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FRENCH 36: Dangerous Ideas (ARTHIST 36, COMPLIT 36A, EALC 36, ENGLISH 71, ETHICSOC 36X, HISTORY 3D, MUSIC 36H, PHIL 36, POLISCI 70, RELIGST 36X, SLAVIC 36, TAPS 36)

Ideas matter. Concepts such as progress, technology, and sex, have inspired social movements, shaped political systems, and dramatically influenced the lives of individuals. Others, like cultural relativism 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.
Terms: Spr | Units: 1 | Repeatable 4 times (up to 4 units total)
Instructors: ; Safran, G. (PI)

FRENCH 87N: The New Wave: How The French Reinvented Cinema (FILMEDIA 87N)

When the French New Wave burst onto the stage in 1959, it changed forever the way films are made and the ways we think about cinema. Shooting on location with small crews, light cameras, unknown actors and improvised scripts, a group of young film critics turned filmmakers circumvented the big studios to craft low-budget films that felt fresh, irreverent and utterly modern. In just a few years, the Nouvelle Vague delivered such landmark works as Truffaut's 400 Blows, Godard's Breathless or Resnais' Hiroshima mon amour. Together with Agn¿s Varda, Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol, they redefined the essence of cinema as an art form as complex and multi-layered as literature. Yet, after having been hailed as revolutionary, the Nouvelle Vague was soon dismissed as 'rather vague and not all that new. 'Why did these films look so radically fresh? What is their common aesthetics, when each 'auteur' claimed an utterly personal style for him or herself? And what did their immediate success and early fall from grace tell us about France in the early 60s? This survey course will explore a unique moment in French culture and the history of cinema, when radical politics, youth culture, and jazzy aesthetics coalesced into dazzling experiments on the screen that continue to influence world cinema to this day. Focus is on cultural history, aesthetic analysis, and interpretation of narrative, sound and visual forms. Satisfies Ways AII (Aesthetic and Interpretative Inquiry). Films in French with Subtitles. Taught in English.
Terms: Win | Units: 3-4 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors: ; Alduy, C. (PI)

FRENCH 102: Jews, Race, and Ethnicity in French Cinema and Literature (CSRE 131B, JEWISHST 131)

How does an officially colorblind country engage with its (in)visible minorities? In a country such as France - which espouses an assimilationist, as opposed to a "melting pot" ideology - one's national belonging is said to transcend their religious, racial, and ethnic particularities. As such, assimilating to a secular, universal model of Frenchness is considered key to the healthy functioning of society. Why might this be so, and has it always been the case? In this class, we will explore this and related questions as they have been articulated in France and the former French Empire from the Revolution through the twenty-first century. Via close study of literature, cinema, and still image, we will (a) examine how the universalist model deals with racial, religious, and ethnic differences, (b) assess how constructions of difference--be they racial, ethnic, or religious--change across time and space, and (c) assess the impact that the colorblind, assimilationist model has on the lived experiences of France's visible and invisible minorities.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors: ; Glasberg, R. (PI)

FRENCH 104N: Film and Fascism in Europe (COMPLIT 104N, FILMEDIA 105N, ITALIAN 104N)

Controlling people's minds through propaganda is an integral part of fascist regimes' totalitarianism. In the interwar, cinema, a relatively recent mass media, was immediately seized upon by fascist regimes to produce aggrandizing national narratives, justify their expansionist and extermination policies, celebrate the myth of the "Leader," and indoctrinate the people. Yet film makers under these regimes (Rossellini, Renoir) or just after their fall, used the same media to explore and expose how they manufactured conformism, obedience, and mass murder and to interrogate fascism. We will watch films produced by or under European fascist regimes (Nazi Germany, Italy under Mussolini, Greece's Regime of the Colonels) but also against them. The seminar introduces key film analysis tools and concepts, while offering insights into the history of propaganda and cinema. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-4 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors: ; Alduy, C. (PI)

FRENCH 118: Literature and the Brain (COMPLIT 138, COMPLIT 238, ENGLISH 118, ENGLISH 218, FRENCH 218, PSYC 126, PSYCH 118F)

How does fiction make us better at reading minds? Why do some TV shows get us to believe two contradictory things at once? And can cognitive biases be a writer's best friend? We'll think about these and other questions in the light of contemporary neuroscience and experimental psychology, with the help of Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison), Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert), season 1 of Westworld (Lisa Joy / Jonathan Nolan), and short readings from writers like Louise Glück, Jorge Luis Borges, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust. We'll also ask what we see when we read; whether the language we speak affects the way we think; and why different people react differently to the same book. Plus: is free will a fiction, or were you just forced to say that?
Terms: Win | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, 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: Spr | Units: 4-5 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors: ; Edmondson, C. (PI)

FRENCH 120E: Introduction to the Medical Humanities (ANTHRO 120H, DLCL 120, ITALIAN 120)

Medical Humanities is a humanistic and interdisciplinary approach to medicine. It explores the experience of health and illness as captured through the expressive arts (painting, music, literature), across historical periods and in different cultures, as interpreted by scholars in the humanities and social sciences as well as in medicine and policy. Its goal is to give students an opportunity to explore a more holistic and meaning-centered perspective on medical issues. It investigates how medicine is an art form as well as a science, and the way institutions and culture shape the way illness is identified, experienced and treated.
Terms: Win | Units: 4 | UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
Instructors: ; Wittman, L. (PI)

FRENCH 130: Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance French Literature

This course serves as an introduction to classic French texts from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and investigates the birth of a national literature. Students will read texts closely, examine their historical contexts from the Crusades to the Wars of Religion, and consider how these works shaped notions of love, duty, gender, otherness, and the self. Readings include major authors and genres of the period, such as texts by Chretien de Troyes, Marie de France, Marguerite de Navarre, Rabelais, Sceve, Ronsard, Louise Labe, and Montaigne. All readings, discussions, and writing in French, with emphasis on close-reading skills and constructing arguments supported by textual evidence. This course fulfills the Writing in the Major (WIM) requirement.
Terms: Aut | Units: 4 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors: ; Edmondson, C. (PI)

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, Moli¿re, Racine, Lafayette, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Beaumarchais, and Gouges. Taught in French. Students are highly encouraged to complete FRENLANG 124 or to successfully test above this level through the Language Center. This course fulfills the Writing in the Major (WIM) requirement.
Terms: Win | Units: 4 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors: ; Edmondson, C. (PI)

FRENCH 132: Literature, Revolutions, and Changes in 19th- and 20th-Century France

This course explores central texts of 19th- and 20th-Century French literature, following the evolution of important literary movements during those centuries of cultural and social transformation. We will study texts in all major genres (prose, poetry, theater, film) related to movements such as Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, Surrealism, Theater of the Absurd, and the Nouveau Roman. We will regularly relate literature and film to developments in other arts, such as painting and music. Authors and filmmakers include Chateaubriand, Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert, Maupassant, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, Proust, Ionesco, Varda, Godard, Sarraute, and Ernaux. All readings, discussion, and assignments are in French. Students are highly encouraged to complete FRENLANG 124 or to successfully test above this level through the Language Center.
Terms: Spr | Units: 4 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors: ; Pesic, A. (PI)

FRENCH 133: Literature and Society in Africa and the Caribbean (AFRICAAM 133, AFRICAST 132, COMPLIT 133, COMPLIT 233A, CSRE 133E, JEWISHST 143)

This course provides students with an introductory survey of literature and cinema from Francophone Africa and the Caribbean in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will be encouraged to consider the geographical, historical, and political connections between the Maghreb, the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa. This course will help students improve their ability to speak and write in French by introducing students to linguistic and conceptual tools to conduct literary and visual analysis. While analyzing novels and films, students will be exposed to a diverse number of topics such as national and cultural identity, race and class, gender and sexuality, orality and textuality, transnationalism and migration, colonialism and decolonization, history and memory, and the politics of language. Readings include the works of writers and filmmakers such as Aim¿ C¿saire, Albert Memmi, Ousmane Semb¿ne, Le¿la Sebbar, Mariama B¿, Maryse Cond¿, Dany Laferri¿re, Mati Diop, and special guest L¿onora Miano. Taught in French. Students are encouraged to complete FRENLANG 124 or successfully test above this level through the Language Center. This course fulfills the Writing in the Major (WIM) requirement.
Terms: Spr | Units: 4 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors: ; Seck, F. (PI); Yu, K. (TA)

FRENCH 159: French Kiss: The History of Love and the French Novel (FRENCH 256, HISTORY 236F)

The history of the French novel is also the history of love. How did individuals experience love throughout history? How do novels reflect this evolution of love through the ages? And, most significantly, how have French novels shaped our own understanding of and expectations for romantic love today? The course will explore many forms of love from the Ancien R¿gime to the 20th century. Sentiment and seduction, passion and desire, the conflict between love and society: students will examine these themes from a historical perspective, in tandem with the evolution of the genre of the novel (the novella, the sentimental novel, the epistolary novel, the 19th-century novel, and the autobiographical novel). Some texts will be paired with contemporary films to probe the enduring relevance of love "¿ la fran¿aise" in the media today. Readings include texts by Lafayette, Pr¿vost, Laclos, Dumas fils, Flaubert, Colette, Yourcenar, and Duras. This is an introductory course to French Studies, with a focus on cultural history, literary history, interpretation of narrative, thematic analysis, and close reading. Undergraduate students should enroll for FRENCH159, while graduate students may enroll for FRENCH256. Readings and discussion in English.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors: ; Edmondson, C. (PI)

FRENCH 163: A Brief History of Now: Song and Poetry from Sappho to Taylor Swift (COMPLIT 163)

What techniques do singers share between traditions from antiquity to the present? How do they produce a sense of a moment to be seized, a contrast between hope and despair, and here and now? Transhistorical, comparative analysis of lyric modes and conventions such as apostrophe, the desire to sing and uselessness of doing so, when and where they diverge in different lyric genres and traditions. Poets and songwriters include Catullus, Sappho, Li Qingzhao, troubadours, Dante, Labe, Donne, Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, SZA. Each week, students will enrich the discussion by introducing to the class their own suggestions of relevant works.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II

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, including Renaissance Florence, Golden Age Madrid, colonial Mexico City, imperial Beijing, Enlightenment and romantic Paris, existential and revolutionary St. Petersburg, roaring Berlin, modernist Vienna, and transnational Accra. 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).
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, ILAC 181, ITALIAN 181, PHIL 81, SLAVIC 181)

Can novels make us better people? Can movies challenge our assumptions? Can poems help us become who we are? We'll think about these and other questions with the help of writers like Toni Morrison, Marcel Proust, Jordan Peele, Charlie Kaufman, Rachel Cusk, William Shakespeare, and Samuel Beckett, plus thinkers like Nehamas, Nietzsche, Nussbaum, Plato, and Sartre. We'll also ask whether a disenchanted world can be re-enchanted; when, if ever, the truth stops being the most important thing; why we sometimes choose to read sad stories; whether we ever love someone for who they are; who could possibly want to live their same life over and over again; what it takes to make ourselves fully moral; whether it's ever good to be conflicted; how we can pull ourselves together; and how we can take ourselves apart. (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 and Francophone 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 Nobel Prize Annie Ernaux, Virginie Despentes, Marie Darrieusecq, Christine Angot, Marie NDiaye, Leonora Miano, Leila Slimani, Vanessa Springora along with feminist theory. Discussion in English. Readings in French or English, students choice
Terms: Aut | Units: 1-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP

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 212E: Curing the Institutions with Francesc Tosquelles: Politics and exile, de-alienation and outsider art (ARTHIST 212A, DLCL 212, ILAC 212)

In the occupied France of the 1940s, Catalan psychiatrist Francesc Tosquelles used culture (amateur cinema, theater, and literature) and politics (self-management, cooperatives, and anti-Stalinist communism) to "cure" the institutions rather than patients. In his work he engaged with avantgarde poets like Paul ¿luard, Antonin Artaud and Tristan Tzara, the post-colonial philosopher and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon and philosopher F¿lix Guattari. His project was shaped by radical politics in Catalonia during the 1930s and his own practice of treating the therapeutic community rather than the patients themselves. Tosquelles worked with people outside the medical profession: musicians, writers, lawyers and even prostitutes. These experiences resonate in the book he wrote on poet Gabriel Ferrater and the Spanish Civil War. Taught in English.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3-5

FRENCH 213E: Culture and Revolution in Africa (AFRICAAM 213, COMPLIT 213, HISTORY 243E)

This course investigates the relationship between culture, revolutionary decolonization, and post-colonial trajectories. It probes the multilayered development of 20th and 21st-century African literature amid decolonization and Cold War cultural diplomacy initiatives and the debates they generated about African literary aesthetics, African languages, the production of history, and the role of the intellectual. We will journey through national cultural movements, international congresses, and pan-African festivals to explore the following questions: What role did writers and artists play in shaping the discourse of revolutionary decolonization throughout the continent and in the diaspora? How have literary texts, films, and works of African cultural thought shaped and engaged with concepts such as "African unity" and "African cultural renaissance"? How have these notions influenced the imaginaries of post-independence nations, engendered new subjectivities, and impacted gender and generational dynamics? How did the ways of knowing and modes of writing promoted and developed in these contexts shape African futures?
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors: ; Seck, F. (PI)

FRENCH 217: Love, Death and the Afterlife in the Medieval West (FRENCH 317, HISTORY 217D, HISTORY 317D, ITALIAN 217, ITALIAN 317)

Romantic love, it is often claimed, is an invention of the High Middle Ages. The vocabulary of sexual desire that is still current in the twenty-first century was authored in the twelfth and thirteenth, by troubadours, court poets, writers like Dante; even by crusaders returning from the eastern Mediterranean. How did this devout society come to elevate the experience of sensual love? This course draws on primary sources such as medieval songs, folktales, the "epic rap battles" of the thirteenth century, along with the writings of Boccaccio, Saint Augustine and others, to understand the unexpected connections between love, death, and the afterlife from late antiquity to the fourteenth century. Each week, we will use a literary or artistic work as an interpretive window into cultural attitudes towards love, death or the afterlife. These readings are analyzed in tandem with major historical developments, including the rise of Christianity, the emergence of feudal society and chivalric culture, the crusading movement, and the social breakdown of the fourteenth century.
Terms: Aut | Units: 4-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors: ; Phillips, J. (PI)

FRENCH 218: Literature and the Brain (COMPLIT 138, COMPLIT 238, ENGLISH 118, ENGLISH 218, FRENCH 118, PSYC 126, PSYCH 118F)

How does fiction make us better at reading minds? Why do some TV shows get us to believe two contradictory things at once? And can cognitive biases be a writer's best friend? We'll think about these and other questions in the light of contemporary neuroscience and experimental psychology, with the help of Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison), Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert), season 1 of Westworld (Lisa Joy / Jonathan Nolan), and short readings from writers like Louise Glück, Jorge Luis Borges, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust. We'll also ask what we see when we read; whether the language we speak affects the way we think; and why different people react differently to the same book. Plus: is free will a fiction, or were you just forced to say that?
Terms: Win | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II

FRENCH 219: Sex, Gender and the Body in Renaissance France (FRENCH 319)

The Renaissance (14-16th c.) was a period of intense exploration: outwards, with the "discovery" and conquest of "new" continents and people; back in time, with the unearthing of Classical texts from antiquity; and inwards, with the first human dissections and the rise of gynecology. From all these experiences emerged multiple models and definitions of gender, conflicting norms of sexualities, and shifting accounts of sexual difference. Bodies became objects of constant scrutiny, speculation, and representation.Scientists, philosophers, writers, theologians, explorers discussed and documented hermaphrodites and animal-human hybrids, trans-gendering, vagrant uterus, male and female cosmic attributes, sexual drives, while poets dabbled in proto-pornography and subverted gender roles.We will look at scientific, literary, and artistic documents from 16th century France to investigate how gender, sex, race, and sexuality intersected in the age of the anatomical gaze.Readings from medical treatises, philosophy, novels (Rabelais), poetry (Scève, Ronsard, Labé), essays (Montaigne), and emblem literature. Taught in French.
Terms: Win | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors: ; Alduy, C. (PI)

FRENCH 228E: Getting Through Proust

Selections from all seven volumes of "In Search of Lost Time". Focus on issues of personal identity (perspective, memory, life-narrative); interpersonal relations (friendship, love, homosexuality, jealousy, indirect expression); knowledge (objective truth, subjective truth, necessary illusions); redemption (enchantment, disenchantment, re-enchantment); aesthetics (music, painting, fiction); and Proust's own style (narrative sequence, sentence structure, irony, metaphor, metonymy, metalepsis). Taught in English; readings in French or English.
Terms: Win | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
Instructors: ; Landy, J. (PI)

FRENCH 238: Art and the Market (ARTHIST 238C)

This course examines the relationship between art and the market, from Renaissance artisans to struggling Impressionist painters to the globalized commercial world of contemporary art and NFTs. 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 examine 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: Win | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI

FRENCH 256: French Kiss: The History of Love and the French Novel (FRENCH 159, HISTORY 236F)

The history of the French novel is also the history of love. How did individuals experience love throughout history? How do novels reflect this evolution of love through the ages? And, most significantly, how have French novels shaped our own understanding of and expectations for romantic love today? The course will explore many forms of love from the Ancien R¿gime to the 20th century. Sentiment and seduction, passion and desire, the conflict between love and society: students will examine these themes from a historical perspective, in tandem with the evolution of the genre of the novel (the novella, the sentimental novel, the epistolary novel, the 19th-century novel, and the autobiographical novel). Some texts will be paired with contemporary films to probe the enduring relevance of love "¿ la fran¿aise" in the media today. Readings include texts by Lafayette, Pr¿vost, Laclos, Dumas fils, Flaubert, Colette, Yourcenar, and Duras. This is an introductory course to French Studies, with a focus on cultural history, literary history, interpretation of narrative, thematic analysis, and close reading. Undergraduate students should enroll for FRENCH159, while graduate students may enroll for FRENCH256. Readings and discussion in English.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors: ; Edmondson, C. (PI)

FRENCH 260A: Transcultural Perspectives of South-East Asian Music and Arts (COMPLIT 148, COMPLIT 267, MUSIC 146N, MUSIC 246N)

This course will explore the links between aspects of South-East Asian cultures and their influence on modern and contemporary Western art and literature, particularly in France; examples of this influence include Claude Debussy (Gamelan music), Jacques Charpentier (Karnatak music), Auguste Rodin (Khmer art) and Antonin Artaud (Balinese theater). In the course of these interdisciplinary analyses - focalized on music and dance but not limited to it - we will confront key notions in relation to transculturality: orientalism, appropriation, auto-ethnography, nostalgia, exoticism and cosmopolitanism. We will also consider transculturality interior to contemporary creation, through the work of contemporary composers such as Tran Kim Ngoc, Chinary Ung and Tôn-Thât Tiêt. Viewings of sculptures, marionette theater, ballet, opera and cinema will also play an integral role. To satisfy a Ways requirement, this course must be taken for at least 3 units. WIM credit in Music at 4 units and a letter grade.
Terms: Win | Units: 2-4 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
Instructors: ; Kretz, H. (PI)

FRENCH 264E: Crossing the Atlantic: Race Identity in the "Old" and"New" African Diasporas (AFRICAAM 264, COMPLIT 264, CSRE 265)

In this course, we will think critically about what we have come to call the African diaspora. We will travel the world virtually while exploring a selection of classic and understudied texts, in order to interrogate the relationship between culture, race, gender and identity in the "old" and "new" African diasporas. From literary texts to popular culture, we will relate each weekly reading to a hot topic. Our goal is to think cross-culturally and cross-linguistically about the themes covered by putting exciting works in conversation. The diverse topics and concepts discussed will include race, class, gender, identity, sexuality, migration, Afro-Caribbean religions, performance, violence, the body, metissage, Negritude, Negrismo, multiculturalism, nationalism, Afropolitanism and Afropean identities.
Terms: Win | Units: 3-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors: ; Seck, F. (PI)

FRENCH 287: Sex, Gender, and Violence: French and Francophone 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 Nobel Prize Annie Ernaux, Virginie Despentes, Marie Darrieusecq, Christine Angot, Marie NDiaye, Leonora Miano, Leila Slimani, Vanessa Springora along with feminist theory. Discussion in English. Readings in French or English, students choice
Terms: Aut | Units: 1-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
Instructors: ; Alduy, C. (PI)

FRENCH 317: Love, Death and the Afterlife in the Medieval West (FRENCH 217, HISTORY 217D, HISTORY 317D, ITALIAN 217, ITALIAN 317)

Romantic love, it is often claimed, is an invention of the High Middle Ages. The vocabulary of sexual desire that is still current in the twenty-first century was authored in the twelfth and thirteenth, by troubadours, court poets, writers like Dante; even by crusaders returning from the eastern Mediterranean. How did this devout society come to elevate the experience of sensual love? This course draws on primary sources such as medieval songs, folktales, the "epic rap battles" of the thirteenth century, along with the writings of Boccaccio, Saint Augustine and others, to understand the unexpected connections between love, death, and the afterlife from late antiquity to the fourteenth century. Each week, we will use a literary or artistic work as an interpretive window into cultural attitudes towards love, death or the afterlife. These readings are analyzed in tandem with major historical developments, including the rise of Christianity, the emergence of feudal society and chivalric culture, the crusading movement, and the social breakdown of the fourteenth century.
Terms: Aut | Units: 4-5
Instructors: ; Phillips, J. (PI)

FRENCH 319: Sex, Gender and the Body in Renaissance France (FRENCH 219)

The Renaissance (14-16th c.) was a period of intense exploration: outwards, with the "discovery" and conquest of "new" continents and people; back in time, with the unearthing of Classical texts from antiquity; and inwards, with the first human dissections and the rise of gynecology. From all these experiences emerged multiple models and definitions of gender, conflicting norms of sexualities, and shifting accounts of sexual difference. Bodies became objects of constant scrutiny, speculation, and representation.Scientists, philosophers, writers, theologians, explorers discussed and documented hermaphrodites and animal-human hybrids, trans-gendering, vagrant uterus, male and female cosmic attributes, sexual drives, while poets dabbled in proto-pornography and subverted gender roles.We will look at scientific, literary, and artistic documents from 16th century France to investigate how gender, sex, race, and sexuality intersected in the age of the anatomical gaze.Readings from medical treatises, philosophy, novels (Rabelais), poetry (Scève, Ronsard, Labé), essays (Montaigne), and emblem literature. Taught in French.
Terms: Win | Units: 3-5
Instructors: ; Alduy, C. (PI)

FRENCH 328: Literature, Narrative, and the Self (COMPLIT 328, ITALIAN 328)

It is often said that "life is a narrative," or that "we live our lives in stories." But is this true? Do we always live our lives as narratives? Could we fail to live our lives as narratives? Could we choose not to live our lives as narratives? Even for those who do see their life as a story, will any old narrative do, or is there something special about the examples provided by the literary tradition? How does literary genre factor in? What is closure? And why are middles what they are? Readings from Appiah, Aristotle, Camus, Hume, Nietzsche, Simmel, G. Strawson, Velleman; Brooks, Woloch; Kahneman, Sacks; Shakespeare, Balzac, Sartre, Beckett, Calvino, Levi, Morrison. Films by Ephron, Kaufman, Polley. Taught in English.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3-5
Instructors: ; Landy, J. (PI)

FRENCH 355: The French-Speaking World: Literature, Culture, and Translation (COMPLIT 355, CSRE 355)

A survey of literatures and cultures of the French speaking world outside of Europe. We will examine a variety of literary genres as we explore works from the Caribbean, the Maghreb, West Africa, North America, Asia, and the Indian Ocean. Topics include: the politics of language, the making of literary classics, world literature and translation, decolonization, nationalism, gender, sexuality, race, and identity. Taught in French.
Terms: Win | Units: 3-5
Instructors: ; Seck, F. (PI)

FRENCH 367: Introduction to Apocalyptic Thinking (COMPLIT 376, POLISCI 237R, POLISCI 337R)

At the time of the European Enlightenment, the talk about the end of the world was taken to be a remnant of religious beliefs or the domain of insane people. The rational mind knew how to eliminate those obstacles to continuous scientific and technological progress. Today the situation has radically changed. Science and technology are the places where the end of the world is predicted. Apocalypse is looming. This seminar will explore various fields where this transformation is taking place. The following menaces will be considered: nuclear war, climate change, gene editing, synthetic biology, advanced artificial intelligence. Among the philosophies that will be summoned: the post-Heideggerian critique of technoscience (Hannah Arendt and G¿nther Anders), Hans Jonas' Ethics of the Future, the concept of existential risk (Nick Bostrom) and the instructor's concept of Enlightened Doomsaying. Appeal to literary works and films will be part of the program. Reserved for Master's, PhD students, and highly motivated undergraduates.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3-5
Instructors: ; Dupuy, J. (PI)

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
Instructors: ; Lawton, D. (PI)

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 Professor Robert Harrison is required. May be repeated for credit. Taught in English.
Terms: Spr | Units: 1 | Repeatable for credit
Instructors: ; Harrison, R. (PI)

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)
Instructors: ; Alduy, C. (PI)

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

FRENCH 801: TGR Project

Terms: Sum | Units: 0 | Repeatable for credit
Instructors: ; Alduy, C. (PI)

FRENCH 802: TGR Dissertation

Doctoral students who have been admitted to candidacy, completed all required courses and degree requirements other than the University oral exam and dissertation, completed 135 units or 10.5 quarters of residency (if under the old residency policy), and submitted a Doctoral Dissertation Reading Committee form, may request Terminal Graduate Registration status to complete their dissertations.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum | Units: 0 | Repeatable for credit
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