Marguerite Duras and Julien Gracq.  These readings will provide us with “material” with which we will work in class.  The supplemental materials are designed to help you develop your language skills and, as such, are just as important as the main readings.  You will be responsible for the homework as presented on the syllabus, including the readings and viewings.  Keeping up with this work will helps us use the classroom as it should be, as our practice and workspace where we will hone your language skills. Since this course is designed to help you master a set of skills, it is geared towards helping you practice those skills.  As such, you will have various forms of in-class work, ranging from targeted exercises to practice essays.  Outside of class, your main work will be reading and writing, but you should expect and be ready for other exercises including group work.  In short, this advanced language course requires regular and sustained practice throughout the semester.

The course grade will be based on the following elements:

1.  Exercices de style….….……………………………………….….….…………….30%

2.  Final writing project…..……………………………………………………………25%

3.  Rhetoric and grammar exam.....………………………………………….…………20%

4.  Daily work………........………………………………………….….……………...15%

5.  In-class participation…………………………..……………………….…………...15%

In “Modernism: 100 Years After World War I”, we will consider the shifting conceptions of selfhood, family and community caused by the social and cultural upheaval of the Great War as this catastrophe is represented in French poetry, novels, essays and film.  In particular, we will consider how these works contribute to the construction of an affective chronology that separates historical, political and memorial time into a “Before” and an “After”.  As we trace the development and persistence of this mythical break in time—echoed by equally drastic breaks in form and tradition—, we will consider critically how it influences our reading and representation of the Great War.

Grading :

30% Final conference presentation with hard copy

20% Attendance and participation

20% Two in-class presentations

20% Annotated bibliography

10 % Prospectus

Readings and viewings:

1. Le grand Meaulnes, Alain-Fournier (1913)

2. Du côté de chez Swann, Proust (1913)

3. Les vampires, Musidora and Mathé (1915-1916) ; short Dadaist films

4. Thomas l’imposteur, Cocteau (1923)

5. Les faux monnayeurs, Gide (1925)

6. Nadja, Breton (1928)

7. Voyage au bout de la nuit, Céline (1932)

8. J’accuse, Gance (1919) & Un long dimanche de fiançailles, Jeunet (2004)

9. Critical readings provided on Canvas

French Cinema and Memory 

This course will examine film’s capacity to create, transform or even falsify memory.  In particular, we will examine how this apparently “objective” medium complicates the very notion of recollection and, as such, disrupts our sense of identity.

The class is designed to help students engage critically with visual culture.  We will draw attention to the fact that film is a highly constructed medium, and that even the most “objective” images are the result of conscious or unconscious choices by its producers.  This aspect of film cuts across genre from comedy to suspense, from popular movies to art house film.  The theme of memory brings to the fore film’s capacity to influence, if not manipulate, the viewer.  What’s more, this course situates contemporary cinematic trends in the larger context of film history.  In short, this course offers students a critical gaze onto the contemporary world—one that is more and more defined by visual media.

Readings: 

Le vocabulaire du cinéma by Marie-Thérèse Journot

Précis d’analyse filmique by Anne Goliot-Lété and Francis Vanoye

Film Art: An Introduction, Ninth Edition by David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson

Tentative film list:

1.  Early Lumière brother films; early Méliès films; early Dadaist films (1895-1920's)

2.  J'accuse by Abel Gance (1919)

3.  L'année dernière à Marienbad by Alain Resnais (1961); Toute la mémoire du monde by Resnais and Marker (1956)

4.  La Jetée by Chris Marker (1962); Sans soleil by Chris Marker (1983)

5.  Le mépris by Jean-Luc Godard (1963)

6.  Le chagrin et la pitié by Marcel Ophuls (1969)

7.  Le dernier métro by François Truffaut (1980)

8.  Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma by Agnès Varda (1995)

9.  Se souvenir des belles choses by Zabou Breitman (2001)

10.  The Dreamers by Bernardo Bertolucci (2003)

11.  Caché by Michael Haneke (2005)

12.  Le scaphandre et le papillon by Julian Schnabel (2007)

13.  Persopolis by Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud (2007)

14.  Les plages d'Agnès by Agnès Varda (2008)

15.  L’illusionniste by Sylvain Chomet (2010)

The course grade will be based on the following elements:

1. Prospectus……………………………………………………………….....….5%

2. Kick-off Talks……………………………………………................10%

3. Class attendance, participation and daily work……….….15%

4. Midterm exam…………………………………………………………......15%

5. Scene Analysis 1…………………………………………………………..15%

6. Scene Analysis 2…………………………………………………………..15%

7. Final paper………………………………………………………………......25%

This advanced language course has as its main goal broadening your sense of the action and function of language beyond expression.  In other words, the subject of this course is not what language can say, but what it can do.  In particular, we will examine the grammatical, rhetorical and stylistic demands and assets of the French language in contrast with English.  This course is designed to train you to recognize and analyze these attributes.  More importantly, however, this course sets out to teach you how to produce these varied effects in written language, first through imitation and, ultimately, in the service of your own self-expression.

The course is organized around five main units (le mot, la phrase, le paragraphe, le message, l’action).  I will provide the main readings, as well as additional materials, including texts, videos and audio recordings.  The mains readings will be passages from the writings of Madame de Lafayette, Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Marguerite Duras and Julien Gracq.  These readings will provide us with “material” with which we will work in class.  The supplemental materials are designed to help you develop your language skills and, as such, are just as important as the main readings.  You will be responsible for the homework as presented on the syllabus, including the readings and viewings.  Keeping up with this work will helps us use the classroom as it should be, as our practice and workspace where we will hone your language skills. Since this course is designed to help you master a set of skills, it is geared towards helping you practice those skills.  As such, you will have various forms of in-class work, ranging from targeted exercises to practice essays.  Outside of class, your main work will be reading and writing, but you should expect and be ready for other exercises including group work.  In short, this advanced language course requires regular and sustained practice throughout the semester.

The course grade will be based on the following elements:

1.  Exercices de style….….……………………………………….….….…………….30%

2.  Final writing project…..……………………………………………………………25%

3.  Rhetoric and grammar exam.....………………………………………….…………20%

4.  Daily work………........………………………………………….….……………...15%

5.  In-class participation…………………………..……………………….…………...15%

Course description:

The objective of this course is to hone advanced listening, speaking, reading and writing skills in French.  In addition to the textbook, this course will have us study authentic French television, radio and print publications.  Students will reprise elements from these media in their own production, which will consist of scripting and recording various genres of television and radio programs.  Students will also write articles for different types of print publications.  In particular, we will explore stylistic conventions appropriate to descriptions, critical essays, argumentative essays, narrative style and literary style.  The goal of these exercises is to help students review, expand and combine individual language skills into a new relationship with French as a living and lively language.  Finally, because of our use of authentic material, the course will also introduce you to many aspects of French and Francophone culture.

Texts:

A vous d'écrire: Atelier de français (Student Edition)

Workbook to accompany A vous d'écrire: Atelier de français

Contrastes: Grammaire du français courant (2nd Edition)

Additional readings and clips will be available on Blackboard

FREN 381 M: Critical Approaches to Lit

Course Description:

This course is an introductory survey of the major critical approaches to literature and culture.  In this class, we will consider the fluid boundary between literature, culture, society and criticism; theory as an intellectual and emotional means of understanding the past and present; as well as theory’s capacity to present and unveil different “ways of being in the world”.  In particular, the goal of this course is to cultivate our sense of theory as a means of developing one’s own scholarly perspective.  In this light, we will begin the semester with each student presenting a “statement of critical identity” to the class.  The purpose of this exercise is to have you imagine yourself beyond your role as a student, and instead as a reader—in the most profound sense of this word—of culture.  Though this statement is not the final word on you as a scholar—indeed, this course should help you refine, if not revise it—, it will be a starting-point from which we can better understand what is at stake for us in our work.  Indeed, I encourage each student to consider the theoretical texts from the perspective of these “stakes”, with the goal of creating together a more complete picture of how different critical approaches illuminate and interact with different issues and texts.  It is in this spirit that the course is designed to provide students with a basic theoretical “tool kit” to build upon and personalize.  Finally, this survey aims to provide students with the means of engaging at a high level of critical sophistication with other scholars.

Course Texts:

Selections from The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism

Selections posted on Blackboard

Course Grade:

Theory responses: 10%

1 Short paper: 15%

Participation:  15%

3 presentations: 20%

1 final paper: 40% 

In this course, we will explore the relationship between fiction and reality, as well as the rules that govern each of these realms.  In particular, we will examine the status of fiction as an imaginary space governed by laws very different from those in the real world.  Indeed, how do we navigate this imaginary realm that both should, and should not influence our behavior in reality?  Why is it that we can be moved to tears at the death of a favorite character, but we do not storm the stage to stop a murder at the theater?  The readings and films for this course will challenge, cross or redraw the boundary between the real and the fictional.  We will consider each of our readings in light of Thomas Pavel’s Univers de la fiction in order to develop shared critical language.

Tentative Readings and Films:

Univers de la fiction, T. Pavel

Le manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse, J. Potocki

Locus solus, R. Roussel

Le passe-muraille, M. Aymé 

La vie: mode d’emploi, G. Perec 

Sans soleil, C. Marker

L’année dernière à Marienbad, A. Resnais

This advanced language course has as its main goal broadening your sense of the action and function of language beyond expression.  In other words, the subject of this course is not what language can say, but what it can do.  In particular, we will examine the grammatical, rhetorical and stylistic demands and assets of the French language in contrast with English.  This course is designed to train you to recognize and analyze these attributes.  More importantly, however, this course sets out to teach you how to produce these varied effects in written language, first through imitation and, ultimately, in the service of your own self-expression.

The course is organized around five main units (le mot, la phrase, le paragraphe, le message, l’action).  I will provide the main readings, as well as additional materials, including texts, videos and audio recordings.  The mains readings will be passages from the writings of Madame de Lafayette, Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Marguerite Duras and Julien Gracq.  These readings will provide us with “material” with which we will work in class.  The supplemental materials are designed to help you develop your language skills and, as such, are just as important as the main readings.  You will be responsible for the homework as presented on the syllabus, including the readings and viewings.  Keeping up with this work will helps us use the classroom as it should be, as our practice and workspace where we will hone your language skills. Since this course is designed to help you master a set of skills, it is geared towards helping you practice those skills.  As such, you will have various forms of in-class work, ranging from targeted exercises to practice essays.  Outside of class, your main work will be reading and writing, but you should expect and be ready for other exercises including group work.  In short, this advanced language course requires regular and sustained practice throughout the semester.

The course grade will be based on the following elements:

1.  Exercices de style….….……………………………………….….….…………….30%

2.  Final writing project…..……………………………………………………………25%

3.  Rhetoric and grammar exam.....………………………………………….…………20%

4.  Daily work………........………………………………………….….……………...15%

5.  In-class participation…………………………..……………………….…………...15%

FR 320E • Advanced French I

Prerequisites

FR 612, 312L, 312M, 312N, or the equivalent.

Course Description

This course will be taught in French.

The objective of this course is to improve all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) through a series of communicative tasks (compositions, listening comprehension activities, dictations, oral practice, etc.). Emphasis is placed on diversifying vocabulary, mastering a wider range of grammatical structures, increasing fluency, and developing appropriate rhetorical strategies for essay writing in French. And finally, participants can expect to learn about social issues in the French-speaking world (e.g. role of media in society, immigration, globalization, education, etc.)


Grading Policy

Chapter Exams (4 x 10%) 40%

Oral Exams  (3 x 5%) 15%

Compositions  (4 x 5%) 20%

Daily Assignments  15%

Final Project  10%

FINAL EXAM: NO


Texts

Oukada, Larbi. 2nd Ed. 2012. Controverses. Boston: Thomson/Cengage Heinle. (ISBN textbook 9780495797777; workbook 9781439082065): Required

Hawkins, French Grammar and Usage, (2nd edition), 2001, MCG, ISBN: 9780658017988: Recommended

Oxford, Compact Oxford Hachette French Dictionary, 3rd Ed., Oxford University Press, ISBN: 9780198610717: Recommended

Avant-garde et arrière-garde : The Social Body in 20th-Century France

In this course, we will examine the relationship between 20th-century texts and their influence on the French social body.  In our readings of texts that attack (avant-garde) or protect (arrière-garde) the social imaginary, we will examine the role literature plays in the “life” of the emotional and symbolic organism that binds individuals into a Nous.  In particular, we will consider the ways in which literary texts canchallenge and reimagine ways of “being in the world” in reaction to the catastrophes of the 20th-century.

Alfred Jarry, Ubu roi

Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac  

André Breton, L’affaire Barrès

Roger Vitrac, Victor ou les enfants au pouvoir

Marcel Proust, Le temps retrouvé

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Voyage au bout de la nuit

Simone de Beauvoir, Mémoires d’une fille rangée

Charles de Gaulle, L’appel

Camus, Le premier homme

Julien Gracq, Le rivage des Syrtes

Nathalie Sarraute, Vous les entendez ?

Georges Perec, W ou le souvenir d’enfance

Cours packet readings :

Didier Anzieu, Le moi-peau (excerpts)

Jean-Marie Apostolidès, Héroïsme et victimisation (excerpts)

Cornelius Castoriadis, L’institution imaginaire de la société (excerpts)

Martin Heidegger, « L’origine de l’œuvre d’art »

Maurice Barrès, selected political writings

Miguel Almeryda, selected political writings

Selected dadaist writings from Littérature and DADA

Selected surrealist writings

Marcel Proust, « La mort des cathédrales »

Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Bagatelles pour un massacre (excerpts)