Fall 2012 French Course Offerings Division of French and Italian

Fall 2012 French Course Offerings
Division of French and Italian Studies
FR 011
French for Reading Knowledge
Ms. Jeorg Ellen Sauer
MWF 9:00-9:50
This course is designed for graduate students with little or no background in French who
wish to acquire a reading knowledge of French quickly and efficiently. In contrast to
traditional foreign language courses, “French for Reading” does not stress three of the
four primary language skills (i.e., you will not learn to speak or write French, nor will
you learn to understand spoken French.) Instead, you will learn to read texts in French
(eventually from your own scholarly disciplines), answer questions about them,
paraphrase and translate sections of them.
FR 103
French Cinema
Gen Ed – Inquiry (Humanities)
Dr. Jeffrey Peters
Lecture: MW 1-1:50
Discussion: -001 F 1-1:50; -002 F 1-1:50;
-003 W 2-2:50; -004 F 1-1:50; -005 W 12-12:50
French cinema is one of the great contributions to world culture of the twentieth century.
Not only have French filmmakers been leading innovators in film style, but the early
history of French cinema is in many ways the history of cinema itself. Indeed, many of
the discoveries that made filmmaking possible occurred in France. In this course, we will
trace the evolution of French cinema from 1895, the year of the first public demonstration
of the cinématographe – an early movie camera and projector – in Paris, to the present.
We will have two overall goals: 1) to examine the primary stylistic movements that have
defined French cinema; and 2) to explore the nature of film form – the shot, editing,
sound, etc. – and to understand the role French cinema has played in the development of
the formal qualities we recognize in movies today.
Topics will include: the invention of cinema, the silent suspense thriller of the 1910s, the
coming of sound, surrealism in film, poetic realism, the cinema during World War II and
the Occupation, film noir, the New Wave and its impact, French-American influence,
experimental film in the 60s and 70s, punk hyperrealism in the 80s, class and the nation
in the 90s and the new millennium...
Taught in English. No knowledge of French necessary.
Fulfills 3 hours of the USP Humanities or Gen Ed – Inquiry (Humanities) requirement.
FR 204
Introduction to French and Francophone Studies
Ms. Jeorg Ellen Sauer
MWF 11:00-11:50
This course engages students in a reflection on what it means to be a major in French and
Francophone Studies in an American university today and acquaints them with the kinds
of activities they will encounter in more advanced French courses. Through careful
analysis of a variety of cultural artifacts – including literary, cinematic, and non-fiction
documents – students will consider the problems – and intellectual potential – involved in
studying a field that is by definition interdisciplinary. A number of general questions will
guide our investigations: “What is Frenchness?” “How has this concept changed over
time?” “What is its relationship to France the nation?” “What is the relationship between
Frenchness and Francophonie?” Students will also review essential grammar points
encountered in previous study of French.
FR 214
France Today
Ms. Jeorg Ellen Sauer
MWF 10-10:50
This course enhances students’ speaking abilities, while at the same time examining
popular culture, current issues, business and commerce culture, and the institutions and
society of post-1945 France. Students discuss cultural artifacts, compare and contrast life
in France to his or her own culture and consider questions surrounding distinctions
between high and low culture.
During the semester, students will watch interviews with the French about politics,
language, culture, work and the European Union. Class time will be devoted to discussion
and debates as well as group projects. This course is designed to help the student learn
more about current events in France.
FR 310
French Phonetics
Dr. Sadia Zoubir-Shaw
TR 11-12:15
FR 310 teaches the fundamental theory of French sounds and intonation patterns and
provides practice in pronunciation and corrective Phonetics. The course content,
embedded in a contrastive and comparative approach, includes an on-line pronunciation
program and in-class presentations to gain practice in self and peer correction and
auditory discrimination.
French phonemes and intonation patterns will be studied in isolation through a series of
contrastive exercises as well as within the continuum of spontaneous speech. Corrective
phonetics will be an important part of the course to equip students with techniques and
strategies that will carry on beyond the FR 310 classroom.
FR 324
Studies in French Literature: Faune/Flore
Dr. Stephanie Coker
MWF 2-2:50
“Qu'est-ce que l'Art, monsieur ? C'est la Nature concentrée.” – Honoré de Balzac
This course serves as an introduction to French literature and focuses on the depiction of
nature and animals throughout the centuries. Beginning with the Middle Ages, we will
explore the role of faune/flore as seen in the Lais of Marie de France and in the bestiaries.
In the seventeenth century, these talking animals reappear in the fables of Jean de la
Fontaine. And finally, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we will delve into the
short stories of Guy de Maupassant and Jacques Prévert to discover the nature/Nature of
French literature.
FR 325
Le cinéma français
Dr. Leon Sachs
TR 12:30-1:45
This course is both an historical and aesthetic study of the works of many of France’s
most significant filmmakers from the turn of the twentieth century to the present day.
After an introduction to the history of early cinema and to the critical vocabulary of film
analysis, we will focus on the “Golden Age” of French cinema, the poetic realist
movement and the works of directors such as Jean Renoir and Marcel Carné. The second
part of the course will be devoted primarily to the innovations and experiments of “New
Wave” cinema and the works of representative directors such as François Truffaut and
Jean-Luc Godard. The third part of the course will examine recent trends in “politicallycommitted” French cinema (e.g., the films of Varda, Kassovitz and Kechiche). Students
who have taken FR 103 “French Cinema” are welcome to take this course (though they
should note that the this course will be conducted in French).
FR 350
Francophone Cultures
Dr. Jacqueline Couti
MWF 12:-12:50
Identités et communautés dans les Amériques
Qui sommes-nous? Comment les autres nous perçoivent-ils? Comment nous présentonsnous à la face du monde? Sommes-nous ceux que nous définissons ou alors est-ce les
autres qui le font pour nous?
Ce cours est une introduction à la littérature de langue française des Amériques. Les
étudiants examineront la façon dont les auteurs des anciennes colonies françaises essaient
de répondre aux questions ci-dessus. Nous étudierons particulièrement la façon dont les
écrivains des Amériques se réapproprient ou rejettent une certaine culture occidentale
pour exprimer le particularisme de leur région d’origine. Cette approche devra permettre
aux étudiants de comprendre que la représentation de l’image d’un individu n’est jamais
gratuite. Ce faisant, ils découvriront en quoi l’identité individuelle et celle culturelle d’un
groupe sont souvent liées à celle de la nation.
FR 410
French in Performance
Dr. Sadia Zoubir-Shaw
TR 2-3:15
The focus of FR 410 is oral production in French through performance. In a variety of
settings exploring register, style, tone, pitch, articulation and pace, students will engage
in debates and spontaneous role-play and simulations for practice, and rehearsed skits and
formally scripted scripts for performance.
The focus of FR 410 is oral production in French through performance. In a variety of
settings exploring register, style, tone, pitch, articulation, and pace, students will engage
in debates, spontaneous role-play, and simulations for in-class practice, and rehearsed
skits and formally written scripts for performance. In addition to regular oral exercises to
improve pronunciation and intonation, and readings to acquire the necessary tools to
increase their vocabulary and knowledge of French colloquialisms, students will actively
and creatively work together on a final project consisting in researching and staging a
significant historical or contemporary event.
FR 470G
Topical Seminar I
Dr. Jacqueline Couti
MWF 11-11:50
Genre, Sexualité, et Race
Quel est le message des contes ? Pourquoi des histoires si anciennes nous parlent-elles
encore autant ? Ce cours examinera la mise en scène du genre, des rapports sociaux de
sexe, de la sexualité et de la race dans les contes de fée et les histoires merveilleuses
d’Europe, D’Afrique et des Amériques.
Pourquoi la belle-mère de Blanche neige essaie-t-elle de la tuer. Pourquoi celle de
Cendrillon et ses filles la maltraitent autant ? Pourquoi La Barbe bleue veut-il tuer sa
femme ? Ce cours étudiera les structures psychiques fondamentales qui se trouvent au
coeur des contes. Sous forme d’images symboliques, elles traduisent les problèmes
auxquels nous sommes confrontés et qui touchent à la fois aux relations dans la société
(peur de l’autre, organisation et la hiérarchie sociale, relations entre les sexes, racisme), la
famille et le mariage (rivalité fraternelle, violence conjugale, inceste…) et aux problèmes
personnels (renoncement aux dépendances de l’enfance, affirmation de la personnalité,
prise de conscience de ses propres valeurs, construction du soi). Loin de faire partie d’une
simple « littérature enfantine », les contes illustrent des fantasmes et des peurs, tout en
apportant, souvent, des « solutions » à ces manifestations. Après notre exploration des
contes et histoires merveilleuse en Europe et en Afrique, nous examinerons comment les
nouvelles communautés françaises et francophones des Amériques ont réécrit ces
histoires et leurs thèmes pour adresser des préoccupations particulières, telles celles
autour de l’esclavage, de l’exil, de l’exploitation d’un groupe par un autre, ou encore des
rapports entre les races.
FR 609
Seventeenth-Century Studies
Dr. Jeffrey Peters
W 3:30-6
Barthes, Theory, and the Seventeenth Century
Our goal in this class will be to think about the nature and uses of critical theory by
reading and discussing together the central writings of Roland Barthes. Barthes’s career
is often indistinguishable from the history of theory itself, intersecting with and
contributing to the development of literary structuralism, the experiments of semiotics,
the responses of post-structuralism, and the eventual emergence of cultural studies. He
elaborated a systematic method of close reading and ideological analysis, and formulated
a host of theoretical concepts that have influenced subsequent literary debates, including
the writerly text, the “death of the author,” cultural mythology, textual pleasure, and
plural reading. Time and again throughout his work, moreover, Barthes returned to
seventeenth-century classicism as the originating aesthetic with which the literary and
social revolutions of modernism – Barthes’s primary interest – broke ranks. Our reading
of Barthes will therefore focus on 1) his very specific construction of l’écriture classique,
as well as 2) the parallels between twentieth- and seventeenth-century arguments about
literary analysis. To what extent, for example, can we understand Barthes’s conflict with
Raymond Picard over la nouvelle critique in 1965-66, not to mention the “Culture Wars”
of the 1980s and 1990s (and today), as an extension of the Querelle des Anciens et
Modernes? We will thus be asking: what is literary theory and what is it for? Why do we
read it? Why is it difficult and what makes it so? How does one go about reading theory
and then using it to read literary works? What is cultural studies and how is it related to
the study of literature? In short, to pose a question Barthes asked throughout his career,
what are we doing when we read?
Texts will include parts of Barthes’s Le Degré zéro de l’écriture, Sur Racine, S/Z,
Critique et vérité, and Mythologies, as well as selected essays. We will also read works
by Boileau, Perrault, Racine, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, and La Fayette.
Assignments will include several papers and at least one presentation. Active class
participation will be required.
FR 621
Twentieth-Century Studies
Dr. Leon Sachs
R 3:30-6
From Realism to Modernism
This course explores the intellectual and cultural currents underlying the transition from a
realist to a modernist aesthetic occurring in late nineteenth-century and early twentiethcentury France. The first part of the course will examine the rise of nineteenth-century
realism and the experimental aspects of Zola’s naturalism. The second and greater part of
the course will be devoted to studying the turn-of-the-century “crisis of representation,” a
shift among artists, writers and critics away from a concern with the mimetic function of
art to a preoccupation with the techniques and materials of artistic construction itself. We
will read works by major exponents of the Decadent and Symbolist movements as well as
those by other avant-garde innovators in literature and the visual arts. Representative
writers and filmmakers we will study include Zola, Baudelaire, Maupassant, Huysmans,
Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Gide, Aragon, Proust, Buñuel, Apollinaire, Léger, Duchamp.