FRENCH 12Q:
Humanities Core: Great Books, Big Ideas -- Europe, Middle Ages and Renaissance (DLCL 12Q, HUMCORE 12Q, ILAC 12Q)
This three-quarter sequence asks big questions of major texts in the European and American tradition. What is a good life? How should society be organized? Who belongs? How should honor, love, sin, and similar abstractions govern our actions? What duty do we owe to the past and future? The second quarter focuses on the transition from the Middle Ages to Modernity, Europe's re-acquaintance with classical antiquity and its first contacts with the New World. Authors include Dante, Shakespeare, Machiavelli, Cervantes, and Milton. N.B. This is the second of three courses in the European track. These courses offer an unparalleled opportunity to study European history and culture, past and present. Take all three to experience a year-long intellectual community dedicated to exploring how ideas have shaped our world and future. Students who take HUMCORE 11 and HUMCORE 12Q will have preferential admission to HUMCORE 13Q (a WR2 seminar).
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
FRENCH 36:
Dangerous Ideas (ARTHIST 36, COMPLIT 36A, EALC 36, ENGLISH 71, ETHICSOC 36X, HISTORY 3D, MUSIC 36H, PHIL 36, POLISCI 70, SLAVIC 36)
Ideas matter. Concepts such as race, progress, and equality have inspired social movements, shaped political systems, and dramatically influenced the lives of individuals. Others, like gender identity, universal basic income, and historical memory play an important role in contemporary debates in the United States. All of these ideas are contested, and they have a real power to change lives, for better and for worse. In this one-unit class we will examine these dangerous ideas. Each week, a faculty member from a different department in the humanities and arts will explore a concept that has shaped human experience across time and space. Some weeks will have short reading assignments, but you are not required to purchase any materials.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
FRENCH 75N:
Narrative Medicine and Near-Death Experiences (ITALIAN 75N)
Even if many of us don't fully believe in an afterlife, we remain fascinated by visions of it. This course focuses on Near-Death Experiences and the stories around them, investigating them from the many perspectives pertinent to the growing field of narrative medicine: medical, neurological, cognitive, psychological, sociological, literary, and filmic. The goal is not to understand whether the stories are veridical but what they do for us, as individuals, and as a culture, and in particular how they seek to reshape the patient-doctor relationship. Materials will span the 20th century and come into the present. Taught in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
FRENCH 87N:
The New Wave: How The French Reinvented Cinema
Focus on the French New Wave's cinematic revolution of 1959-1962. In a few years, the Nouvelle Vague delivered landmark works such as Truffaut's 400 Blows, Godard's Breathless, Chabrol's Les Cousins or Resnais' Hiroshima mon amour, and changed forever the way we make and think about movies. Why did these films look so radically fresh? What do they say about France's youth culture in the early 60s? How is the author's theory behind them still influencing us today? Focus is on cultural history, aesthetic analysis, interpretation of narrative, sound and visual forms. Taught in English. NOTE: Class meets Tuesday/Thursday 12:00-1:20pm; film screenings Monday 6:00-8:50pm in room 540-108
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
FRENCH 110:
French Painting from Watteau to Monet (ARTHIST 110, ARTHIST 310, FRENCH 310)
This course offers a survey of painting in France from 1700 to around 1900. It introduces major artists, artworks, and the concepts used by contemporary observers and later art historians to make sense of this extraordinarily rich period. Overarching themes discussed in the class will include the dueling legacies of coloristic virtuosity and classical formalism, new ways of representing visual perception, the opposing artistic effects of absorption and theatricality, the rise and fall of official arts institutions, and the participation of artists and artworks in political upheaval and social change. The course ends with an interrogation of the concept of modernity and its emergence out of dialogue and conflict with artists of the past. Students will learn and practice formal analysis of paintings, as well as interpretations stressing historical context.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
FRENCH 120:
Coffee and Cigarettes: The Making of French Intellectual Culture
Examines a quintessential French figure "l'intellectuel" from a long-term historical perspective. We will observe how this figure was shaped over time by such other cultural types as the writer, the artist, the historian, the philosopher, and the moralist. Proceeding in counter-chronological order, from the late 20th to the 16th century, we will read a collection of classic French works. As this course is a gateway for French studies, special emphasis will be placed on oral proficiency. Taught in French; readings in French.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FRENCH 121:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Politics, Philosophy, and Literature (FRENCH 221A)
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." This seminar explores the work of one of the most important and enigmatic thinkers about the problems of modern society: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Students will read a selection of his most important works in dialogue with other important thinkers of his time. They will grapple with Rousseau's political philosophy in his critique of modernity and his vision for remaking politics, as well as his moral philosophy and influential fictional visions of education and love. We will discuss not only Rousseau's landmark contributions to debates about authenticity, transparency, and self-interest, but also his troubling views on gender. The class will conclude with Rousseau's autobiography and its profound meditation on the formation of selfhood. Taught in French.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 129:
Camus (COMPLIT 229B, CSRE 129, HISTORY 235F)
"The Don Draper of Existentialism" for Adam Gopnik, "the ideal husband of contemporary letters" for Susan Sontag, and "the admirable conjunction of a man, of an action, and of a work" for Sartre, Camus embodies the very French figure of the "intellectuel engagé," or public intellectual. From his birth in 1913 into a poor family in Algeria to the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, from Saint Germain-des-Prés to his predilection for the mediterranean culture, Camus captured the quest for universalism, for the politics of justice, and engaged in the great ethical battles of his time, from the fight against nazism and communism, from questioning colonial rules to the haunting Algerian War, and his complex "silence" over the war. Camus the Algerian, Camus the moralist, Camus the Resistant: through readings and films, we will explore his multiple, long-lasting legacies. Readings from Albert Camus, Kamel Daoud, Mouloud Feraoun, Alice Kaplan, Orhan Pamuk, A.B. Yehoshua, Assia Djebar, Jean-Paul Sartre, Yasmina Khadra. Movies include "The Stranger," and "Far from Men." This course is a gateway for French Studies, with special emphasis on oral proficiency. Taught in French.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FRENCH 130:
Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance French Literature
Gender, race and religion are at the heart of our contemporary political and societal debates. How to build a nation and how to live together within it were also the key questions that medieval and Renaissance authors asked. Throughout this introductory course, we will study how canonical literary works from the 11th to the 16th century represented the conflicting debates of their times around these notions, from the Crusades to the Wars of Religion, from courtly love to Petrarchism, and from the figure of the Wandering Knight to the one of the Sea Farer. Were women inferior to men because their bodies were colder? What does a Christian superhero look like? Is Man at the center of God¿s creation? Are Catholics cannibals, or are Protestants heretics? Can the French language ever be as good as Ancient Greek? Are printed books dangerous? These are some questions that will be addressed in a multi-genre corpus, including works from Pisan, De France, Ronsard, Labé, Rabelais, and Montaigne. Students will gain an acute sense of the main cultural, political, ideological and literary issues of this extended time period, while acquiring some historical perspective on the debates that are central to our 21st century societies. Taught in French. Prerequisite: FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FRENCH 131:
Absolutism, Enlightenment, and Revolution in 17th- and 18th-Century France
The literature, culture, and politics of France from Louis XIV to Olympe de Gouges. How this period produced the political and philosophical foundations of modernity. Readings may include Corneille, Molière, Racine, Lafayette, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Beaumarchais, and Gouges. Taught in French. Prerequisite: FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
FRENCH 132:
Literature, Revolutions, and Changes in 19th- and 20th-Century France
This course will explore several important texts of 19th- and 20th-Century French literature, with the aim of following the evolution of the main literary movements during those centuries of important cultural and social changes. We will study texts related to movements such as Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, Surrealism, the Absurd, the Nouveau Roman in all major genres (prose, poetry, theater, film) and will regularly refer to other arts, such as painting and music. Authors include Chateaubriand, Musset, Balzac, Flaubert, Maupassant, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, Proust, Céline, Radiguet, Ionesco, Robbe-Grillet, Duras, Gary. All readings, discussion, and assignments are in French.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FRENCH 133:
Literature and Society in Africa and the Caribbean (AFRICAAM 133, AFRICAST 132, COMPLIT 133A, COMPLIT 233A, JEWISHST 143)
This course aims to equip students with an understanding of the cultural, social, and political aspects at play in the literatures of Francophone Africa and the Caribbean of the 20th and 21st century. Our primary readings will be Francophone novels and poetry. We will also read some theoretical texts. The assigned readings will expose students to literature from diverse French-speaking regions of the African/Caribbean world. This course will also serve as a "literary toolbox," with the intention of facilitating an understanding of literary genres, and terms. Students can expect to work on their production of written and spoken French, in addition to reading comprehension. Special guest: Moroccan author Meryem Alaoui. Required readings include: Aime Cesaire, Maryse Condé, Fatou Diome, Dany Laferriere, Leonara Miano, Albert Memmi. Taught in French. Prerequisite: FRENLANG 124 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FRENCH 140:
Paris: Capital of the Modern World (FRENCH 340, HISTORY 230C, URBANST 184)
This course explores how Paris, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, became the political, cultural, and artistic capital of the modern world. It considers how the city has both shaped and been shaped by the tumultuous events of modern history- class conflict, industrialization, imperialism, war, and occupation. It will also explore why Paris became the major world destination for intellectuals, artists and writers. Sources will include films, paintings, architecture, novels, travel journals, and memoirs. Course taught in English with an optional French section.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
FRENCH 150:
Season and Off-Season of North-African Cinema and Literature (FRENCH 350)
This course explores the emergence of Francophone cinema and literature from North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco) in the post-independence era: aesthetics, language metissage and hybridization, ethnic interactions, gender relations, collective imagination and collective memory, nationalism, popular culture, religion, urbanism, post-colonialism, migration, and the Arab Spring will be covered. Special attention will be given to Moroccan cinema, and to the notions of francophone/maghrebi/"beur"/diasporic cinema and literature. Readings from Franz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Kateb Yacine, Albert Camus, Reda Bensmaia, Assia Djebar, Colette Fellous, Abdelkebir Khatibi, Michel de Certeau, Benjamin Stora, Lucette Valensi, Abdelwahab Meddeb. Movies include Viva Laldjérie, Rome plutot que vous, Les Sabots en or, Les Silence des Palais, Halfaouine, Satin Rouge, Le Chant des Mariées, and Mort à Vendre. Taught in French. Films in French and Arabic with English subtitles.
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 154:
Film & Philosophy (COMPLIT 154A, ENGLISH 154F, ITALIAN 154, PHIL 193C, PHIL 293C)
Issues of authenticity, morality, personal identity, and the value of truth explored through film; philosophical investigation of the filmic medium itself. Screenings to include Blade Runner (Scott), Do The Right Thing (Lee), The Seventh Seal (Bergman), Fight Club (Fincher), La Jetée (Marker), Memento (Nolan), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Kaufman). Taught in English.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FRENCH 154E:
Film & Philosophy CE (COMPLIT 154E, ITALIAN 154E, PHIL 193E, PHIL 293E)
Issues of authenticity, morality, personal identity, and the value of truth explored through film; philosophical investigation of the filmic medium itself. Screenings to include Blade Runner (Scott), Do The Right Thing (Lee), The Seventh Seal (Bergman), Fight Club (Fincher), La Jetée (Marker), Memento (Nolan), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Kaufman). Taught in English. Satisfies the WAY CE.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
FRENCH 166:
Food, Text, Music: A Multidisciplinary Lab on the Art of Feasting (FRENCH 266, FRENCH 366, MUSIC 133, MUSIC 333)
Students cook a collection of unfamiliar recipes each week while learning about the cultural milieus in which they originated. The course focuses on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a time of great banquets that brought together chefs, visual artists, poets, musicians, and dancers. Students read late-medieval cookbooks under the guidance of professional chefs, learn songs and poetry with the help of visiting performers, and delve into a burgeoning scholarly literature on food history and sensory experience. We will also study trade routes and food networks, the environmental impact of large-scale banquets, the science of food, and the politics of plenty. This course may count towards the Medieval component of the French major, and corresponds to DLCL 121, a course requirement for the Medieval Studies Minor. Students interested in applying for course must email both professors (mgalvez@stanford.edu, jrodin@stanford.edu) by 20 September with a statement of up to 350 words that includes: (a) reasons for wanting to take the class; (b) relevant background in cooking/medieval studies/etc.; (c) stated commitment to attend all ten course meetings; and (d) any dietary restrictions/preferences.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
FRENCH 175:
CAPITALS: How Cities Shape Cultures, States, and People (COMPLIT 100, DLCL 100, GERMAN 175, HISTORY 206E, ILAC 175, ITALIAN 175, URBANST 153)
This course takes students on a trip to major capital cities, at different moments in time: Renaissance Florence, Golden Age Madrid, Colonial Mexico City, Enlightenment and Romantic Paris, Existential and Revolutionary St. Petersburg, Roaring Berlin, Modernist Vienna, and bustling Buenos Aires. While exploring each place in a particular historical moment, we will also consider the relations between culture, power, and social life. How does the cultural life of a country intersect with the political activity of a capital? How do large cities shape our everyday experience, our aesthetic preferences, and our sense of history? Why do some cities become cultural capitals? Primary materials for this course will consist of literary, visual, sociological, and historical documents (in translation); authors we will read include Boccaccio, Dante, Sor Juana, Montesquieu, Baudelaire, Gogol, Irmgard Keun, Freud, and Borges. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
FRENCH 181:
Philosophy and Literature (CLASSICS 42, COMPLIT 181, ENGLISH 81, GERMAN 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)
What, if anything, does reading literature do for our lives? What can literature offer that other forms of writing cannot? Can fictions teach us anything? Can they make people more moral? Why do we take pleasure in tragic stories? This course introduces students to major problems at the intersection of philosophy and literature. It addresses key questions about the value of literature, philosophical puzzles about the nature of fiction and literary language, and ways that philosophy and literature interact. Readings span literature, film, and philosophical theories of art. Authors may include Sophocles, Dickinson, Toni Morrison, Proust, Woolf, Walton, Nietzsche, and Sartre. Students master close reading techniques and philosophical analysis, and write papers combining the two. This is the required gateway course for the Philosophy and Literature major tracks. Majors should register in their home department.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
FRENCH 187:
Sex, Gender, and Violence: French Women Writers Today (FEMGEN 187X, FEMGEN 287X, FEMGEN 387X, FRENCH 287, FRENCH 387)
Long before the 2017 #Metoo campaign, French women writers have explored through powerful fictions and autobiographies the different shades of economic, social, psychological, physical, or sexual violence that is exerted against, but also by and between, women. How does literature - the power of words - address, deconstruct or comfort power dynamics (during sex and between the sexes) that are usually silenced, taboo or unspeakable? Themes explored: sex and gender, sex and power, rape culture, sexual and moral taboos (incest, abortion, pornography, infanticide, lesbianism), the body as social stigma or source of meaning. Special attention given to narrative and descriptive strategies designed to avert, expose, deconstruct or account for specifically feminine experiences (rape, orgasm, pregnancy). Authors include Marie Darrieusecq, Christine Angot, Annie Ernaux, Marie NDiaye, Virginie Despentes, Leila Slimani, Ivan Jablonka along with feminist theory. Taught in French.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FRENCH 192:
Women in French Cinema: 1958- (FEMGEN 192, FILMSTUD 112)
Women as objects and subjects of the voyeuristic gaze inherent to cinema. The myth of the feminine idol in French films in historical and cultural context since the New Wave until now. The mythology of stars as the imaginary vehicle that helped France to change from traditional society to modern, culturally mixed nation. The evolution of female characters, roles, actresses, directors in the film industry. Filmmakers include Vadim, Buñuel, Truffaut, Varda, Chabrol, Colline Serreau, Tonie Marshall. Discussion in English; films in French with English subtitles. 3 units, 4 units or 5 units. Class meets Tuesday/Thursday 1:30-2:50pm; film screenings Monday 6:00-8:30pm. NOTE: FILMSTUD students must take this course for 3 units only.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
FRENCH 199:
Individual Work
Restricted to French majors with consent of department. Normally limited to 4-unit credit toward the major. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-12
| Repeatable
for credit
FRENCH 205:
Songs of Love and War: Gender, Crusade, Politics (FEMGEN 205)
Analysis of medieval love, satirical and Crusade lyrics of the trouabdours. Study of deictic address, corporeal subjectivity, the female voice, love debates, and the body as a figure of political conflict. Course readings include medieval treatises on lyric and modern translations of the troubadour tradition. Works by Ovid, Bernart de Ventadorn, Bertran de Born, La Comtessa de Dia, Thibaut de Champagne, Raimon Vidal, Dante, and Pound. Taught in English. Course includes a lab component for creation of multi-media translation projects: trobar. stanford.edu.
Last offered: Winter 2018
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FRENCH 207:
How to Build an Empire: Race and Religion in Imperial France (FRENCH 307, HISTORY 230G)
This class will explore the French Empire through race and religion, and examine its specificity vis-a-vis the history of other European empires. How do we think historically about the relationships between nation, Republic and empire? This course will draw from literary, political, philosophical and anthropological texts to introduce students to key notions and concepts debated in France and the francophone world. Readings bear on the nature of nation and citizenship, the tension between republic and empire, the dynamics of universalism and particularism, changing discourses of race, and the role of religion in the nation-state.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 219:
The Renaissance Body in French Literature and Medicine (FRENCH 319)
If the Renaissance is famous for discovering unknown continents and ancient texts the body too was a new territory of conquest. How did literature respond to the rise of an anatomical gaze in the arts and in medicine and how did it stage the aesthetic religious philosophical and moral issues related to such a promotion or deconstruction of the body? Does literature aim at representing the body or does it use it instead as a ubiquitous signifier for intellectual emotional and political ideas? The locus of desire, pleasure and disease, the body also functioned as a reminder of human mortality and was caught in the web of gender issues, religious controversies and new norms of behavior. Texts from prose fiction (Rabelais) poetry (Scève Ronsard Labé D'Aubigné) essays (Montaigne) and emblem literature. Extra documents include music scores tapestries paintings philosophical and anatomical plates from medical treatises. Taught in English; readings in French and English.
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
FRENCH 221A:
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Politics, Philosophy, and Literature (FRENCH 121)
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." This seminar explores the work of one of the most important and enigmatic thinkers about the problems of modern society: Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Students will read a selection of his most important works in dialogue with other important thinkers of his time. They will grapple with Rousseau's political philosophy in his critique of modernity and his vision for remaking politics, as well as his moral philosophy and influential fictional visions of education and love. We will discuss not only Rousseau's landmark contributions to debates about authenticity, transparency, and self-interest, but also his troubling views on gender. The class will conclude with Rousseau's autobiography and its profound meditation on the formation of selfhood. Taught in French.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 228:
Science, technology and society and the humanities in the face of the looming disaster (ITALIAN 228, POLISCI 233F)
How STS and the Humanities can together help think out the looming catastrophes that put the future of humankind in jeopardy.
Last offered: Winter 2018
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-ER
FRENCH 236:
Casablanca - Algiers - Tunis : Cities on the Edge (AFRICAAM 236B, CSRE 140S, FRENCH 336, HISTORY 245C, URBANST 140F)
Casablanca, Algiers and Tunis embody three territories, real and imaginary, which never cease to challenge the preconceptions of travelers setting sight on their shores. In this class, we will explore the myriad ways in which these cities of North Africa, on the edge of Europe and of Africa, have been narrated in literature, cinema, and popular culture. We will look at the historical development shaping their respective architecture and why they became the three major urban centers in North Africa. Home to Muslims, Christians, and Jews, they are an ebullient laboratory of social, political, religious, and cultural issues, global and local, between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. We will look at mass images of these cities, from films to maps, novels to photographs, sketching a new vision of these magnets as places where power, social rituals, legacies of the Ottoman and French colonial past, and the influence of the global economy collude and collide. Special focus on class, gender, and race. Open to both undergrad and grad students!
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FRENCH 237A:
Nationhood and Nationalism in France: Modern French history through film and fiction (FRENCH 337, HISTORY 237J, HISTORY 337J)
Europe is seeing a rise in nationalist politics, fueled by fear of economic instability and immigration. In France, Marine Le Pen's far-right populist party Rassemblement National (until June 2018 - the Front National) has dominated political debates, insisting on preserving French national sovereignty. But what is a nation? What does it mean to be French? Who is included and who is excluded? In this course we will explore the construction of the idea of France in the face of revolution, the world wars and the Holocaust, and the violent end of colonialism. By looking at these critical historical moments, we will also gain a firmer grasp of contemporary problems surrounding nationhood in France and around the world. Sources will include films, novels, pamphlets, and political speeches. Course taught in English, with an optional French section.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
FRENCH 238:
Art and the Market (ARTHIST 238C)
This course examines the relationship between art and the market, from the château-builders of the French Renaissance to avant-garde painters in the nineteenth-century Salon des Refusés. Using examples drawn from France, this course explores the relationship between artists and patrons, the changing status of artists in society, patterns of shifting taste, and the effects of museums on making and collecting art. Students will read a mixture of historical texts about art and artists, fictional works depicting the process of artistic creation, and theoretical analyses of the politics embedded in artworks. They will engage in sustained analysis of individual artworks, as well as the market structures in which such artworks were produced and bought. The course will be taught in English, with the option of readings in French for departmental majors.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
FRENCH 239:
The Afterlife of the Middle Ages (FRENCH 339)
Literary works that evoke a medieval past in contrast to a historical present, and critical texts that treat aspects of the medieval or medievalism. How does the concept of medievalism emerge and evolve through the ages? Topics include periodization, philology, critical theory, the study of Gothic architecture, and the use of the term medieval in modern political discourse and postcolonial studies. Authors include Burckhardt, Camille, Chateaubriand, Chrétien de Troyes, Didi-Huberman, Jauss, Michelet, Panofsky, Pound, films by Dreyer and Bergman, and contemporary poetry. Taught in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
FRENCH 246:
Body over Mind (FRENCH 346, ITALIAN 346)
How does modern fiction, aided by modern philosophy, give the lie to Descartes' famous "I think therefore I am"? And how does writing convey the desire for a different, perhaps stronger, integration of mind and body? Does the body speak a particular truth that we must learn to hear, that the mind is not always connected to? How do modern metaphors for the mind-body connection shape our experience? These questions will be explored via the works of major French and Italian writers and thinkers, including Pirandello, Calvino, Camus, Houellebecq, Sartre, and Agamben.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
FRENCH 247:
Islam and the Western Imagination (COMPLIT 147S, CSRE 147S, FRENCH 347, HISTORY 230J)
With fear of Islamic terrorism running high and restrictive immigration policies at home, it is more urgent than ever to understand the complex and changing relations between Islam and the West, the West and Islam. Using France's history and culture as a main study case, along with other Western contexts, this course will look at the long history of Europe's interactions with the Muslim world, as well as the presence of Islam and Muslims in the West, from the 7th century to the present day. Uncovering the long and complex relationship between France and Islam, historical, literary and media sources will help us explore early Christian myths about Islam, the period of European coexistence, European colonialism in North Africa and the Middle East, the place of feminism in Western-Muslim relations, (post)colonial immigration and finally, a post-9/11 world order characterized by new forms of Islamophobia. In the context of the course, students will be exposed to primary sources including audiovisual materials, literature, manifestos, and theory. Readings will be in English (and optional readings in French for students who would prefer to read in French).
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FRENCH 249:
The Algerian Wars (CSRE 249, HISTORY 239G, JEWISHST 249)
From Algiers the White to Algiers the Red, Algiers, the Mecca of the Revolutionaries in the words of Amilcar Cabral, this course offers to study the Algerian Wars since the French conquest of Algeria (1830-) to the Algerian civil war of the 1990s. We will revisit the ways in which the war has been narrated in literature and cinema, popular culture, and political discourse. A special focus will be given to the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962). The course considers the racial representations of the war in the media, the continuing legacies surrounding the conflict in France, Africa, and the United States, from Che Guevara to the Black Panthers. A key focus will be the transmission of collective memory through transnational lenses, and analyses of commemorative events and movies. nReadings from James Baldwin, Assia Djebar, Albert Camus, Frantz Fanon, Mouloud Feraoun. Movies include "The Battle of Algiers," "Days of Glory," and "Viva Laldjérie." nTaught in English.
Last offered: Spring 2018
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FRENCH 252:
Art and Power: From Royal Spectacle to Revolutionary Ritual (ARTHIST 252A)
From the Palace of Versailles to grand operas to Jacques-Louis David's portraits of revolutionary martyrs, rarely have the arts been so powerfully mobilized by the State as in early modern France. This course examines how the arts were used from Louis XIV to the Revolution in order to broadcast political authority across Europe. We will also consider the resistance to such attempts to elicit shock-and-awe through artistic patronage. By studying music, architecture, garden design, the visual arts, and theater together, students will gain a new perspective on works of art in their political contexts. But we will also examine the libelous pamphlets and satirical cartoons that turned the monarchy¿s grandeur against itself, ending the course with an examination of the new artistic regime of the French Revolution. The course will be taught in English with the option of French readings for departmental majors.
Last offered: Spring 2018
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
FRENCH 260A:
Transcultural Perspectives of South-East Asian Music and Arts (MUSIC 260)
This course will explore South-East Asian (SEA) cultures and their influence on modern and contemporary Western art, particularly in France: for instance, Claude Debussy (Gamelan's music), Jacques Charpentier (Karnatak music), Auguste Rodin (Khmer art) and Antonin Artaud (Balinese theater). In the course of these interdisciplinary analyses - focusing particularly on music and dance - we will confront key notions in relation to transculturality: orientalism, appropriation, auto-ethnography, nostalgia and exoticism. We will also consider transculturality as interior to contemporary creation, through the study of contemporary SEA composers. Viewings of sculptures, marionette theater, ballet, opera and cinema will play in integral role. To be eligible for WAYS credit, this course must be taken for 3 units and a letter grade.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
FRENCH 261:
War and Peace: Writings by and about Veterans in the 20th and 21st Centuries (FRENCH 361, ITALIAN 261, ITALIAN 361)
Since the aftermath of World War One, and with increasing urgency in contemporary America, stories about and by veterans are assigned a double role: that of exposing the horror of war yet also defending the possibility of a just war, and that of healing both veterans themselves and the society they return to. Key questions for this course are: Given the current practice of using writing and the hero¿s journey as a model for healing veterans and making their voices heard in our culture, can we look back to post-World-War-One culture and see if writing fulfills a similar function? And given how many post-World-War-One veterans became famous writers, how do we assess the interplay between literature, poetry, memoir, journalism, personal letters, photo accounts? Is there a connection between artistic innovation and the capacity to heal?
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| Units: 2-5
FRENCH 262:
Symbolism in Literature and the Arts (COMPLIT 262, COMPLIT 362, FRENCH 362, ITALIAN 262, ITALIAN 362)
This course will deal with the some of the 19th and 20th century authors and artists associated with Symbolism. We will focus on some key theoretical essays about the symbol, as well as on symbolist poetry, novels, visual arts, cinema, and music. In reading authors such as Coleridge, Blake, Poe, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarmé, Valéry, Pascoli, Campana, d¿Annunzio, and Savinio, we will explore the nature and uses of the symbol in art.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 266:
Food, Text, Music: A Multidisciplinary Lab on the Art of Feasting (FRENCH 166, FRENCH 366, MUSIC 133, MUSIC 333)
Students cook a collection of unfamiliar recipes each week while learning about the cultural milieus in which they originated. The course focuses on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a time of great banquets that brought together chefs, visual artists, poets, musicians, and dancers. Students read late-medieval cookbooks under the guidance of professional chefs, learn songs and poetry with the help of visiting performers, and delve into a burgeoning scholarly literature on food history and sensory experience. We will also study trade routes and food networks, the environmental impact of large-scale banquets, the science of food, and the politics of plenty. This course may count towards the Medieval component of the French major, and corresponds to DLCL 121, a course requirement for the Medieval Studies Minor. Students interested in applying for course must email both professors (mgalvez@stanford.edu, jrodin@stanford.edu) by 20 September with a statement of up to 350 words that includes: (a) reasons for wanting to take the class; (b) relevant background in cooking/medieval studies/etc.; (c) stated commitment to attend all ten course meetings; and (d) any dietary restrictions/preferences.
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
FRENCH 272:
Body Doubles: From the Fantastic Short Story to Science-Fiction (FRENCH 372, ITALIAN 272, ITALIAN 372)
How do we imagine our bodies through language, at times almost completely refashioning a physical double, be it idealized or abject? How do such body doubles intersect with our sense of self, defining or redefining sexual identity, spiritual aspirations, illness and recovery, and the senses themselves, as our window into reality? This course focuses on short stories from the late 19th- and early 20th-century fantastic genre, and science fiction stories from the following turn of the century, 100 years later: in these revealing instances, body doubles often seem to acquire a will of their own, overwhelming normal physical identity.
Last offered: Winter 2018
| Units: 2-5
FRENCH 279:
How the French Reinvented Cinema: The New Wave (FRENCH 379)
Focus on the French New Wave's cinematic revolution of 1959-1962. In a few years, the Nouvelle Vague delivered landmark works such as Truffaut's 400 Blows, Godard's Breathless, Chabrol's The Cousins or Resnais' Hiroshima mon amour, and changed forever the way we make and think about movies. Why did these films look so radically fresh? What do they say about France's youth culture in the early 60s? How is the author's theory behind them still influencing us today? Focus is on cultural history, aesthetic analysis, interpretation of narrative, sound and visual forms. Graduate and Junior/Senior level. Taught in English. NOTE: Class meets Thursday 1:30-4:20pm; film screenings Monday 6:00-8:50pm in room 540-108
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 286:
Poetry and Philosophy (FRENCH 386, ITALIAN 286, ITALIAN 386)
When and why do philosophers resort to poetry?nWhat is the relationship between poetic metaphor and philosophical argumentation?nWhy is the poetic often associated with empathy - recently touted as an essential human characteristic - whereas philosophy is considered more objective?nWhat is poetry's role in the pursuit of wisdom or the good life?nAuthors include Nietzsche, Heidegger, Bataille, Agamben, Ricoeur, Derrida, Irigaray, Wyschogrod, and Cavarero.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-5
FRENCH 287:
Sex, Gender, and Violence: French Women Writers Today (FEMGEN 187X, FEMGEN 287X, FEMGEN 387X, FRENCH 187, FRENCH 387)
Long before the 2017 #Metoo campaign, French women writers have explored through powerful fictions and autobiographies the different shades of economic, social, psychological, physical, or sexual violence that is exerted against, but also by and between, women. How does literature - the power of words - address, deconstruct or comfort power dynamics (during sex and between the sexes) that are usually silenced, taboo or unspeakable? Themes explored: sex and gender, sex and power, rape culture, sexual and moral taboos (incest, abortion, pornography, infanticide, lesbianism), the body as social stigma or source of meaning. Special attention given to narrative and descriptive strategies designed to avert, expose, deconstruct or account for specifically feminine experiences (rape, orgasm, pregnancy). Authors include Marie Darrieusecq, Christine Angot, Annie Ernaux, Marie NDiaye, Virginie Despentes, Leila Slimani, Ivan Jablonka along with feminist theory. Taught in French.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
FRENCH 307:
How to Build an Empire: Race and Religion in Imperial France (FRENCH 207, HISTORY 230G)
This class will explore the French Empire through race and religion, and examine its specificity vis-a-vis the history of other European empires. How do we think historically about the relationships between nation, Republic and empire? This course will draw from literary, political, philosophical and anthropological texts to introduce students to key notions and concepts debated in France and the francophone world. Readings bear on the nature of nation and citizenship, the tension between republic and empire, the dynamics of universalism and particularism, changing discourses of race, and the role of religion in the nation-state.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 310:
French Painting from Watteau to Monet (ARTHIST 110, ARTHIST 310, FRENCH 110)
This course offers a survey of painting in France from 1700 to around 1900. It introduces major artists, artworks, and the concepts used by contemporary observers and later art historians to make sense of this extraordinarily rich period. Overarching themes discussed in the class will include the dueling legacies of coloristic virtuosity and classical formalism, new ways of representing visual perception, the opposing artistic effects of absorption and theatricality, the rise and fall of official arts institutions, and the participation of artists and artworks in political upheaval and social change. The course ends with an interrogation of the concept of modernity and its emergence out of dialogue and conflict with artists of the past. Students will learn and practice formal analysis of paintings, as well as interpretations stressing historical context.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 319:
The Renaissance Body in French Literature and Medicine (FRENCH 219)
If the Renaissance is famous for discovering unknown continents and ancient texts the body too was a new territory of conquest. How did literature respond to the rise of an anatomical gaze in the arts and in medicine and how did it stage the aesthetic religious philosophical and moral issues related to such a promotion or deconstruction of the body? Does literature aim at representing the body or does it use it instead as a ubiquitous signifier for intellectual emotional and political ideas? The locus of desire, pleasure and disease, the body also functioned as a reminder of human mortality and was caught in the web of gender issues, religious controversies and new norms of behavior. Texts from prose fiction (Rabelais) poetry (Scève Ronsard Labé D'Aubigné) essays (Montaigne) and emblem literature. Extra documents include music scores tapestries paintings philosophical and anatomical plates from medical treatises. Taught in English; readings in French and English.
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 321:
Giambattista Vico (COMPLIT 321, ITALIAN 321)
An intensive reading of Vico's New Science. Emphasis will be on Vico's philosophy of history and theories of poetic wisdom, myth, and language. Vico will be put in dialogue with René Descartes, Rousseau, Auguste Compte, Claude Lévi Strauss, and Paul Feyerabend, whose ideas about myth and science converge in striking ways with Vico's.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-5
FRENCH 327:
Genres of the Novel (COMPLIT 327, ENGLISH 327)
Provides students with an overview of some major genres in the history of the modern novel, along with major theorists in the critical understanding of the form. Novels might include works by Cervantes, Defoe, Lafayette, Radcliffe, Goethe, Scott, Balzac, Melville, and Woolf. Theorists might include Lukacs, Bakhtin, Jameson, Gallagher, Barthes, Kristeva, and Bourdieu. *PLEASE NOTE: Course for graduate students only.*
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
FRENCH 336:
Casablanca - Algiers - Tunis : Cities on the Edge (AFRICAAM 236B, CSRE 140S, FRENCH 236, HISTORY 245C, URBANST 140F)
Casablanca, Algiers and Tunis embody three territories, real and imaginary, which never cease to challenge the preconceptions of travelers setting sight on their shores. In this class, we will explore the myriad ways in which these cities of North Africa, on the edge of Europe and of Africa, have been narrated in literature, cinema, and popular culture. We will look at the historical development shaping their respective architecture and why they became the three major urban centers in North Africa. Home to Muslims, Christians, and Jews, they are an ebullient laboratory of social, political, religious, and cultural issues, global and local, between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. We will look at mass images of these cities, from films to maps, novels to photographs, sketching a new vision of these magnets as places where power, social rituals, legacies of the Ottoman and French colonial past, and the influence of the global economy collude and collide. Special focus on class, gender, and race. Open to both undergrad and grad students!
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 337:
Nationhood and Nationalism in France: Modern French history through film and fiction (FRENCH 237A, HISTORY 237J, HISTORY 337J)
Europe is seeing a rise in nationalist politics, fueled by fear of economic instability and immigration. In France, Marine Le Pen's far-right populist party Rassemblement National (until June 2018 - the Front National) has dominated political debates, insisting on preserving French national sovereignty. But what is a nation? What does it mean to be French? Who is included and who is excluded? In this course we will explore the construction of the idea of France in the face of revolution, the world wars and the Holocaust, and the violent end of colonialism. By looking at these critical historical moments, we will also gain a firmer grasp of contemporary problems surrounding nationhood in France and around the world. Sources will include films, novels, pamphlets, and political speeches. Course taught in English, with an optional French section.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
FRENCH 339:
The Afterlife of the Middle Ages (FRENCH 239)
Literary works that evoke a medieval past in contrast to a historical present, and critical texts that treat aspects of the medieval or medievalism. How does the concept of medievalism emerge and evolve through the ages? Topics include periodization, philology, critical theory, the study of Gothic architecture, and the use of the term medieval in modern political discourse and postcolonial studies. Authors include Burckhardt, Camille, Chateaubriand, Chrétien de Troyes, Didi-Huberman, Jauss, Michelet, Panofsky, Pound, films by Dreyer and Bergman, and contemporary poetry. Taught in English.
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 339A:
Technologies of Extinctions: Ecocides and Genocides (ANTHRO 339A)
This course will explore the relationship between history, ecological evolution and mass killing in the age of humanly caused species extinction. It will explore the universalization of the notion of the Jewish Holocaust, its use to integrate into genocide studies the Native American "spiritual" holocaust, the Japanese nuclear holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, and the ethical dilemmas posed by the ideas of biotic, animal and ecological holocausts. Anthropology and history of genocides and extinctions as well as posthumanist, multispecies theories will provide theoretical frames for the course.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 5
FRENCH 340:
Paris: Capital of the Modern World (FRENCH 140, HISTORY 230C, URBANST 184)
This course explores how Paris, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, became the political, cultural, and artistic capital of the modern world. It considers how the city has both shaped and been shaped by the tumultuous events of modern history- class conflict, industrialization, imperialism, war, and occupation. It will also explore why Paris became the major world destination for intellectuals, artists and writers. Sources will include films, paintings, architecture, novels, travel journals, and memoirs. Course taught in English with an optional French section.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4-5
FRENCH 346:
Body over Mind (FRENCH 246, ITALIAN 346)
How does modern fiction, aided by modern philosophy, give the lie to Descartes' famous "I think therefore I am"? And how does writing convey the desire for a different, perhaps stronger, integration of mind and body? Does the body speak a particular truth that we must learn to hear, that the mind is not always connected to? How do modern metaphors for the mind-body connection shape our experience? These questions will be explored via the works of major French and Italian writers and thinkers, including Pirandello, Calvino, Camus, Houellebecq, Sartre, and Agamben.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 347:
Islam and the Western Imagination (COMPLIT 147S, CSRE 147S, FRENCH 247, HISTORY 230J)
With fear of Islamic terrorism running high and restrictive immigration policies at home, it is more urgent than ever to understand the complex and changing relations between Islam and the West, the West and Islam. Using France's history and culture as a main study case, along with other Western contexts, this course will look at the long history of Europe's interactions with the Muslim world, as well as the presence of Islam and Muslims in the West, from the 7th century to the present day. Uncovering the long and complex relationship between France and Islam, historical, literary and media sources will help us explore early Christian myths about Islam, the period of European coexistence, European colonialism in North Africa and the Middle East, the place of feminism in Western-Muslim relations, (post)colonial immigration and finally, a post-9/11 world order characterized by new forms of Islamophobia. In the context of the course, students will be exposed to primary sources including audiovisual materials, literature, manifestos, and theory. Readings will be in English (and optional readings in French for students who would prefer to read in French).
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 350:
Season and Off-Season of North-African Cinema and Literature (FRENCH 150)
This course explores the emergence of Francophone cinema and literature from North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco) in the post-independence era: aesthetics, language metissage and hybridization, ethnic interactions, gender relations, collective imagination and collective memory, nationalism, popular culture, religion, urbanism, post-colonialism, migration, and the Arab Spring will be covered. Special attention will be given to Moroccan cinema, and to the notions of francophone/maghrebi/"beur"/diasporic cinema and literature. Readings from Franz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Kateb Yacine, Albert Camus, Reda Bensmaia, Assia Djebar, Colette Fellous, Abdelkebir Khatibi, Michel de Certeau, Benjamin Stora, Lucette Valensi, Abdelwahab Meddeb. Movies include Viva Laldjérie, Rome plutot que vous, Les Sabots en or, Les Silence des Palais, Halfaouine, Satin Rouge, Le Chant des Mariées, and Mort à Vendre. Taught in French. Films in French and Arabic with English subtitles.
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 361:
War and Peace: Writings by and about Veterans in the 20th and 21st Centuries (FRENCH 261, ITALIAN 261, ITALIAN 361)
Since the aftermath of World War One, and with increasing urgency in contemporary America, stories about and by veterans are assigned a double role: that of exposing the horror of war yet also defending the possibility of a just war, and that of healing both veterans themselves and the society they return to. Key questions for this course are: Given the current practice of using writing and the hero¿s journey as a model for healing veterans and making their voices heard in our culture, can we look back to post-World-War-One culture and see if writing fulfills a similar function? And given how many post-World-War-One veterans became famous writers, how do we assess the interplay between literature, poetry, memoir, journalism, personal letters, photo accounts? Is there a connection between artistic innovation and the capacity to heal?
Last offered: Autumn 2017
| Units: 2-5
FRENCH 362:
Symbolism in Literature and the Arts (COMPLIT 262, COMPLIT 362, FRENCH 262, ITALIAN 262, ITALIAN 362)
This course will deal with the some of the 19th and 20th century authors and artists associated with Symbolism. We will focus on some key theoretical essays about the symbol, as well as on symbolist poetry, novels, visual arts, cinema, and music. In reading authors such as Coleridge, Blake, Poe, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarmé, Valéry, Pascoli, Campana, d¿Annunzio, and Savinio, we will explore the nature and uses of the symbol in art.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 366:
Food, Text, Music: A Multidisciplinary Lab on the Art of Feasting (FRENCH 166, FRENCH 266, MUSIC 133, MUSIC 333)
Students cook a collection of unfamiliar recipes each week while learning about the cultural milieus in which they originated. The course focuses on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a time of great banquets that brought together chefs, visual artists, poets, musicians, and dancers. Students read late-medieval cookbooks under the guidance of professional chefs, learn songs and poetry with the help of visiting performers, and delve into a burgeoning scholarly literature on food history and sensory experience. We will also study trade routes and food networks, the environmental impact of large-scale banquets, the science of food, and the politics of plenty. This course may count towards the Medieval component of the French major, and corresponds to DLCL 121, a course requirement for the Medieval Studies Minor. Students interested in applying for course must email both professors (mgalvez@stanford.edu, jrodin@stanford.edu) by 20 September with a statement of up to 350 words that includes: (a) reasons for wanting to take the class; (b) relevant background in cooking/medieval studies/etc.; (c) stated commitment to attend all ten course meetings; and (d) any dietary restrictions/preferences.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 369:
Introduction to the Profession of Literary Studies (COMPLIT 369, DLCL 369, GERMAN 369, ITALIAN 369)
A survey of how literary theory and other methods have been made institutional since the nineteenth century. The readings and conversation are designed for entering Ph.D. students in the national literature departments and comparative literature.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 1-2
FRENCH 372:
Body Doubles: From the Fantastic Short Story to Science-Fiction (FRENCH 272, ITALIAN 272, ITALIAN 372)
How do we imagine our bodies through language, at times almost completely refashioning a physical double, be it idealized or abject? How do such body doubles intersect with our sense of self, defining or redefining sexual identity, spiritual aspirations, illness and recovery, and the senses themselves, as our window into reality? This course focuses on short stories from the late 19th- and early 20th-century fantastic genre, and science fiction stories from the following turn of the century, 100 years later: in these revealing instances, body doubles often seem to acquire a will of their own, overwhelming normal physical identity.
Last offered: Winter 2018
| Units: 2-5
FRENCH 379:
How the French Reinvented Cinema: The New Wave (FRENCH 279)
Focus on the French New Wave's cinematic revolution of 1959-1962. In a few years, the Nouvelle Vague delivered landmark works such as Truffaut's 400 Blows, Godard's Breathless, Chabrol's The Cousins or Resnais' Hiroshima mon amour, and changed forever the way we make and think about movies. Why did these films look so radically fresh? What do they say about France's youth culture in the early 60s? How is the author's theory behind them still influencing us today? Focus is on cultural history, aesthetic analysis, interpretation of narrative, sound and visual forms. Graduate and Junior/Senior level. Taught in English. NOTE: Class meets Thursday 1:30-4:20pm; film screenings Monday 6:00-8:50pm in room 540-108
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 380:
Critical Poetics
After recent critiques of "close" methods of literary criticism and reading practices, what claims can we make today about the literary object? Can we ever return to broad and general categories of poetics that were formulated by the major syncretic works of twentieth-century literary criticism by figures such as Auerbach, Curtius, and Frye? This course will discuss recent debates around literariness and concepts of poetics that move past a hermeneutic of suspicion and embrace the productive energies of form and affect produced by literary texts, including new methods of data analysis and concepts of genres in historical time.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
FRENCH 386:
Poetry and Philosophy (FRENCH 286, ITALIAN 286, ITALIAN 386)
When and why do philosophers resort to poetry?nWhat is the relationship between poetic metaphor and philosophical argumentation?nWhy is the poetic often associated with empathy - recently touted as an essential human characteristic - whereas philosophy is considered more objective?nWhat is poetry's role in the pursuit of wisdom or the good life?nAuthors include Nietzsche, Heidegger, Bataille, Agamben, Ricoeur, Derrida, Irigaray, Wyschogrod, and Cavarero.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-5
FRENCH 387:
Sex, Gender, and Violence: French Women Writers Today (FEMGEN 187X, FEMGEN 287X, FEMGEN 387X, FRENCH 187, FRENCH 287)
Long before the 2017 #Metoo campaign, French women writers have explored through powerful fictions and autobiographies the different shades of economic, social, psychological, physical, or sexual violence that is exerted against, but also by and between, women. How does literature - the power of words - address, deconstruct or comfort power dynamics (during sex and between the sexes) that are usually silenced, taboo or unspeakable? Themes explored: sex and gender, sex and power, rape culture, sexual and moral taboos (incest, abortion, pornography, infanticide, lesbianism), the body as social stigma or source of meaning. Special attention given to narrative and descriptive strategies designed to avert, expose, deconstruct or account for specifically feminine experiences (rape, orgasm, pregnancy). Authors include Marie Darrieusecq, Christine Angot, Annie Ernaux, Marie NDiaye, Virginie Despentes, Leila Slimani, Ivan Jablonka along with feminist theory. Taught in French.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-5
FRENCH 395:
Philosophical Reading Group (COMPLIT 359A, ITALIAN 395)
Discussion of one contemporary or historical text from the Western philosophical tradition per quarter in a group of faculty and graduate students. For admission of new participants, a conversation with H. U. Gumbrecht is required. May be repeated for credit. Taught in English.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
for credit
FRENCH 398:
Intensive Reading in French/Italian (ITALIAN 398)
Enrollment is limited to French/Italian Ph.D. students. Course is designed for French/Italian Ph.D. students to prepare for department milestone exams.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 10
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 20 units total)
FRENCH 399:
Individual Work
For students in French working on special projects or engaged in predissertation research.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-12
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Alduy, C. (PI);
Apostolides, J. (PI);
Bertrand, M. (PI);
Dupuy, J. (PI);
Edelstein, D. (PI);
Galvez, M. (PI);
Harrison, R. (PI);
Landy, J. (PI);
Lummus, D. (PI);
Mudimbe-Boyi, E. (PI);
Nakata, C. (PI);
Pesic, A. (PI);
Serres, M. (PI);
Ulloa, M. (PI);
Wittman, L. (PI);
Onorato, C. (GP)
Terms: Sum
| Units: 0
| Repeatable
for credit
FRENCH 802:
TGR Dissertation
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 0
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Alduy, C. (PI);
Apostolides, J. (PI);
Bertrand, M. (PI);
Dupuy, J. (PI);
Edelstein, D. (PI);
Galvez, M. (PI);
Harrison, R. (PI);
Landy, J. (PI);
Mudimbe-Boyi, E. (PI);
Nakata, C. (PI);
Serres, M. (PI);
Ulloa, M. (PI);
Wittman, L. (PI);
Onorato, C. (GP)
