Graduate Course Offerings - Spring 2012

FREN 5150/ 8510- Medieval Literature in Modern French II: Textual Bodies - The Making of Books, Authors, and Readers in the Middle Ages

Do weight, texture, and shape of books embody meaning? Can we restrict reading to an intellectual activity removed from sensual encounters with the objects we hold in our hands, scroll over on our screens, violate or embellish with our marginal comments? The medieval manuscript – defined by the contact of hand to quill to skin – invites us to see in books bodies of writing, inscribed bodies in the process of becoming, agents creating meaning and generating authors. How might the medieval reading and writing experiences linked to hearing, singing, and proclaiming help us revive/re-imagine our relationship to literature? In its new cyborg form, rather than deny intimacy, how does the digitized medieval corpus engender new textual experiences?

This course will introduce students to a new way of experiencing the book that will begin with a study of medieval book fabrication, circulation and usage to then consider how new technologies reinterpret our relationship with texts. Our study will be bound to the writings of late-medieval francophone poets, including Jean de Meun, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, and Christine de Pizan. This course is part of an Andrew W. Mellon grant project on “The Author in the Book” and will provide participants access to new digitized materials and software created for the study of online texts.

Th

3:30 - 6:00

McGrady

FREN 5581/8580 - Topics in African Literature: Sembène Ousmane, Romancier Et Cinéaste   

This course will examine the oeuvre of Sembène Ousmane from the perspectives of the writing and filming–or filming and writing, as the case may be-- that has come to characterize his artistic work. The two forms of art will provide the basis for a study of forms of expression and narrative styles. The social criticism that Sembène’s art deploys will be discussed in reference to some of the major social and political situations that have shaped his action and thought since World War II: the colonial situation, the rise of African nationalism and the struggle for independence; decolonization and its aftermath, neocolonialism and postcolonial conditions. The course will explore the ways in which Sembène employs novels and films–and to what extent he succeeds or fails in his endeavor--to speak for and to depict agents and conditions of possibility of change in Africa.  Students will be required to write reviews of the films and the novels as well as a research paper.

Primary reading assignments will include: Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu, La Noire de… (Short-Story and Film), Le Mandat (film and novel), Xala (film and novel), Guelwaar (film and novel), and selected short stories from L’ Harmattan and Vehi-Ciosane. These and others works by and on Sembene Ousmane will be found on Reserve at Clemons Library, under French 5581 and under French 8570. Important reference texts will also be available on Collab.

MW

2:00 - 3:15

Drame

FREN 5584/8485 - Topics in Cinema: Documentary Film - Theory and Practice

From the very beginnings of cinema, France has made significant contributions to the development of the documentary genre. Through an exploration of important directors, moments, and sub-genres in this story, this course will examine theoretical questions fundamental to the genre that lead us to question the very definition of documentary film as a genre distinct from fiction film. These theoretical questions are broadly applicable to film in general and to other visual and textual forms. In this course, we will consider a selection of films from 1895 to the present; read widely in French history, film history, and film theory; and explore scholarly expression in formats facilitated by digital media.

TTh

2:00 - 3:15

Levine

FREN 5585/ 8585 - Topics in Civilization/Cultural Studies: Lingua Franca - Language and Nation in Modern France

This course proposes to examine the historical roots of the tight articulation between language and national identity in France. From at least the late 18th century, political debate focused on the question of the French language as a tool for national cohesion. Within the context of 19th century French imperial expansion, the dissemination of the French language and the institutions and cultural values associated with it played a pivotal role in attempts to achieve colonial dominion. Today, within the context of the European Union and the changes wrought by globalization, issues of citizenship, immigration, language, and French national identity have once again risen to the fore of public preoccupation and debate.

Students should expect a general course on the cultural, social, and political history of modern France with a particular focus on the construction of nationhood and the role of the French language in that process.

T

3:30 - 6:00

Horne