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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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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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