2008–2009 French Courses
Beginning French: Defining French Culture from Within and Without
Level: Open
Semester: Year
In this course, students will acquire basic competence in oral and written expression, as well as reading and listening comprehension, by learning to read and discuss primary texts of increasing difficulty. These texts will be chosen in function of the thematic progression of the course, whose goal is to attempt to understand what is meant by “French culture.” In the first part of the course, we will study aspects of French culture from within the hexagon: children’s literature, food and national identity, republicanism, postwar literature and cinema, etc. In the second part of the course, we will analyze France’s national identity through its relationship to its others, focusing specifically on some of France’s ideological stances after World War II. We will look at postcolonialism and immigration, anti-Americanism, France and Europeanization, etc. The readings will be distributed in class; students will also have to purchase the textbook Débuts.
Beginning. Section 1
Beginning French
Level: Open
Semester: Year
The purpose of this course is to provide an opportunity for students to acquire the basic skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing elementary French. It will aim at making students ready to communicate in the French language and immerse them in the cultural wealth of the Francophone world. The course will involve the thorough study of all grammatical aspects of French through group work activities, interactive oral drills, in-class writing practice, mini quizzes, and tests. Regular written homework from the exercise book will be assigned as well as various short response essays. The use of the Voilà textbook will be complemented by an array of teaching materials drawn from the Parle-moi un peu! gap activities book and other sources. In addition, we will watch French films and go on class outings to French events in and around New York City. The weekly group conferences will be spent in conversation and in discussion of specific grammatical issues. Students will be required to attend weekly conversation classes with the French assistant(e) and are also encouraged to attend the weekly French lunch table.
Beginning. Section 2
Intermediate French I: Before We Met: Fictions of Origins and Reflections on Socialization in Eighteenth-Century French Literature
Level: Open
Semester: Year
This course will provide a thorough review of the basic concepts of French grammar and is designed to strengthen and deepen students’ mastery of grammatical structures. Students will also learn to begin to use linguistic concepts as tools for textual analysis. Our readings and discussion will focus on human nature and the theme of the “presocial” in eighteenth-century literature. The thinkers of the Enlightenment, eager to understand the human soul, as well as the origins of society and its evils, were fond of imagining humans in a presocial state before their entrance into (French) society, and to imagine these humans’ first contact with others, with love, with sexuality, with language, etc. Many writers used fiction as an experimental space to strip humans of the influence of sociability. We will see that their, at the time, subversive way of exploring morality and ethics can be useful today to think through contemporary issues at the intersection of politics and identity. We will read texts (and excerpts) that best incarnate this obsession with recreating the processes of socialization, including Pierre de Marivaux’s La Dispute (1744), Françoise de Graffigny’s Lettres d’une Péruvienne (1747), and Voltaire’s Candide (1759).
Open to any interested student pending placement test and interview with the instructor.
Intermediate French II: “Being Maghrebi: Morocco Through French and Moroccan Eyes”
Level: Open
Semester: Year
This introductory course to the populations and cultures of Morocco will have literary and anthropological components, both stressing the interaction of religion, culture, and society in this North African country. Drawing on French ethnographies (Lacoste-Dujardin, Tillon, Bourdieu, Grandguillaume, etc.) on this area and on French literary works by native Moroccans, the course will explore, in the first part, various forms of cultural, religious, ethnic, and linguistic diversity among Moroccans as well as national identity formation and representation. The second part of the course will be dedicated to examining the changing dynamics of Moroccan diaspora in France and will allow students the opportunity to take a close look at Islam in and out of France in rural and urban spaces. Through lectures, readings, discussions, screenings, writing assignments, and class presentations, students will have the opportunity to improve their reading and writing skills in French as well as becoming familiar with the basic social regularities and cultural forms of Morocco. We will approach this goal by using an array of literary works reflecting the variety of discourses, the complexities of otherness (female, Berber, Jewish, Arab, and Beur authors). A selection of readings will include Rajae Benchemsi, La controverse des temps; Mohammed Khaïr-Eddine, Une odeur de mantèque; Edmond Amran El Maleh, Parcours immobile; Tahar Ben Jelloun, Les yeux baissés; Driss Chraïbi, Vu, lu, entendu; and Paul Smaïl, Ali le magnifique. The course will be fully conducted in French.
Intermediate II. Open to any interested student pending placement test and interview with the instructor.
Intermediate French III: Around Symbolism (Poetry and Fiction)
Level: Open
Semester: Year
This course will focus on the symbolist movement in French literature by contrasting it with other literary movements that were closely associated with it chronologically and thematically, such as the Parnassians and the decadent movement. In addition, we will deal with the literary schools that are usually viewed as directly opposed to symbolism, i.e., realism and naturalism. We will read canonical texts by poets such as Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Valéry, and Verlaine and by novelists such as Balzac, Flaubert, Maupassant, and Zola. We will also read a small number of critical essays and watch film versions of some of the novels that we read. Students interested in other fields (e.g., history or art history) could do conference readings on subjects related to this period. This course will be conducted entirely in French, and along with its literary and cultural content we will review the more complex aspects of the French language. Students will acquire the necessary linguistic means to undertake successfully academic work in French.Intermediate III.
Open to any interested student pending placement test and interview with the instructor.
Advanced Beginning French: Paris as a Book
Semester: Year
In this course, we will review and actively practice the fundamental elements of French grammar and vocabulary, using texts, films, and dynamic role play in the classroom. The fast pace of the course will allow us to reach a good level of French by the end of the first semester such that students can express themselves in both written and oral French. We will approach the city of Paris both as a book waiting to be read and as a geographical space shaped by books. We will try to establish bridges between space, text, and time in order to discover a city, but also to explore issues shaping French culture past and present. We will discuss such themes as “scenes of revolution” with works by Mercier, Hugo, Flaubert; “Paris and modernity” with Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Maupassant; and “from the ville-musée to the burning suburbs” with novels by new female writers Faïza Guène and Calixthe Beyala.
Advanced beginning.
Advanced French: The Literature of Laughter in Early Modern France
Level: Advanced
Semester: Year
If writers are always trying to provoke a reaction in their readers, then laughter is a particularly interesting case because it is a clear and explicit response, a powerful proof of a work’s impact and hence a confirmation of its validity. But what are the implicationsof laughter for society, reality, truth, and even God? These issues were crucial to literary debates in early modern France, providing the occasion for writers and theorists to reflect on the fundamental role of the writer and the status of literature itself. In this course, we will explore these questions by reading major French literary works of the early modern period, expanding our reflections to major principles of Western literature and to the implications of the act of writing in today’s world. Given the importance of comedy in the period, we will focus primarily on theatre, but we will also read works of other genres and make connections with other literatures of the period.
Open to any interested student pending placement test and interview with the instructor.