The French are renowned for their love of theoretical discussion. The image of intellectuals debating art, philosophy and politics at sidewalk cafés has its roots in a distinctively Parisian approach to life. Sarah Lawrence’s seminars, held at the program’s headquarters in Reid Hall, combine the energy of spirited conversation with the rigor of serious academic study to inspire heightened involvement and scholarship. And with no more than 15 students in each seminar, every student plays a role in the discussion. Seminar topics—chosen in response to student interest—delve deeply into source material and provide the catalyst for further student research, guided by faculty tutorials every other week. Students earn four credits per semester for each Sarah Lawrence seminar.

Seminar: Art in Paris in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

(1st and 2nd semesters)

The purpose of this course is to study various movements and major works of painting and sculpture that influenced art history in Paris during the 19th and 20th centuries and helped to make this city the “capital of the arts”. Each semester, the course also examines important issues of the era. For example, during the 1st semester, we look at the relationship between painting and photography, the nude as a theme, scandalous works and the “salons”, drawing, the relationship between art, literature and criticism, etc. During the second semester, we investigate the relationship between art, modern music and dance, the relationship between painting and theater, the studio as a theme, theories of abstraction, the relationship between tradition and modernity, etc...

During both semesters, we also study the work of female artists and its importance, the connection between Paris and other capitals of art and the constant rapport between art, history and society.

This class includes frequent trips to view the works studied and locales in which artists worked and sought inspiration.

Seminar: Art Museums in France

(1st semester)

This course focuses on art museum collections in Paris, the greater Parisian area and the rest of France, taking into consideration the most prominent works in French collections and combining this heritage with certain European and American museum collections. These collections will be explored through numerous museum visits in Paris (one out of two classes at a museum) and elsewhere in France (one Saturday per month). Research taken on by the students may focus on any public or private, national or municipal museum of western, medieval, classical or modern art.

This course is reserved for students with little or no art history background.

Seminar: Great works of art and their reinterpretation in modern art.

Copies, interpretations, transgressions : on the theme of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Poussin’s Rape of the Sabines, and Manet’s Olympia.

(2nd semester)

After an introduction to the notion of “mannerism” in art, on “Raphaelism”, “Poussinism”, “Rubinism” and “Ingrism” and other stylistic concepts based on the last name of an artist, this course will focus on the study of the modern works of artists who toy with interpreting/transforming/“transfiguring” certain major artistic productions. Students also look at painters such as Manet, Picasso, Duchamp, de Chirico, Dali, Magritte, Lichtenstein, Warhol and many others, as well as Poussin himself, Ingres, Turner...

Main course objectives include putting “modern art” and “art of the past” into context in order to understand them not as contrary, but understanding “classical art” from within the concept “modern art”, and interpreting a “classical” and a “modern” painting while becoming familiar with the analytical principles of works of art.

This course includes frequent trips to small museums dedicated to a single artist, as well as the Louvre and the Orsay Museum.

Seminar: Contemporary French Film: Issues and Methods of Analysis

(1st semester)

There is an ongoing policy in French cinema, reinforced by government-issued directives, of resisting the Hollywood competition and creating the alternative : an artistically ambitious cinema which is culturally anchored in the national identity. However, French contemporary film is equally centered around a significant division between genre and auteur films, between mass culture and elite culture.

This course has two goals:

• To present a panorama of contemporary French film (1980-1990), through 12 films (thrillers, comedies, historical films, auteur films, female films, urban films) to be viewed in class
• To introduce students to film analysis by using these films as case studies for different methods: text-based (narrative, semiological, aesthetic, psychoanalytic) and context-based (historical, sociological, cultural, genre, public reaction)

Seminar: The City: a character in the novel. Poets and Prose Writers

(1st semester)

The purpose of this course is to examine the poets and prose writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries for whom the city has represented, beyond a literary theme, a potential space in which to realize dreams, develop consciousness and come to know others. The city will be considered as theater and frontier (G. de Nerval), a laboratory of conscience (Baudelaire), a place for love affairs and double consciousness (Breton), a place of desire and power (Zola), and as a framework for writing production (Butor). The city as a reflection (ideology, art) and as a record of social foundations is also an inspiration for writing.

Seminar: The Great French Novels of the 19th Century: Flaubert, Zola

(2nd semester)

The works of these two novelists number among the texts that contributed to the birth of the modern novel, as much in their form as in their content. This course attempts to discover the new techniques and the foundation of the modern theory of the novel through two works (Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Zola’s L’Assommoir) in which the main characters are, themselves, emblematic of the modern novel.

Seminar: Maghrebi and “Beur” Literature

(2nd semester)

Starting with the analysis of a selection of texts from Maghreb literature and what has been called the “beur” movement in France, this course proposes to first outline the history of the Maghreb and its literature under French colonization and after independence. In this first part of the course, we look at such questions as: choice of language; possible rifts between the imposed culture and native culture; and space dedicated to the memory of the colonial experience, tradition and pre-colonial traditions in literature.

In the second part of the course, we study the history of the immigration of Maghrebi populations to France and the literature of their children, the “beurs”. We reflect on the similarities and differences between these two literary forms. We analyze the relationship between the culture of the parents and of the children--language, tradition and religion--and address the question of national identity and ethnic minority in the context of the French nation. Who are the “beurs”? What representations of themselves do they offer? What is the viewpoint of each generation on France?

Seminar: France in Europe: Political Systems and International Relations

(2nd semester)

A general panorama of the press and a portrait of French political life allows students to become familiar with the principle political parties in France and to assess the ideological orientations of different newspapers and press reviews. A chronological study of the construction of Europe since the end of World War II, from the birth of the European Economic Community to the European Union, will lead to an evaluation of the weight of the Union’s international role as world power and in economic relations. Finally, this course poses the question of French opinion on the brink of this new Europe: does the European question transcend traditional political divisions? Are the French afraid of the idea of Europe?

Seminar: France and Africa

(1st semester)

A historical and political examination of the relationship between France and French-speaking Africa from the “Race towards the Empire” in the 19th century to today. The main goals of the course include describing the development of Franco-African relations from the colonial era to the post-independence period, to investigate the political, economic and cultural mechanisms of French influence on contemporary French-speaking Africa, and to understand the complex developments for France following colonisation, and its consequences, such as African immigration to France.

Seminar: Multi-Ethnic France

(1st semester)

After a brief presentation of the different populations that have settled in France in the 19th and 20th centuries, this course addresses “French-style” immigration policy and its political philosophy on naturalization and integration. The presentation of the various ethnic communities recently settled in France allows students to address the question of the social and cultural integration of the French-born generations. We explore this question within the context of the actual economic and moral crisis, the rise of the xenophobic radical right and the border closing, in accordance with the European Union regarding immigrants and asylum seekers, in effect since 1974.

Trips to community and anti-racist associations and solidarity networks between the immigrants in Paris and its surrounding areas : Mrap, Voix d’Elles Rebelles, the Tamil neighborhood, literary debates, concerts…

Attention: This class is limited to 10 students.

"Every human activity, whether it be love, philosophy, art . . . is carried on with a special intensity in Paris."

— Rebecca West, English novelist, critic and journalist