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Ideas matter. Concepts such as equality, tradition, and Hell have inspired social movements, shaped political systems, and dramatically influenced the lives of individuals. Others, like race and urban renewal, 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.

France, the land of laïcité and the epicenter of the Enlightenment and of Existentialism, has played a central role in the development of modern western atheism. Its philosophical and literary traditions - traditions in which the line between philosophy and literary writing is often blurred - are rich with discussions of the causes and consequences of atheism. From the seventeenth century, when atheism first emerged as a serious possibility, through to the present day, in which the French population is among the most atheist in the world, the trajectory of French history has been profoundly marked by the rejection of religion. In this course we will focus on texts that foreground questions about what it is like to be an atheist. If one abandons faith in any deity, what does it mean to exist in this universe and in society? What are the moral, psychological and existential implications of disbelief? How does the atheist face death? How does the atheist deal with religion and those who are religious? How has the experience of atheism evolved over time? This course will be taught in French.

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. 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.

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 Aimé Césaire, Albert Memmi, Ousmane Sembène, Leïla Sebbar, Mariama Bâ, Maryse Condé, Dany Laferrière, Mati Diop, and special guest Léonora Miano. Taught in French. Students are encouraged to complete FRENLANG 124 or successfully test above this level through the Language Center.

Restricted to French majors with consent of department. Normally limited to 4-unit credit toward the major. May be repeated for credit.

The course examines the medieval love lyric tradition, including the troubadours, trouvères, and the Italian dolce stil nuovo. Focus on how to understand this tradition in the context of other non-Western lyric and its performative and material contexts such as manuscripts. Study of female lyrics, secondary readings on voice, lyric theory, and medieval textuality. Will be taught in English. FRENCH 205 fulfills DLCL 121: Performing in the Middle Ages core course.

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.

This interdisciplinary course examines the evolution of letter-writing practices in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France through the lens of a media revolution, and highlights the historical roots of contemporary media issues. We will read primary sources such as epistolary manuals, letters by notable early modern letter writers (Sévigné, Voltaire, and Catherine the Great), and epistolary novels, as well as secondary scholarship from the fields of cultural history, literary studies, and media studies. Topics include, but are not limited to, innovations to the postal system, the rise of social norms of letter writing, image management, the Republic of Letters and the Enlightenment, social activism through letter writing, the birth of media celebrities, surveillance, and privacy. Readings and discussions in English.

What happens when injustice runs rampant, when democracy fails, and when it's no longer possible to believe in ancient forms of faith? Can lyric poetry console? Can it inspire? Can it re-enchant a disenchanted world? Together we'll read some of the most powerful poetry from late-nineteenth-century France, including what may possibly be the greatest 100-word sonnet ever written. (Poems to be read in French; discussion to be held in English.) We'll think about what modernity is, how "modernist" forms were born, when writers turned away from nature and toward artifice, why poets started trying to outdo music, whether it's possible to fool oneself knowingly, who's left when a lyric poet strives for "impersonality," and which poems have the greatest chance of saving our lives. The class may even serve as our own little haven, twice a week, from the growing chaos around us.