2012-2013 French Courses

An introduction to French using the multimedia “Débuts” system (textbook/two-part workbook/full-length movie, Le Chemin du retour), this class will allow students to develop an active command of the fundamentals of spoken and written French. In both class and group conferences, emphasis will be placed on activities relating to students’ daily lives and to French and Francophone culture. The textbook integrates a French film with grammar study, exposing students to the spoken language from the very beginning of the course. Other materials may include French songs, cinema, newspaper articles, poems, and short stories. Group conferences replace individual conference meetings for this level, and a weekly conversation session with a French language assistant(e) is required. Attendance at the weekly French lunch table and French film screenings are both highly encouraged. Students who successfully complete a beginning and an intermediate-level French course may be eligible to study in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Course conducted in French.

An introduction to French using the multimedia “Débuts” system (textbook/two-part workbook/full-length movie, Le Chemin du retour), this class will allow students to develop an active command of the fundamentals of spoken and written French. In class and in group conferences, emphasis will be placed on activities relating to students’ daily lives and to French and Francophone culture. The textbook integrates a French film with grammar study, exposing students to the spoken language from the very beginning of the course. Other materials may include French songs, cinema, newspaper articles, poems, and short stories. Group conferences replace individual conference meetings for this level, and a weekly conversation session with a French language assistant(e) is required. Attendance at the weekly French lunch table and French film screenings are both highly encouraged. Students who successfully completed a beginning and an intermediate-level French course may be eligible to study in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Course conducted in French.

This course is designed for students who have studied some French in the past but wish to review the fundamentals of French language and grammar before venturing into the study of complex literary texts in French. The course will be divided into two parts: The first semester will be exclusively centered on the intense, fast-paced, and thorough revision of the fundamentals of French grammar; students will be encouraged to write multiple short essays and to participate in oral class activities and will be exposed to various kinds of documents in French (songs, movies, texts, etc.). The second semester of the course will continue this work on French language but will also introduce literature and literary discussions with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century France and Francophonie. Conferences will be individual, allowing students to pursue their interests in any area of French and Francophone literatures and cultures. In addition to conferences, a weekly conversation session with a French language assistant(e) is required. Attendance at the weekly French lunch table and French film screenings are both highly encouraged. Students who successfully complete a beginning and an intermediate-level French course may be eligible to study in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Admission by placement test to be taken during interview week at the beginning of the fall semester. Course conducted in French.

This course will offer a systematic review of French grammar and is designed to strengthen and deepen students’ mastery of grammatical structures and vocabulary. Students will develop their analytical and creative writing skills in French through essays and rewrites. The Intermediate I and II French courses are specially designed to help prepare students for studying in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Admission by placement test to be taken during interview week at the beginning of the fall semester or completion of Beginning French. Course conducted in French.

This course will offer a systematic review of French grammar and is designed to strengthen and deepen students’ mastery of grammatical structures and vocabulary. Students will also begin to use linguistic concepts as tools for developing their analytic writing. More than other countries, France’s identity was shaped by centuries of what is now perceived by the French as a historically coherent past. It is not surprising, then, that the 15th-century figure of Jeanne d’Arc is today the symbol of the extreme right-wing party, Le Pen, which has gained a significant influence in France in the last 30 years. This phenomenon can be seen, in part, as a reaction to the changing face of France’s society, exemplified by the French “Black-Blanc-Beur” soccer team that Zidane led to victory in the 1998 World Cup. In this course, we will explore the complexities of today’s French identity or, rather, identities by following the most contemporary controversies that have shaken French society in the past 20 years while, at the same time, exploring historical influences and cultural paradigms at play in these “débats franco-français.” Thus, in addition to newspapers, online resources, recent movies, and songs, we will also study masterpieces of the past in literature and in the arts. Topics discussed will include, among others, school and laïcité, cuisine and traditions, immigration and urban ghettos, women and feminism in France, French love, the heritage of French Enlightenment (les Lumières), devoir de mémoire, and the relation of France with dark episodes of its history (slavery, Régime de Vichy and Nazi occupation, Algerian war). Authors studied will include Marie de France, Montaigne, Voltaire, Hugo, Flaubert, Proust, Colette, Duras, Césaire, Djebar, Chamoiseau, and Bouraoui. The Intermediate I and II French courses are specially designed to help prepare students for studying in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Admission by placement test to be taken during interview week at the beginning of the fall semester or completion of Beginning French. Course conducted in French.

The Intermediate II French course is designed for students who already have a strong understanding of the major aspects of French grammar and language but wish to develop their vocabulary and their grasp of more complex aspects of the language. Students are expected to be able to easily read more complex texts and to express themselves more abstractly. A major part of the course will be devoted to the study and discussion of literary texts in French. “Question your soupspoons.” In this challenge to his readers, Georges Perec summed up, in his unique manner, a particular strain of 20th-century French letters, one that seeks to turn literature’s attention away from the extraordinary, the scandalous, and the strange toward an examination of the ordinary makeup of everyday life. This course will examine some of the aesthetic and theoretical challenges that the representation of the quotidian entails. Does the everyday hide infinite depths of discovery, or does its value lie precisely in its superficiality? How do spaces influence our experience of everyday life? How can (and should) literature give voice to experiences and objects that normally appear undeserving of attention? How does one live one’s gender on an everyday basis? Can one ever escape from everyday life? We will review fundamentals of French grammar and speaking and develop tools for analysis through close readings of literary texts. Students will be encouraged to develop tools for the examination and representation of their own everyday lives in order to take up Perec’s call to interrogate the habitual. Readings will include texts by Proust, Breton, Aragon, Leiris, Perec, Queneau, Barthes, the Situationists, Ernaux, and Calle. The Intermediate I and II French courses are specially designed to help prepare students for studying in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Admission by placement test to be taken during interview week at the beginning of the fall semester or by completion of Intermediate I French (possibly Advanced Beginning for outstanding students). Course conducted in French.

In this course, we will read Molière’s plays in the wide context of 17th-century France but also with the perspective of how these texts are read and played today. Major topics covered will be Molière’s response to the rise of a female and feminist literature during his time, his complex relationship with French neoclassic theatre and tragedy in particular, his positions regarding the most recent philosophical and religious controversies, and ultimately the rise of Louis XIV to absolutist power. We will also look at Molière’s plays as stage masterpieces within Western theatrical tradition but also through the most recent readings and productions of these texts. We will watch some of these plays, and students will be encouraged to approach Molière’s work as literary critics but also as directors. We will read all major plays (L’Ecole des Femmes, Tartuffe, Dom Juan, Le Misanthrope, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, L’Ecole des Femmes, Le Malade Imaginaire) but also a series of a lesser known, shorter works that will help us better grasp the complexity of Molière’s approach to theatre. We will read additional texts spanning from Greek antiquity to 20th-century France. Authors studied will include Aristotle, Descartes, Corneille, Mlle. de Scudéry, Racine, Mme. de Sévigné, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Mme. de Lafayette, Marivaux, Beaumarchais, Hugo, Jarry, Beckett, and Ionesco. Students who successfully complete this class may be eligible to study in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Admission by placement test to be taken during interview week at the beginning of the fall semester or completion of Intermediate II French (possibly Intermediate I for outstanding students). Course conducted in French.

In the France of the 19th century, there were almost as many credos concerning the nature and function of literature as there were changes of government. In this course, we will examine some of the prominent works of narrative art produced in the course of that century to probe the question of the relationship between the two issues: the idea of literature and the idea of the state. Accordingly, we will examine fictional expressions of Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, and Symbolism, stopping to consider some secondary impulses sheltered by these primary categories such as Decadence and Dandyism. In our inquiry into these disparate forms of postrevolutionary poetics, we will also consult theoretical writings that illuminate the preoccupations underlying these works and the ideological stances that ground them. Thus novels and stories by Constant, Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Huysmans, Barbey d’Aurévilly, and Laforgue will be supplemented (after a detour through Rousseau for a grasp of the shift of sensibility out of which Romanticism grew) by critical commentary from Auerbach and Henry James to Todorov, Jameson, and D.A. Miller, and statements from voices “indigenous” to these phenomena—Baudelaire's “Eloge du maquillage” and Barbey’s “Du Dandysme et de Georges Brummel” merit scrutiny. Throughout, we will test Lucáks’s notion—inherited from Lenin—that literature functions to make sense of periods of profound social transition (“sign becomes an arena of the class struggle”), just as we will interrogate the thematizing of the predicament of fiction and its problematic relation to reality as harbinger of the Modernism to come.

An introduction to French using the multimedia “Débuts” system (textbook/two-part workbook/full-length movie, Le Chemin du retour), this class will allow students to develop an active command of the fundamentals of spoken and written French. In both class and group conferences, emphasis will be placed on activities relating to students’ daily lives and to French and Francophone culture. The textbook integrates a French film with grammar study, exposing students to the spoken language from the very beginning of the course. Other materials may include French songs, cinema, newspaper articles, poems, and short stories. Group conferences replace individual conference meetings for this level, and a weekly conversation session with a French language assistant(e) is required. Attendance at the weekly French lunch table and French film screenings are both highly encouraged. Students who successfully complete a beginning and an intermediate-level French course may be eligible to study in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Course conducted in French.

An introduction to French using the multimedia “Débuts” system (textbook/two-part workbook/full-length movie, Le Chemin du retour), this class will allow students to develop an active command of the fundamentals of spoken and written French. In class and in group conferences, emphasis will be placed on activities relating to students’ daily lives and to French and Francophone culture. The textbook integrates a French film with grammar study, exposing students to the spoken language from the very beginning of the course. Other materials may include French songs, cinema, newspaper articles, poems, and short stories. Group conferences replace individual conference meetings for this level, and a weekly conversation session with a French language assistant(e) is required. Attendance at the weekly French lunch table and French film screenings are both highly encouraged. Students who successfully completed a beginning and an intermediate-level French course may be eligible to study in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Course conducted in French.

This course is designed for students who have studied some French in the past but wish to review the fundamentals of French language and grammar before venturing into the study of complex literary texts in French. The course will be divided into two parts: The first semester will be exclusively centered on the intense, fast-paced, and thorough revision of the fundamentals of French grammar; students will be encouraged to write multiple short essays and to participate in oral class activities and will be exposed to various kinds of documents in French (songs, movies, texts, etc.). The second semester of the course will continue this work on French language but will also introduce literature and literary discussions with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century France and Francophonie. Conferences will be individual, allowing students to pursue their interests in any area of French and Francophone literatures and cultures. In addition to conferences, a weekly conversation session with a French language assistant(e) is required. Attendance at the weekly French lunch table and French film screenings are both highly encouraged. Students who successfully complete a beginning and an intermediate-level French course may be eligible to study in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Admission by placement test to be taken during interview week at the beginning of the fall semester. Course conducted in French.

This course will offer a systematic review of French grammar and is designed to strengthen and deepen students’ mastery of grammatical structures and vocabulary. Students will develop their analytical and creative writing skills in French through essays and rewrites. The Intermediate I and II French courses are specially designed to help prepare students for studying in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Admission by placement test to be taken during interview week at the beginning of the fall semester or completion of Beginning French. Course conducted in French.

This course will offer a systematic review of French grammar and is designed to strengthen and deepen students’ mastery of grammatical structures and vocabulary. Students will also begin to use linguistic concepts as tools for developing their analytic writing. More than other countries, France’s identity was shaped by centuries of what is now perceived by the French as a historically coherent past. It is not surprising, then, that the 15th-century figure of Jeanne d’Arc is today the symbol of the extreme right-wing party, Le Pen, which has gained a significant influence in France in the last 30 years. This phenomenon can be seen, in part, as a reaction to the changing face of France’s society, exemplified by the French “Black-Blanc-Beur” soccer team that Zidane led to victory in the 1998 World Cup. In this course, we will explore the complexities of today’s French identity or, rather, identities by following the most contemporary controversies that have shaken French society in the past 20 years while, at the same time, exploring historical influences and cultural paradigms at play in these “débats franco-français.” Thus, in addition to newspapers, online resources, recent movies, and songs, we will also study masterpieces of the past in literature and in the arts. Topics discussed will include, among others, school and laïcité, cuisine and traditions, immigration and urban ghettos, women and feminism in France, French love, the heritage of French Enlightenment (les Lumières), devoir de mémoire, and the relation of France with dark episodes of its history (slavery, Régime de Vichy and Nazi occupation, Algerian war). Authors studied will include Marie de France, Montaigne, Voltaire, Hugo, Flaubert, Proust, Colette, Duras, Césaire, Djebar, Chamoiseau, and Bouraoui. The Intermediate I and II French courses are specially designed to help prepare students for studying in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Admission by placement test to be taken during interview week at the beginning of the fall semester or completion of Beginning French. Course conducted in French.

The Intermediate II French course is designed for students who already have a strong understanding of the major aspects of French grammar and language but wish to develop their vocabulary and their grasp of more complex aspects of the language. Students are expected to be able to easily read more complex texts and to express themselves more abstractly. A major part of the course will be devoted to the study and discussion of literary texts in French. “Question your soupspoons.” In this challenge to his readers, Georges Perec summed up, in his unique manner, a particular strain of 20th-century French letters, one that seeks to turn literature’s attention away from the extraordinary, the scandalous, and the strange toward an examination of the ordinary makeup of everyday life. This course will examine some of the aesthetic and theoretical challenges that the representation of the quotidian entails. Does the everyday hide infinite depths of discovery, or does its value lie precisely in its superficiality? How do spaces influence our experience of everyday life? How can (and should) literature give voice to experiences and objects that normally appear undeserving of attention? How does one live one’s gender on an everyday basis? Can one ever escape from everyday life? We will review fundamentals of French grammar and speaking and develop tools for analysis through close readings of literary texts. Students will be encouraged to develop tools for the examination and representation of their own everyday lives in order to take up Perec’s call to interrogate the habitual. Readings will include texts by Proust, Breton, Aragon, Leiris, Perec, Queneau, Barthes, the Situationists, Ernaux, and Calle. The Intermediate I and II French courses are specially designed to help prepare students for studying in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Admission by placement test to be taken during interview week at the beginning of the fall semester or by completion of Intermediate I French (possibly Advanced Beginning for outstanding students). Course conducted in French.

In this course, we will read Molière’s plays in the wide context of 17th-century France but also with the perspective of how these texts are read and played today. Major topics covered will be Molière’s response to the rise of a female and feminist literature during his time, his complex relationship with French neoclassic theatre and tragedy in particular, his positions regarding the most recent philosophical and religious controversies, and ultimately the rise of Louis XIV to absolutist power. We will also look at Molière’s plays as stage masterpieces within Western theatrical tradition but also through the most recent readings and productions of these texts. We will watch some of these plays, and students will be encouraged to approach Molière’s work as literary critics but also as directors. We will read all major plays (L’Ecole des Femmes, Tartuffe, Dom Juan, Le Misanthrope, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, L’Ecole des Femmes, Le Malade Imaginaire) but also a series of a lesser known, shorter works that will help us better grasp the complexity of Molière’s approach to theatre. We will read additional texts spanning from Greek antiquity to 20th-century France. Authors studied will include Aristotle, Descartes, Corneille, Mlle. de Scudéry, Racine, Mme. de Sévigné, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Mme. de Lafayette, Marivaux, Beaumarchais, Hugo, Jarry, Beckett, and Ionesco. Students who successfully complete this class may be eligible to study in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year. Admission by placement test to be taken during interview week at the beginning of the fall semester or completion of Intermediate II French (possibly Intermediate I for outstanding students). Course conducted in French.

In the France of the 19th century, there were almost as many credos concerning the nature and function of literature as there were changes of government. In this course, we will examine some of the prominent works of narrative art produced in the course of that century to probe the question of the relationship between the two issues: the idea of literature and the idea of the state. Accordingly, we will examine fictional expressions of Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, and Symbolism, stopping to consider some secondary impulses sheltered by these primary categories such as Decadence and Dandyism. In our inquiry into these disparate forms of postrevolutionary poetics, we will also consult theoretical writings that illuminate the preoccupations underlying these works and the ideological stances that ground them. Thus novels and stories by Constant, Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Huysmans, Barbey d’Aurévilly, and Laforgue will be supplemented (after a detour through Rousseau for a grasp of the shift of sensibility out of which Romanticism grew) by critical commentary from Auerbach and Henry James to Todorov, Jameson, and D.A. Miller, and statements from voices “indigenous” to these phenomena—Baudelaire's “Eloge du maquillage” and Barbey’s “Du Dandysme et de Georges Brummel” merit scrutiny. Throughout, we will test Lucáks’s notion—inherited from Lenin—that literature functions to make sense of periods of profound social transition (“sign becomes an arena of the class struggle”), just as we will interrogate the thematizing of the predicament of fiction and its problematic relation to reality as harbinger of the Modernism to come.