Spring 2019
FRE 500 Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy Christine M. Sagnier Designed to provide future teaching assistants with the knowledge and conceptual tools needed to reflect critically on pedagogical practices in the second language classroom. Examines issues related to teaching language and culture in a university setting, highlighting the relationship between theory in Second Language Acquisition and language pedagogy and helping students understand the practical implications of theoretical frameworks in the field. |
FRE 515 The Classical Tradition - Academic Quarrels Volker Schröder One of the most important cultural developments of 17th-century France was the establishment of royal academies of arts and sciences. This seminar aims to provide an introduction to these institutions by examining several crucial controversies which took place in or around the academies, from the Querelle du Cid and the Querelle du coloris to the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes. Course materials include a variety of literary, theoretical, and polemical texts as well as visual resources and rare books preserved in Firestone and Marquand libraries. |
FRE-525 20th-Century French Poetry or Theater – Surrealism Efthymia Rentzou This course examines the development of surrealism from its birth in Dada-infused Paris through its years of exile in New York to its decline after the Second World War. Materials considered include literary and theoretical texts, visual works (including film), and magazines. The course treats the topic at a variety of inter-related levels, exploring surrealism as a part of the broad historical phenomenon of the avant-garde, examining its specific ways of (re)conceiving literature and art, and investigating the epistemological ramifications of surrealism's aesthetic, political, and moral positions. (In English) |
FRE 538 / COM 538 / MOD 579 Le Monde par la bande André Benhaïm This course explores representations of the World and History in major bandes dessinées (or graphic novels) published in French from the 1930s to the present, and produced by authors of various backgrounds (French, Belgian, Italian, Jewish, Iranian). Informed by theoretical readings, discussions will address key aesthetical, political, and ethical issues, including Exoticism, Orientalism, (Post)colonialism, national and individual identity, as well as the theory of reception, to critically assess the fluctuations of these visions between fantasy and testimony. |
FRE 541 Formal and Conceptual Experiments in the Age of Enlightenment Flora Champy In this course, we explore the connection between the development of new literary forms and the burgeoning of original philosophical notions in the eighteenth century. As they questioned the political, social and ethical norms of their time, the philosophes also started a global rethinking of the literary rules they inherited from the "Grand siècle". Through a significant selection of non-classifiable works, we study how the bubbling laboratory of ideas changed the conception of literature, opening the path to multiple definitions that are still familiar to us today. |
Fall 2018
FRE 504 Reading Capital Nick Nesbitt Reading of Marx's classic critique of political economy, Capital, along with a selection of the principal philosophical readings of the mature Marx since the 1960s: Louis Althusser's Reading Capital, Michel Henry's Marx, and Moishe Postone's Time, Labor, and Social Domination. Emphasis is placed upon developing a categorial understanding of Marx's conceptual apparatus adequate to the contemporary context, in the wake of the collapse of actually-existing Socialism, industrialization, and the crisis of valorization in the Twenty-First century. The seminar this year focuses on Marx's epistemology: What is the object of analysis of Capital? |
FRE 521 Romanticism - Ecocriticism and French Nature-Writing Göran Magnus Blix The purpose of this seminar is twofold: to provide a practical guide to the burgeoning field of ecocriticism through an overview of its critical canon; and to shed new light on the French Romantic tradition by reading it through an environmental lens. We look at landscape painting and poetry, nature writing, animal depictions, and orientalist works from Rousseau to Michelet, and, in the process, analyze nature's shifting status as mere background, hostile other, sublime landscape, vital milieu, intimate place, and full-fledged agent. Topics include biocentrism, ecofeminism, vitalism, postcolonialism, animals, and eco-cosmopolitanism. |
FRE 583/COM 583 Seminar in Romance Linguistics and/or Literary Theory - Literary Theory from Phenomenology to Post-Structuralism Thomas Trezise The seminar examines major theoretical works representative of phenomenological, structuralist, and post-structuralist approaches to reading. Wherever possible, these works are paired with literary texts in order to see whether they facilitate or frustrate mutual translation. The ultimate ambition of the course is not only to familiarize students with important moments in twentieth-century intellectual history but to foster a practical capacity for the recognition and critique of theoretical frameworks. |
ART 561 / ENG 549 / FRE 561 Painting and Literature in Nineteenth-Century France and England Bridget A. Alsdorf and Deborah E. Nord Course explores the dynamic interplay between painting, poetry, and fiction in 19th-century France and England. The focus is twofold: painters and paintings as protagonists in novels and short stories, and paintings inspired by literature. Themes include problems of narrative, translation, and illustration; changing theories of the relative strengths of painting and literature as artistic media; realism and the importance of descriptive detail; the representation of the artist as a social (or anti-social) actor; the representation of women as artists and models; and the artist's studio as a literary trope. |
Spring 2018
FRE 500 Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy Christine M. Sagnier Designed to provide future teaching assistants with the knowledge and conceptual tools needed to reflect critically on pedagogical practices in the second language classroom. Examines issues related to teaching language and culture in a university setting, highlighting the relationship between theory in Second Language Acquisition and language pedagogy and helping students understand the practical implications of theoretical frameworks in the field. |
FRE 516 Seminar 17th-Century French Literature: Satire Volker Schröder This seminar explores the transformations of satirical writing and its place in French culture between 1600 and 1715. Course materials include a variety of literary genres such as poetry, novel, and comedy, as well as graphic satire. These works are analyzed in relation both to the traditional models that they adapt and to the contemporary conflicts that they express and address. Among the topics to be discussed throughout the semester are: obscenity and civility, free speech and verbal violence, derision and defamation, authorship and censorship. |
FRE 518 The Literature of Enlightenment: Jean-Jacques Rousseau Joanna Stalnaker (Columbia) In this course, we read Rousseau through the lens of the polarized critical reactions his writings have elicited, in an effort to understand why he has been viewed as an exemplar of both Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment, as a defender of human liberty and a proto-totalitarian, as an inspiration to women writers and a misogynist. Central to our discussions is the question of how his view of nature, as expressed in the Discourse on Inequality, is linked to his triptych of autobiographical works. Critical readings include Lévi-Strauss, Derrida, de Man, Starobinski, Foucault, Wittig, Darnton and Goodman. |
FRE 525 20th-Century French Poetry or Theater: French Modernist Poetry Efthymia Rentzou This course investigates Modernist poetics in France from mid-19th to mid-20th c. and seeks to re-evaluate Modernism in French literary history. The course treats the topic at a variety of interrelated levels by exploring French poetry as part of the broad historical phenomenon of Modernism while examining the specific ways it materialized in France as formal innovation and as a response to modernity. Seminal poets such as Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Apollinaire, and Cendrars, are discussed as well as specific movements. Readings and theoretical questions also address the complex relationship between avant-garde and Modernism. |
FRE 526 / COM 525 Seminar in 19th & 20th-Century French Literature: Beckett Thomas A. Trezise A study of Samuel Beckett's major works in prose and theater with extensive reference to the body of criticism it has generated. |
Fall 2017
FRE 524 / HUM 524 20th-Century French Narrative Prose - Realism and (Post-)Truth Christy N. Wampole Through theories of realism and examples of realist fiction, this course poses the following questions: What happens to realism in the post-truth era? Do we really suffer from what David Shields has called 'reality hunger' or some other literary affliction? What has happened to realism since the 19th century? Other topics include: naturalism, socialist and capitalist realism, the role of journalism and the social sciences in changing the texture of realism, the seepage between life and literature. |
FRE 526 Seminar in 19th- and 20th-Century French Literature - Reading Proust André Benhaïm A study of Marcel Proust's works and "imaginaire", some of his most remarkable readings, along with readings of/by some of his most remarkable readers (writers, philosophers, critics, artists, and film makers). |
FRE 528 Francophone Literature and Culture Outside of France - Imperialism and Decolonization in the Francophone World F. Nick Nesbitt Classic theories of Imperialism (Marx, Lenin, Hobson, Arendt, Fanon), and the relation of the critique of imperialism to decolonization. Focus on the francophone Caribbean and Africa. Attention as well to contemporary critiques of Imperialism that draw on this legacy. Readings and discussion in English. |
Spring 2017
FRE 500 Second Language Acquisition Research and Language Teaching Methodology Murielle M. Perrier Designed to provide future teaching assistants with the knowledge and conceptual tools needed to reflect critically on pedagogical practices in the second language classroom. Examines issues related to teaching language and culture in a university setting, highlighting the relationship between theory in Second Language Acquisition and language pedagogy and helping students understand the practical implications of theoretical frameworks in the field. |
FRE 502 Language and Style David M. Bellos A survey of historical, social and regional variation written and spoken French, with particular attention to vocabulary, syntax, phonology and prosody. |
FRE 504 Reading Capital F. Nick Nesbitt This class initiates a reading of Marx's classic critique of political economy, Capital, along with a selection of the principal philosophical readings of the mature Marx since the 1960s: Louis Althusser's Reading Capital, Michel Henry's Marx, and Moishe Postone's Time, Labor, and Social Domination. Emphasis is placed upon developing a categorial understanding of Marx's conceptual apparatus adequate to the contemporary context, in the wake of the collapse of actually-existing Socialism, industrialization, and the crisis of valorization in the Twenty-First century. |
FRE 510 / MED 510 Seminar in Medieval French Literature - Writing Scandal Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet How to understand the writings of two authors whose works spring from marginality: Christine de Pizan as a woman, François Villon as a rascal? What is ideologically and stylistically a scandalous writing? |
FRE 513 Seminar in French Literature of the Renaissance - The Matter of the Book: Montaigne's Essais Katie Chenoweth Montaigne begins his Essais (1580) by announcing to the reader that "je suis moy-mesmes la matiere de mon livre" (I am myself the matter of my book). Taking this as a point of departure, this seminar on the Essais approaches Montaigne as a seminal theorist - and active practitioner - of textual materiality and technological mediation. Secondary works studied include readings in book history, media theory, ancient materialist philosophy, and "new materialisms". |
FRE 525 20th-Century French Poetry or Theater - Surrealism Efthymia Rentzou This course examines the development of surrealism from its birth in Dada-infused Paris through its years of exile in New York to its decline after the Second World War. Materials considered include literary and theoretical texts, visual works (including film), and magazines. The course treats the topic at a variety of inter-related levels, exploring surrealism as part of the broad historical phenomenon of the avant-garde, examining its specific ways of (re)conceiving literature and art, and investigating the epistemological ramifications of surrealism's aesthetic, political, and moral positions. (In English) |
FRE 565 / COM 565 / ENG 544 / GER 565 Studies in Forms of Poetry - Poetry, History and Memory Sandra L. Bermann Michael G. Wood This seminar explores the intricate relations of poetry to history and memory in the troubled 20th century. Individual poets are closely studied for their intrinsic interest but also for their (known and still to be discovered) connections with each other. The poets are Eugenio Montale, César Vallejo, René Char, Paul Celan, Adrienne Rich and Anne Carson, but other writers are called on from time to time. Questions of war and resistance are important, and above all the course attends to what one might think of as the fate of language under pressure.(In English) |
Fall 2016
FRE 526 Readings in the 20th-Century Novel Thomas A. Trezise A study of major French or Francophone novels of the twentieth century in conjunction with critical texts on narrative. |
FRE 527 The Heroism of Modern Life Göran Blix How can modern bourgeois life still claim to be, as Baudelaire suggested, worthy of heroic treatment, despite the rise of democratic values? While many post-revolutionary thinkers opposed heroism on political grounds, or judged it historically impossible, some fashioned new democratic heroes reconciling exemplarity and typicality. Meanwhile, reactionary thinkers revitalized an older heroic code to justify hierarchy and order. We will examine the nineteenth-century crisis of heroism in a wide range of authors such as Balzac, Stendhal, Marx, Nietzsche, Carlyle, Emerson, Baudelaire, Comte, Michelet, Hugo, the Goncourts, Barrès, and Bergson. |
FRE 538 / COM 538 / MOD 579 Le Monde par la bande André Benhaïm This course explores representations of the World and History in major bandes dessinées (or graphic novels) published in French from the 1930s to the present, and produced by authors of various backgrounds (French, Belgian, Italian, Jewish, Iranian). Informed by theoretical readings, discussions will address key aesthetical, political, and ethical issues, including Exoticism, Orientalism, (Post)colonialism, national and individual identity, as well as the theory of reception, to critically assess the fluctuations of these visions between fantasy and testimony. (In English) |
HUM 596 / GER 596 / FRE 596 / COM 596 Humanistic Perspectives on Literature - Case Histories, Life Stories Peter P. Brooks / Brigid Doherty The seminar reflects on the role of exemplary stories - ones that seem to want to offer a lesson in the understanding of life and character, even of personhood as such - in fiction and non-fiction. What do authors intend when writing factual "case histories" or fictional variants on the genre? What are readers supposed to learn from such texts? What is at stake for the subjects of case histories? How do modalities of narration and literary figuration variously shape the presentation of life stories in autobiography, psychoanalysis, art criticism? |
Spring 2016
FRE 401 Rousseau Christophe Litwin
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FRE 500 Second Language Acquisition Research and Language Teaching Methodology Christine M. Sagnier
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FRE 525 French Modernist Poetry Efthymia Rentzou
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FRE 526 Writing the People in 19th-Century France Göran Blix
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FRE 583 / COM 583 Levinas and Blanchot Thomas A. Trezise
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Fall 2015
FRE 515 The Classical Tradition - Academic Publishing in the Age of Louis XIV Volker Schröder One of the most important cultural developments of 17th-century France was the establishment of royal academies of arts and sciences. This seminar will focus on the multifaceted academic activities and publications during the reign of Louis XIV, ranging from art criticism and botany to historiography and lexicography. We will examine closely several complex book projects in which the leading artists and intellectuals of the time collaborated more or less successfully and harmoniously. Throughout the semester, the class will make intensive use of original editions and other materials in Firestone and Marquand libraries. |
FRE 529 / COM 529/ HLS 528 After Odysseus: Hospitality, France, and the Mediterranean André Benhaïm
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FRE 540 / ITA 540 / COM 541 Italo Calvino in France Christy N. Wampole
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Spring 2015
FRE 500 Second Language Acquisition Research and Language Teaching Methodology Christine M. Sagnier
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FRE 509 The Troubadours and the Occitan Tradition - Lyrics in a Manuscript Tradition Christopher J. Davis
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FRE 514 / COM 518 Human, Animal, Machine Katie Chenoweth
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ENG 567 / FRE 567
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FRE 583 / COM 583
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COM 565 / GER 565 / ENG 544 / FRE 565 Studies in Forms of Poetry - Poetry, History and Memory Sandra L. Bermann / Michael G. Wood This seminar explores the intricate relations of poetry to history and memory in the troubled 20th century. Individual poets are closely studied for their intrinsic interest but also for their (known and still to be discovered) connections with each other. The poets are Eugenio Montale, René Char, Paul Celan, and Anne Carson, but other writers will also be called on from time to time. Questions of war and resistance are important, and above all the course attends to what one might think of as the fate of language under pressure. |
Fall 2014
FRE 406 / GER 406 Roots in 20th-Century France and Germany Christy N. Wampole
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ART 450 / FRE 408
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FRE 516
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FRE 518
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FRE 521 The purpose of this seminar is twofold: to provide a practical guide to the burgeoning field of ecocriticism through an overview of its critical canon; and to shed new light on the French Romantic tradition by reading it through an environmental lens. We will look at landscape painting and poetry, nature writing, animal depictions, and orientalist works from Rousseau to Michelet, and, in the process, analyze nature's shifting status as mere background, hostile other, sublime landscape, vital milieu, intimate place, and full-fledged agent. Topics include biocentrism, ecofeminism, vitalism, postcolonialism, animals, and eco-cosmopolitanism. |
FRE 528
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COM 563 / FRE 563 / ENG 577
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HUM 596 / COM 596 / ENG 529 / FRE 596
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Spring 2014
FRE 510 / MED 510 |
FRE 521 |
FRE 525 |
FRE 527 |
FRE 583 |