French

 

Intermediate French I

 

Professor:

Odile Chilton

 

Course Number:

FREN 201

CRN Number:

90091

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon Tue  Thurs    8:50 AM - 9:50 AM Olin Languages Center 208

 

Distributional Area:

FL Foreign Languages and Lit  

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.

 

Intermediate French II

 

Professor:

Gabriella Lindsay

 

Course Number:

FREN 202

CRN Number:

90092

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs Fri   1:30 PM - 2:30 PM Olin Languages Center 120

 

Distributional Area:

FL Foreign Languages and Lit  

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.

 

French Through Translation

 

Professor:

Odile Chilton

 

Course Number:

FREN 215

CRN Number:

90093

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon  Wed     10:10 AM - 11:30 AM Olin Languages Center 210

 

Distributional Area:

FL Foreign Languages and Lit  

Intended to help students fine-tune their command of French and develop a good sense for the most appropriate ways of communicating ideas and facts in French, this course emphasizes translation both as an exercise as well as a craft in its own right. The course will also address grammatical, lexical and stylistic issues. Translation will be practiced from English into French, and vice versa, with a variety of texts drawn from different genres (literary and journalistic). Toward the end of the semester, students will be encouraged to embark on independent projects.

 

Life as Theater, Theater as Life: Performing French Plays from Beckett to the Present

 

Professor:

Gabriella Lindsay

 

Course Number:

FREN 262

CRN Number:

90094

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    5:10 PM - 6:30 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center STUDIO NO.

 

Distributional Area:

FL Foreign Languages and Lit  

 

Crosslists:

Theater and Performance

“We must believe in a sense of life renewed by the theater” Antonin Artaud wrote in his 1938 collection of essays, "Le Théâtre et son double". Through acting exercises, improvisations and the study of plays and essays, this class will explore what this ‘life renewed by the theater' can look, feel and sound like in French. From the absurdist plays of Jean Tardieu, the minimalism of Samuel Backett, and the anti-characters of Nathalie Sarraute to the postcolonial 'writing back' of Aimé Césaire and the psychological probing of Marie NDiaye, we will explore a wide range of themes, styles, and voices. Assignments will consist of acting exercises, scene studies, in-class performances and written reflections, and will work to strengthen students' spoken and written expression and comprehension in French. Playwrights to be studied may include Samuel Beckett, Marguerite Duras, Jean Tardieu, Jean-Genet, Aimé Césaire, Nathalie Sarraute, Eugene Ionesco, Wajdi Mouawad, Bernard-Marie Koltès, Marie NDiaye, Yasmina Reza. Course will be conducted in French and students should be roughly at the intermediate level or above (if you have any questions about your level, please contact the instructor). No previous acting or theatre experience is necessary.

 

“La Beauté est dans la rue”: When Literature Takes to the Streets

 

Professor:

Eric Trudel

 

Course Number:

FREN 347

CRN Number:

90095

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

Mon       3:10 PM - 5:30 PM Olin Languages Center 118

 

Distributional Area:

FL Foreign Languages and Lit  

According to Balzac, the street lends itself to a "gastronomy of the eyes;" like Poe, Baudelaire sees it as the quintessential territory of the "man of the crowds," the artist dedicated to modern life. Apollinaire sings its industrial "swank" as if to rejuvenate poetry and Breton, along with other Surrealists (and later on the Situationists), claims that it should be explored as the "only region of valid experience." Perec, meanwhile, hopes to practice a way to "see more flatly" simply by describing it. The Parisian street – simultaneously a place of exchange, chance encounters, perambulation, idleness, flirting, exclusion, revolution and emancipation – continues to fascinate writers. This course aims to examine "la rue" – and, by extension, urban space – in its various literary representations, from the 19th century through May 68 and up to the present day. While our investigation will emphasize the formal innovations and the generic ambiguities that this singular location gives rise to, we will also systematically approach the street as a contested space in the aesthetic, philosophical and political realms. Writers on the syllabus include: Apollinaire, Aragon, Balzac, Baudelaire, Breton, Chauvier, Clerc, Debord, Divry, Kaplan, Modiano, Queneau, Perec, Réda, Sebbar, and Zola. Taught in French.

 

Cross-listed Courses:

 

Romanesque & Gothic Art & Architecture

 

Professor:

Katherine Boivin

 

Course Number:

ARTH 120

CRN Number:

90569

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs   1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Fisher Studio Arts ANNEX

 

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art  

 

Crosslists:

Architecture; French Studies; Medieval Studies

 

Painters of Modern Life: European Modernism 1850-1900

 

Professor:

Laurie Dahlberg

 

Course Number:

ARTH 258

CRN Number:

90068

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 102

 

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art  

 

Crosslists:

French Studies; Gender and Sexuality Studies; German Studies

 

A Political History of Common Sense

 

Professor:

Tabetha Ewing

 

Course Number:

HIST 231

CRN Number:

90336

Class cap:

18

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    5:10 PM - 6:30 PM Olin 203

 

Distributional Area:

HA Historical Analysis  

 

Crosslists:

Africana Studies; American & Indigenous Studies; French Studies; Human Rights

 

French Existentialism in Fiction

 

Professor:

Eric Trudel

 

Course Number:

LIT 120

CRN Number:

90273

Class cap:

22

Credits:

4

 

Schedule/Location:

 Tue  Thurs    1:30 PM - 2:50 PM Olin 202

 

Distributional Area:

LA Literary Analysis in English  

 

Crosslists:

French Studies