GRADUATE COURSES IN FRENCH

FALL 2007

(Course information subject to change)
(Cross-reference with Department Roster)

French 630
Introduction to Medieval Literature
Prof. Brownlee
M 2-5


French 650
Studies in the 17th Century
Prof. DeJean
W 3-5

In France during the final decades of the 17th century, new kinds of private space gradually emerged. As a result, the home was completely redesigned: the number of rooms proliferated; for the first time, rooms were reserved for a single, specific activity (eating, sleeping, reading). And for the first time, architects began to take into account the idea that people sometimes wanted to be alone.

French literature of the period testifies to what can be called a growing desire for interior space: for the first time, for example, French classical theater moved indoors. Whereas Corneille had favored the public square and Molière’s early comedies are situated in the street, with Le Misanthrope and Le Tartuffe Molière brought comedy inside the home. Racine made a similar move for tragedy with Britannicus.

Other works show how the need for private space was related to a new type of character, characters who are increasingly willing to explore their interiority. Works such as La Princesse de Clèves can be said to illustrate the birth of what we would call an individual.

We will discuss the relation between private space and newly important genres, such as the letter and the memoir. We will also think about various ways in which architecture and literature can be shown to be related — the fairy tale and the bedroom, for example. We will look at contemporary architectural treatises and perhaps also at contemporary portraiture. We will consider works from the early 18th century as well.

Reading will be in French; class discussion in English.

French 670
Bohème and the Demi-monde in the Nineteenth-Century French Novel and Opera
Prof. Mossman
R 2-5

In this course, we will explore the historical emergence of bohème and the demi-monde, along with the representation of these semi-licit spaces in the nineteenth-century French novel. A reading of narratives by Balzac, Sand, Murger, Dumas-fils and Zola will demonstrate the interdependence of the “monde” of respectability and its shadow worlds. We will also examine the cultural anxiety surrounding the relationship of these spaces as expressed in journalistic commentary bearing on the newly-popular bals publics.

It is worth asking whether bohème and the demi-monde would have remained in the collective memory without their immortalization through opera. The conclusion of this course will focus on Puccini’s La Bohème and Verdi’s La Traviata as we inquire into the specificity of the operatic form and its capacities of cultural impact. Our readings will be conducted in the light of gender theory, current thought revolving around the public/private divide, and Walter Benjamin’s and others’ writings on bohemia.

The class will be taught in French.

French 680
French Cinema
Prof. Met
R 5-7

The purpose of this survey course is twofold:

• to provide an introduction to the history and scope of French cinema all the way to the present time through the analysis of key works of the French film canon. Particular attention will be paid to various period styles (poetic realism, “French quality,” “the New Wave,” “le cinéma du look,” “le film de banlieue,” etc.) and genres (war, drama, comedy, film noir, etc.).
• to provide students with the proper analytical and technical tools for studying and teaching film. A variety of critical lenses will be considered (psychoanalysis, socio-historical and cultural context, politics, aesthetics, gender…) from a practical, rather than strictly theoretical, perspective.

Directors considered typically include Renoir, Duvivier, Carné, Clouzot, Melville, Bresson, Franju, Truffaut, Resnais, Godard, Tati, Chabrol, Tavernier, Blier, Beineix, Varda, Denis, Kassovitz, etc.

The class will be conducted in English.