91304

FREN 201 Intermediate French I

Odile Chilton

M T . Th .

8:50 -9:50 am

OLINLC 120

FLLC

For students with three to four years of high school French or who have acquired a solid knowledge of elementary grammar. In this course, designed as an introduction to contemporary French civilization and culture, students will be able to reinforce their skills in grammar, composition and spoken proficiency, through the use of short texts, newspaper and magazine articles, as well as video. Students will meet in small groups, with the French tutor for one extra hour per week.

Class size: 22

91305

FREN 201 Intermediate French I

Odile Chilton

M . . . .

. T . Th

10:10 - 11:10 am

OLINLC 208

OLINLC 210

FLLC

See description above. Class size: 22

91306

FREN 220 French through Film

Odile Chilton

M . W . .

1:30 -2:50 pm

OLIN 202

FLLC

In this intermediate course we will explore major themes of French culture and civilization through the study of individual films ranging from the silent era to the present and covering a wide variety of genres. We will examine the interaction between the French and their cinema in terms of historical circumstances, aesthetic ambitions, and self-representation. Conducted in French. Class size: 22

91254

FREN 240 Quest for Authenticity:

Topics in French Literature

Eric Trudel

M . W . .

3:10 -4:30 pm

OLINLC 206

FLLC

Serving as an overview of modern French literature, this class will focus on short texts (poems, plays, essays, letters, short stories) that reflect the fragile relationship between selfhood and authenticity. From Rousseau’s ambitious program of autobiography to Sartre’s belief that we are inveterate embellishers when it comes to telling our own story, French literature has staged with relish the classic tension between art, artifice, and authenticity. This has not only inaugurated an intensely individual and unstable relationship to the notion of truth, but has implicated the reader in this destabilizing process. This class will explore how the quest for authenticity has led to radical reevaluations of literary style. Readings from Rousseau, Stendhal, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Proust, Gide, Sartre, Duras, Sarraute, Ernaux. Taught in French. Prerequisites: two years of college French (successful completion of the Intermediate) or permission by instructor.

Class size: 18

91284

FREN 333 The Emotional Brain: Mind-Body Dichotomy in French Thought (Rabelais to Merleau-Ponty)

Marina Van Zuylen

. . W . .

1:30 -3:50 pm

OLINLC 210

FLLC

This seminar will explore different facets of the mind and body controversy in French thought. Following recent findings in neurobiology about the "emotional brain," the class will analyze how French thinkers have both embraced and struggled with the idea of the mind's primacy over the body and vice versa. Starting with Rabelais' belief that the body of man is "rich with all that exists in the universe" (Bakhtin), we will track these tensions in Madame de la Fayette, Racine, and Molière, all of whom presented their readers with protagonists suffering from a blurring between the physical and the psychological (Princesse de Clèves, Phèdre), from hypochondriac cover-ups (Le Malade Imaginaire) or from melancholic symptoms (Le Misanthrope). One had to wait for the nineteenth century and the works of Charcot, Mesmer, Binet, and eventually Pierre Janet to describe in greater detail the confusion between body and mind. Psychic trauma, spiritual yearning, mesmeric trances, and sexual repression became central to medical, literary, and philosophical research. The last part of the class will tackle works by Bergson, Irigaray, Ernaux, and Merleau-Ponty. In French. Class size: 15