This course features intensive work on French grammar, with emphasis on the acquisition of basic active skills (speaking, reading, writing and vocabulary building). We will be using the multimedia program French in Action which employs only authentic French, allowing students to use the language colloquially and creatively in a short amount of time. Three hours a week for explanation and demonstration, plus small sections with French assistants. This course prepares students for FREN 103. For students without previous training in French.
Fall semester: Visiting Lecturer Alquier and Assistants. Spring semester: Senior Lecturer Uhden and Assistants.
Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Spring 2025Intensive review and coverage of all basic French grammar points with emphasis on the understanding of structural and functional aspects of the language and acquisition of the basic active skills (speaking, reading, writing and systematic vocabulary building). We will be using French in Action, the multimedia program. Three hours a week for explanation and demonstration, plus small sections with French assistants. This course prepares students for FREN 205.
Requisite: FREN 101 or two years of secondary school French. Fall semester: Visitng Lecturer Alquier and Assistants. Spring semester:Senior Lecturer Uhden and Assistants.
Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Spring 2025An introduction to the critical reading of French literary and non-literary texts; a review of French grammar; training in composition, conversation and listening comprehension. Texts will be drawn from significant short stories, poetry and films. The survey of different literary genres serves also to contrast several views of French culture. Supplementary work with audio and video materials. Successful completion of FREN 205 prepares students for FREN 207, 208, 311 or 312. Conducted in French. Three hours a week.
Requisite: FREN 103 or three to four years of secondary school French. Fall semester: Professor de la Carrera and Visiting Lecturer Baillargeon. Spring semester: Professor de la Carrera.
Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Spring 2025Through class discussion, debates, and frequent short papers, students develop effective skills in self-expression, analysis, and interpretation. Literary texts, articles on current events, and films are studied within the context of the changing structures of French society and France’s complex relationship to its recent past. Assignments include both creative and analytic approaches to writing. Some grammar review as necessary, as well as work on understanding spoken French using video materials. Highly recommended for students planning to study abroad.
Requisite: FREN 205, or completion of AP French, or four years of secondary school French in a strong program. Fall semester: Professors Hewitt and Katsaros. Spring semester: Visiting Lecturer Alquier and Professor Rockwell.
Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Spring 2025To gain as much confidence as possible in idiomatic French, we discuss French social institutions and culture, trying to appreciate differences between French and American viewpoints. Our conversational exchanges will touch upon such topics as French education, art and architecture, the status of women, the spectrum of political parties, minority groups, religion, and the position of France and French-speaking countries in the world. Supplementary work with audio and video materials.
Requisite: FREN 205, or completion of AP French, or four years of secondary school French in a strong program. Limited to 16 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Alquier.
Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2024, Spring 2025Between the year 1000 and the Revolution of 1789 France made some of the greatest and most enduring contributions to European literature, music, visual art, politics, and intellectual life. We shall examine some of the most significant aspects of French civilization during this period: from the spiritual power of Romanesque and Gothic art to the vibrancy of Renaissance humanism (Rabelais and Montaigne), and from the grandeur of classicism and the baroque (Descartes, Pascal, Molière) to the elegance and refinement of the rococo, as well as the Enlightenment (Voltaire, Diderot) and sentimental reactions to it. We shall discuss “courtly love,” the châteaux of the Loire, court society, the emergence of absolute monarchy (Versailles), theater, opera, and the status of women. Conducted in French.
Requisite: FREN 207 or equivalent. Spring semester. Professor Caplan.
2023-24: Not offeredThis course aims at improving the students' knowledge of the contemporary French language and of contemporary French society through translation. We will draw from a wide variety of sources, such as fiction, poetry, film, songs, press articles, graphic novels and advertising, to gain a better understanding of idiomatic French and of the translation process. Conducted in French.
Requisite: FREN 207 or 208 or the equivalent. Omitted 2012-13. Professor Katsaros.
2023-24: Not offeredThe rise in the rate of literacy which characterized the early French Middle Ages coincided with radical reappraisals of the nature and function of reading and poetic production. This course will investigate the ramifications of these reappraisals for the literature of the late French Middle Ages. Readings may include such major works as Guillaume de Dole by Jean Renart, the anonymous Roman de Renart, the Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris, selections from the continuation of the Roman de la Rose by Jean de Meun, anonymous Fabliaux, and poetic works by Christine de Pisan, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Froissart, and Charles d’Orléans. Particular attention will be paid to the philosophical presuppositions surrounding the production of erotic allegorical discourse. We shall also address such topics as the relationships between lyric and narrative and among disguise, death and aging in the context of medieval discourses on love. All texts will be read in modern French. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Spring semester. Professor Rockwell.
2023-24: Not offeredThe eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed social, political, and poetic innovations that rival in impact the information revolution of recent decades. Essential to these innovations was the transformation from an oral to a book-oriented culture. This course will investigate the problems of that transition, as reflected in such major works of the early French Middle Ages as: The Song of Roland, the Tristan legend, the Roman d’Eneas, the Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes, anonymous texts concerning the Holy Grail and the death of King Arthur. We shall also address questions relevant to this transition, such as the emergence of medieval allegory, the rise of literacy, and the relationship among love, sex, and hierarchy. All texts will be read in modern French. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Omitted 2012-13. Professor Rockwell.
2023-24: Not offeredThe study of a major author, literary problem, or question from the medieval period with a particular focus announced each time the course is offered. The topic for 2011 was: "The Allegorical Impulse." We studied the social, philosophical, poetic and institutional currents that contribute to the emergence of allegorical texts in the period between the twelfth and the late-fourteenth centuries. Readings include the Quest for the Holy Grail and works by Chrétien de Troyes, Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meung, Dante Alighieri, and Guillaume de Machaut. All readings were done in English translation. Conducted in English.
Omitted 2012-2013. Professor Rockwell.
2023-24: Not offeredHumanists came to distrust medieval institutions and models. Through an analysis of the most influential works of the French Renaissance, we shall study the variety of literary innovations which grew out of that distrust with an eye to their social and philosophical underpinnings. We shall address topics relevant to these innovations such as Neoplatonism, the grotesque, notions of the body, love, beauty, order and disorder. Readings will be drawn from the works of such major writers as: Erasmus, Rabelais, Marguerite de Navarre, Montaigne, Ronsard, Du Bellay, Maurice Scève and Louise Labé. The most difficult texts will be read in modern French. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Omitted 2012-13. Professor Rockwell.
Other years: Offered in Fall 2013, Fall 2016This course explores the formation and transformation of various genres in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literature, with a particular focus announced each time the course is offered. The topic for 2012-13 is: "The Eighteenth-Century Novel and Theater in France." Readings will include texts by Diderot, Voltaire, Marivaux, Prévost, Laclos, and Beaumarchais. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Fall semester. Professor de la Carrera.
2023-24: Not offeredPassion and the art of seduction, from Mme. de Lafayette’s La Princesse de Clèves to Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le noir. We will focus on the oppositions between romantic love and social norms, passion and seduction. Both original masterpieces and their filmic adaptations will be considered. Sample reading list: Mme. de Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves; Prévost, Manon Lescaut; Casanova, Histoire de ma vie; Laclos, Les Liaisons dangereuses; Mozart/da Ponte, Don Giovanni; Stendhal, Le Rouge et le noir. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Omitted 2012-13. Professor Caplan.
2023-24: Not offeredLe Siècle des Lumières. An analysis of the major philosophical, literary, and artistic movements in France between the years 1715 and 1789 within the context of their uneasy relationship to the social, political, and religious institutions of the ancien régime. Readings will include texts by Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and others. To gain a better sense of what it might have been like to live in eighteenth-century France, we will also read essays in French cultural history. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Spring semester. Professor de la Carrera.
2023-24: Not offeredAn exploration of Enlightenment thought within the context of the collaborative institutions and activities that fostered its development, including literary and artistic salons, cafés, and the Encyclopédie. We will read texts by Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and others, drawn from the domains of literature, memoirs, and correspondence. To get a better idea of what it might have been like to live in the eighteenth century and be a participant in the “Republic of Letters,” we will also read a variety of essays in French cultural history. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Omitted 2012-13. Professor de la Carrera.
Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2017, Fall 2019Many eighteenth-century writers imagined and invented other, better societies. To attenuate their criticisms of the social, political, and religious structures of the ancien régime, they had recourse to the viewpoint of fictional "outsiders" who arrive in France as if for the first time and describe what they see in minute and telling detail. We will analyze the role that these "other" worlds and the "otherworldly" point of view played in the development of eighteenth-century thought and literature, as well as some of the repercussions that these questions have had in twentieth-century thought. Readings will include Montesquieu's Lettres persanes, Rousseau's Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité, Diderot's Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville, and Madame de Graffigny's Lettres d'une Péruvienne, as well as Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents and a selection of essays by Claude Lévi-Strauss. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Omitted 2012-13. Professor de la Carrera.
2023-24: Not offeredProstitutes play a central role in nineteenth-century French fiction, especially of the realistic and naturalistic kind. Both widely available and largely visible in nineteenth-century France, prostitutes inspired many negative stereotypes. But, as the very product of the culture that marginalized her, the prostitute offered an ideal vehicle for writers to criticize the hypocrisy of bourgeois mores. The socially stratified world of prostitutes, ranging from low-ranking sex workers to high-class courtesans, presents a fascinating microcosm of French society as a whole. We will read selections from Honoré de Balzac, Splendeur et misère des courtisanes; Victor Hugo, Les Misérables; and Gustave Flaubert, L’éducation sentimentale; as well as Boule-de-Suif and other stories by Guy de Maupassant; La fille Elisa by Edmond de Goncourt; Nana by Emile Zola; Marthe by Joris-Karl Huysmans; La dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils; and extracts from Du côté de chez Swann by Marcel Proust. Additional readings will be drawn from the fields of history (Alain Corbin, Michelle Perrot) and critical theory (Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva). We will also discuss visual representations of prostitutes in nineteenth-century French art (Gavarni, Daumier, C. Guys, Degas, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec). Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Fall semester. Professor Katsaros.
2023-24: Not offered“Merdre!” This is, famously, the opening word of Alfred Jarry’s play Ubu-Roi. First performed in 1897, Ubu-Roi illuminates in retrospect a key aspect of nineteenth-century French literature. Since the Romantics, French literature had been saying “Merdre!” to its bourgeois readers with remarkable consistency. From the bohemian to the poète maudit, from the dandy to the decadent, the art of provocation reached its peak in nineteenth-century France. In this course, we will explore the various aspects, meanings, and purposes of this strategy. We will examine the various forms of literary, artistic, and theatrical provocation, as well as their historical and critical significance. We will ask how and why the artist and the bourgeois were set up as enemies, and what effect this conflict has had on theories of artistic creation. We will also try to understand why the myths of the artist invented in the nineteenth century (such as the dandy, the bohemian, and the provocateur) still form an essential part of the critical discourse on the arts today. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Omitted 2012-13. Professor Katsaros.
2023-24: Not offeredImages of childhood have become omnipresent in our culture. We tend to fetishize childhood as an idyllic time, preserved from the difficulties and compromises of adult life; but the notion that children’s individual lives are worth recording is a relatively modern one. This course will try to map out the journey from the idea of childhood as a phase to be outgrown to the modern conception of childhood as a crucial moment of self-definition. We will examine literary works as well as historical and theoretical sources. We will also look at nineteenth-century artists’ visions of childhood, with a particular emphasis on female artists such as E. Vigée-Lebrun, Berthe Morisot, and Mary Cassatt.
Literary readings will include selections from Rousseau, Confessions; and Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’outre-tombe; Gérard de Nerval, Sylvie; Stendhal, Vie de Henry Brulard; selected poems and prose by Baudelaire; Comtesse de Ségur, Les Malheurs de Sophie; selected stories by Guy de Maupassant; Emile Zola, Une page d’amour; Jules Vallès, L’enfant; Jules Renard, Poil-de-Carotte.
Theoretical and historical readings will include essays by Philippe Ariès, Michelle Perrot, André Breton, and Jacques Lacan. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Omitted 2012-13. Professor Katsaros.
Other years: Offered in Fall 2013, Spring 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2023What can literature do? What is its social force? Is it an agent of change, a reflection of human thought in language, or both? The great French novelists of the 20th and 21st centuries have self-consciously questioned, and struggled to justify, the nature and value of literature. This course will focus on the long series of novelistic experiments, both narratological and ideological, that begin around the time of the First World War. It will include the existential novel, the "New Novel" of the sixties and seventies, the French postmodern novel, and conclude with two overlapping trends of the last two decades: novels that emphasize traumatic history (war, decolonization, immigration) and autofictions that showcase the individual subject in contemporary life. Like the authors we study (such as Proust, Sartre, Camus, Robbe-Grillet, Modiano, Nothomb, Makine, Echenoz, N'Diaye, Beigbeder), we will question the novel's revolutionary potential as we study the nature of story-telling and the literary act, and ask how the novel can shape our understanding of the world. Literary readings will be supplemented with theoretical essays (Freud, Barthes, J. L. Austin, Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute, Derrida). Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or the equivalent. Omitted 2012-13. Professor Hewitt.
2023-24: Not offeredThis course studies the shifting notions about what constitutes “Frenchness” and reviews the heated debates about the split between French citizenship and French identity. Issues of decolonization, immigration, foreign influence, and ethnic background will be addressed as we explore France’s struggles to understand the changing nature of its social, cultural, and political identities. We will study theoretical and historical works, as well as novels, plays and films. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following- FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Omitted 2012-13. Professor Hewitt.
2023-24: Not offeredThis course will explore cross-cultural intersections and issues of identity and alienation in the works of leading writers from the French-speaking Caribbean and West Africa. Our discussions will focus on the sociopolitical positions and narrative strategies entertained in key texts of postcolonial literature (both fiction and critical essays). Issues involving nationalism, race, gender, assimilation and multilingualism will help to shape our discussion of how postcolonial subjects share in or distinguish themselves from certain tenets of Western thought. At issue, then, is the way French Caribbean and West African literatures and cultures trace their own distinctiveness and value. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Fall semester. Professor Hewitt.
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2023A study of great works of French literature. Readings may include: selections from Montaigne’s Essays and Pascal’s Pensées; Molière, Tartuffe and The Misanthrope; Voltaire, Candide; Laclos, Dangerous Liaisons; Stendhal, The Red and the Black; Balzac, Old Goriot; Flaubert, Madame Bovary; and Proust, Swann in Love. Conducted in English.
Omitted 2012-13. Professor Caplan.
Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2016A study of some of the greatest French New Wave (1959-1963) films, as well as earlier French films that influenced the New Wave. From the New Wave we shall view Truffaut’s The 400 Blows; Godard’s Breathless, My Life to Live, and Contempt; Hiroshima mon amour and Last Year at Marienbad by Resnais. We shall also study Zero for Conduct (1933) and L’Atalante (1934) by Jean Vigo; Boudu Saved From the Waters (1932) Grand Illusion (1937), and The Rules of the Game (1939) by Jean Renoir; Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob le Flambeur (1956) and A Man Escaped (1956) by Robert Bresson. No previous training in film analysis is required. Conducted in English.
Spring semester. Professor Caplan.
2023-24: Not offered(Offered as FREN 365 and FAMS 327.) This course will study films from the French New Wave (1959-63), as well as earlier French films that influenced many New Wave directors. These films will include: Jean-Luc Godard's A bout de souffle, Vivre sa vie, and Le Mépris; Alain Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour and L'annee dernière à Marienbad; Jean Vigo's Zero de Conduite and L'Atalante; Jean Renoir's Boudu sauvé des eaux, La Grande Illusion and La Règle du Jeu; Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le flambeur; and Robert Bresson's Un condamné à mort s'est échappé. This course will also provide basic training in the analysis of films. Conducted in French.
Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, 312 or equivalent. Omitted 2012-13. Professor Caplan.
2023-24: Not offeredIndependent Reading Courses. Full course.
Admission with consent of the instructor consent required. Fall and spring semesters.
Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Spring 2025A single course.
Spring semester. The Department.
Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2025Double course. Fall semester.
2023-24: Not offered