Courses

The Digital Humanities for Literary Research
Professor Erec R. Koch
French 70400
Tuesday, 6:30p.m. - 8:30p.m.
Taught in English

This course offers an introduction to the ways in which computational methods can fuel and enhance research in the literary humanities. Designed for MA and doctoral students in literature programs, the course will begin with an historical overview of the digital humanities. The course will focus on both theoretical knowledge and practical experience of the following digital modalities: text analysis, data visualization, and digital annotation/curation. Students will also learn about the thoughtful construction of text corpora, and much of our collective time will be devoted to exploring open-source tools and platforms that will allow students to work in the three areas previously mentioned. Through critical readings as well as praxis, we will consider the ways in which those tools can enhance research, but we will also consider their limits. Students will be asked to design and complete a digital humanities research project in one of the three named areas.


Conjuguer Patrie, phratrie et francophonie dans les lettres haïtiennes
Professor Jasmine Narcisse
French 79120
Thursday, 6:30p.m. - 8:30p.m.
Taught in French

Conjuguer Patrie, phratrie et francophonie dans les lettres haïtiennes
Durant plus d'un siècle et demi avant la conceptualisation et l'institutionnalisation par la France de la Francophonie comme butin ultime d'une hégémonie culturelle en décadence, Haïti, fidèle à sa vocation de banc d'essai, fondait, et produisait une proto-francophonie, nommément une littérature francophone aujourd'hui encore forte et vibrante. Comment, seule, larguée en pleine mer caraïbe, tout en étant si éloignée de ses rives marâtres, cette presqu'île s'est-elle acharnée à maintenir une production littéraire tendue et tournée vers la France sourde et indifférente ? Qu'a représenté, que représente le coût pour Haïti de cette francophonie embrassée souvent en tournant le dos à une fratrie plutôt créolophone unilingue, et parfois en dépit de discours internes identitaires et nationalistes qui semblent s'y opposer.

Mettant à profit l'histoire littéraire, la sociocritique et les théories post-coloniales…, j'invite à une exploration de textes et d'œuvres haïtiens fondateurs et marquants dans le but de proposer du lieu d'Haïti une saisie des enjeux encore cruciaux d'une francophonie haïtienne difficile encore sinon impossible à réclamer.

Problems in Literary History
Professor Rachel Corkle
French 71110
Thursday, 4:15p.m. - 6:15p.m.
Taught in French

In this seminar we will examine the evolution of French literature from the early modern to the contemporary period. We will begin with a brief overview of theoretical challenges posed by the novel as a literary genre that has repeatedly sought to redefine itself, as it defines and is defined by period-specific norms: of virility, femininity, class. We will then explore how this protean narrative form developed into a privileged site for cultural struggle, in reading the historical novel in dialogue with theater and poetry. Over the course of the semester, we will see how each text frames and negotiates a number of generic, theoretical, and thematic tensions that structure the literary field, including sentimentality and realism, politics and aesthetics, high and low, individual and society, history and memory. Students will read novels, theater and poetry alongside important theoretical texts in the field.

Critical Refugee Studies: History and Law, Narrative, Testimonial, Film
Professor Domna Stanton
French 87400
Tuesday, 4:15p.m. - 6:15p.m.
Taught in English

Why are we still in the midst of a global refugee crisis that now involves 80 million people? Such dislocations and displacements have occurred since the late 17^th century, when the term “refugee” was first coined; and they have proliferated over the past century, notably since 1915. Who is a refugee? Who qualifies for asylum, why and why not? What about unaccompanied minors; victims of forced migrations? What is the status of economic migrants; of internally displaced persons? How should we classify those fleeing climate catastrophes? Are these others viewed as human or as stateless victims? What are the micro and macro socio-political and cultural contexts that contribute to a widespread refusal to welcome the stranger?

This course in critical refugee studies will begin with history and jurisprudence, then focus on the development, successes - and failures - of the human rights regime, humanitarian law, and regional instruments. We will examine transnational North-South disparities as drivers of migration, and lastly, current ideological and nationalist trends that promote securitization, the closing of borders, and authoritarianism in the post 9/11 world.

We will study particular cases: the Holocaust; the Palestinian nakbah; the Democratic Republic Congo as one of ten critical cases in Africa; the failures of Europe and the USA; and we will end with the present crises of the Ukrainian diaspora and the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

Our approach will be interdisciplinary: critical studies in history, theory and law will combine with close readings of novels, memoirs/testimonials, and documentaries that represent/construct the figures of refugees, their double-voiced consciousness, along with the themes of (be)longing, remembering and return.

10FRENCH 77010
Techniques of Literary Research
Professor Amin Erfani
Tuesday, 6:30PM-8:30PM
In-Person
Taught in French
**Mandatory course for first-year students in French

FRENCH 72000
Montaigne and Intertextuality
Professor Erec R. Koch
Thursday, 6:30PM-8:30PM
In-Person
Taught in English

Michel de Montaigne’s Essais invite the exploration of intertextuality through both textual performance and content. In those texts, Montaigne establishes the mutual imbrication of reading and writing; he makes copious use of citations of authors drawn from his library or inscribed in the beams of his tower; he adds continuously to the texts up to his death in 1592. Intertextuality defines the very genre that he created and shaped in that the essai is open-ended and invites citation and response. Intertextuality determines the literary heritage of the essai in the succession of essayists over the centuries. Every subsequent example of the genre has been overtly or covertly a reference Montaigne’s text: Pierre Charron, Jean-Pierre Camus, Blaise Pascal, and Pierre Nicole, to name only a few, graft Montaigne’s text into their own in responding to the Essais. In this course, we will use intertextual theory as a way to inform Montaigne’s Essais, but we will also examine the ways in which the Essais inform theories of intertextuality. Principal readings in intertextual theory will include: Gérard Genette on palimpsests, Antoine Compagnon on citation, Julia Kristeva on the semiotics of re-writing, Mikhail Bakhtin on dialogism, Harold Bloom on the “anxiety of influence,” Michael Riffaterre on intertextual signification, and Jacques Derrida on citation and textual grafts. Finally, we will examine new digital humanities methods of exploring intertextuality, particularly on the ARTFL website (TextPair and TopoLogic), and assess how those methods may re-shape our understanding of intertextuality. Readings will be in French; class discussion, in English.

FRENCH 87000
On Passions, Emotions, Affects: in Theory, History, Texts
Professor Domna Stanton
Tuesdays, 4:15 - 6:15 pm
In-Person
Taught in English

How are passions and emotions different from affects? How do bodies perform passions, sensibility, feelings, emotions and affects? What do affects do and how do they do it? How are they shaped by their contexts?  What is the meaning and significance of the “affective turn”?  Does it mark a rejection of the idea(l) of rational self-control? How is this turn connected to studies of women (and the feminine) and to work on gender and racial embodiments and sexualities?

This course will be structured around three areas: first, theories of affect and in tandem, a study of the cultural politics and ethics of specific affects, including anger, disgust, shame, compassion and happiness. Which emotions mobilize spectators/readers into collectives/communities. Are passions both a source and an obstacle to struggles for freedom and justice? How do they include and exclude? Among the theorists: Ahmed, Artaud, Berlant, Clough, Cvetkovich, Deleuze and Guattari, Ghandi, M. Hardt, A. Lorde, Massumi, Scheer, Sedgwick, Stewart, M. Warner.

Second, we will grapple with the treatment of passions and emotions through history, especially in philosophy: from Aristotle and Cicero, Descartes, Pascal, Lebrun, Spinoza, and Kant to Darwin, W. James, Freud, Klein, and R. Williams.Emotions, Affetcs: History, Texts

And third, in conjunction with this philosophical and historical work, we will read texts (verbal, visual and musical) to see how they inscribe emotional content and how they generate affective responses from readers even when their semantics and narratives do not depict strong emotions. Is feeling as a response to cultural forms different from a human emotion? We will consider the cultural politics of emotion in the work of  Margerie of Kempe, Montaigne,  Gentileschi (Portraits of Judith) , Racine (Phèdre),  Goethe (Sorrows of Young Werther), Wagner (“Leibestod”) , H. Jacobs (Life of a Slave Girl), H. James (Beast in the Jungle),  Woolf  (Mrs. Dalloway) , A. Nin (“Incest” Diary),  Lanzman (Shoah),  Beckett (Happy Days), C. Churchill  (Far Away) , Irigaray (“When our Lips Speak Together”), Morrison (Beloved),  Darwish (Poems),  Labaki (Capernaum), Moore (Watchman, 2019).

The syllabus will be uploaded onto Blackboard by the beginning of the spring semester; all course materials will be on blackboard, except for one or two complete texts which will be indicated on the syllabus.

Work for the course: Whether the course is taken for 2, 3, or 4 credits, all students will be responsible for doing the assigned texts closely and for engaging consistently in class discussion.

• students who take the course for 2 credits will present in class a reading of one primary text, which will also be submitted in writing (c 5-7 pp); these students will also take the final exam.    
• students who take the course for 3 credits, will do all of the above, but instead of the 5-7 page paper, they will do a 10-13-page paper on a topic they select, after consultation with the instructor. They will also submit a thesis statement, a bibliography, an outline and the introduction (the schedule will be indicated on the syllabus).
• students who take the course for 4 credits will do all of the above, but instead of a 10-13 page paper, they will do a 20-25-page paper on a topic they select, after consultation with the instructor. They will also submit a thesis statement, a bibliography, an outline, and an introduction (the schedule will be indicated on the syllabus).

FRENCH 87400
Francophone Literatures and French Literary Prizes
Professor Nathalie Etoké
Thursday, 4:15PM-6:15PM
In-Person
Taught in French

For some years now, novelists originating from Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, and the Caribbean, have been heralded by French literary institutions. Although the distribution of Goncourt, Médicis, Renaudot, or Fémina prizes belongs to a system of recognition and official legitimation, the status of so-called Francophone literatures remains imprisoned within the contradictions of inclusion/exclusion or accepting/rejecting. These literatures demands that we examine the problem of a hierarchic relationship between the center and the periphery. They also question the complementarity, the opposition, and the differentiation between French literature and Francophone literatures. In order to put an end to this binary confrontation, certain writers have proposed the idea of a French-language world literature (littérature-monde). In contrast, the Cameroonian literary critic Ambroise Kom believes that African literature is in exile because it is written outside of the continent, for a Western readership. In the framework of this course, we will read prize-winning works whose authors are from former French colonial spaces. What do the works tell us about these spaces? What do they tell us about France’s gaze upon these spaces and upon itself in its relationship with the continent? Among prize-wining authors, can we identify themes or literary strategies that correspond with the expectations of a French readership? Francophone writers often reject the restriction of an identity that would enclose them within cliches about their country of origin. When university critics task them with representing the continent, these writers instead demand individual creative freedom. In this course, we will equally consider the discourses that authors write about their positioning in the literary sphere.

French 71110 – Problems in Literary History                          
Professor Erec Koch
Thursdays, 6:30pm -8:30pm
Taught in French (2/4 credits)
Fully In-Person

In this course, we will explore the problematic literary history of the essai. A genre that has no real precedent prior to Montaigne, the essai is unlike others in literature in that it is often characterized negatively as not being narrative, dramatic-performative, or poetic—in short, as what is left or what is excluded by other literary genres.  We will examine what unifies this genre while attending to its different incarnations throughout literary history. The constants of the essai include that it is open-ended and consciously uncompleted writing calling for further writing; that, in responding to other texts, it is fundamentally intertextual and thus invites consideration of the mutual imbrication of reading and writing; that it cites and invites citation; and that it models itself on everyday discourse and conversation.  The genre evolves over the course of literary history: it crosses different discursive boundaries over time, assuming the form of philosophical and speculative discourse in the early modern period, critical-aesthetic speculation as well as popular/journalistic writing that helped shape the public sphere in the 18^th century, and polemical and political thought in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.  At different times in its history, the essai strategically converges with or diverges from related discursive forms such as the traité, considérations, rêveries, réflexions, and mélanges. Primary texts for this course span the 16^th to the 20^th centuries and include Montaigne’s Essais, as well as writings by Francis Bacon, Blaise Pascal, Pierre Nicole, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, David Hume, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, Charles Péguy, Alain, György Lukacs, Theodor Adorno, Jean Paulhan, Michel Butor and Roland Barthes.
The course will be conducted in French.

French 85000 – Sentiment, Affect, Sensation: Forms of Desire in the Nineteenth-Century French Novel
Professor Bettina Lerner
Mondays, 4:15pm-6:15pm
Taught in French (2/4 credits)
Fully In-Person  

This course construes desire as constitutive of modern narrative and of the nineteenth-century French novel in particular. We will examine how sentimental, realist, and decadent novels configure desire differently through character and plot. We’ll also see how these configurations are challenged by a range of affects that emerge, often within the same texts, to reveal the mediated and constructed dimensions of attraction and longing. The course also asks us to consider not just the forms of erotic desire that are developed in these novels but, in a period marked by revolution and social change, we will pay close attention to texts that explicitly tie desire to political aspiration. These explorations may ultimately help us address the question of the century’s desire for the novel and the sensations it provokes over and above all other literary forms. Novels and novellas will likely include Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le noir; Claire de Duras’s Ourika; Honoré de Balzac’s La Fille aux yeux d’or; Gustave Flaubert’s L’Éducation sentimentale; Jules Vallès’s L’Enfant; and Rachilde’s Monsieur Vénus. Our definitions of desire will be informed and challenged by theorists and critics including Roland Barthes, Leo Bersani, Peter Brooks, Georges Bataille, Gilles Deleuze, René Girard, and Raymond Williams and will engage with recent debates associated with the work of Lauren Berlant and Joan Copjec among others.

French 707000 - African Cinémas: History, Theory, and Industry
Professor Boukary Sawadogo
Wednesdays, 4:15pm-6:15pm
Taught in English (2/3/4 credits)
Fully In-Person
 
African cinema was birthed out of the imperative need for Africans to appropriate the gaze against the backdrop of discursive othering in colonial cinema. Being in front and behind the camera allowed more nuanced and complex African stories to be told from African perspectives by pioneering filmmakers such as Ousmane Sembène, Med Hondo, and Moustapha Alassane in the 1960s. The historical development of African cinema is marked with the use of the medium as an instrument of political and cultural liberation, and a critical reading of postcolonial African societies depicted onscreen. Technological development—video in the 1990s followed by digital in the 2000s—has led to democratized access to filmmaking and the emergence of diverse voices and practices. From a theoretical standpoint, African cinema can be regarded as a form of oppositional cinema, with similarities to the anti-establishment vein of the Italian neorealism, French New Wave, Cinema Novo, and Third Cinema. More recent trends include a gradual shift toward transnational cinema with production, distribution and consumption which involve local stakeholders, the (new) African diaspora, and transnational media companies such as M-Net, Netflix, Showmax, Disney, and HBO. Also, the ecosystem of local film industries is being shaped by several African governments passing laws or creating film funds to enable the emergence of sustainable local film industries. More film schools are created to locally train professionals. Festivals, and televisual and online distribution are bringing content to local audiences on a multiplicity of screens. 
  
French 87400 – Queer Africa: Foreign Bodies/Forbidden Sexualities
Professor Nathalie Etoke
Thursdays, 4:15pm-6:15pm
Taught in English (2/4 Credits)
Fully In-Person

According to a report by Amnesty International, homosexuality is still illegal in thirty-eight African countries and is punishable by the death penalty in four. Despite these repressive laws, sexual subjectivities beyond the heteropatriarchal stranglehold are no longer taboo to name. They are a part of public debates. 
This course explores sub-Saharan African LGBTQI+ subjectivities while highlighting several trends that expose tensions between local and global dynamics in the day-to-day existence of these countries’ citizens. Such trends include the overlapping of European colonization and discourses on African sexual identities, the hate-driven influence of American far-right evangelicals on the African Christian church, sexual democratization, homonationalism and state-sponsored homophobia.
We will examine current conflicting discourses on sex, gender, and subjectification within the domains of law, anthropology, art, literature, documentary cinema, social media, and journalism. Our analysis will bring out the tension between local and global dynamics at stake in the struggle for queer freedom in sub-Saharan Africa.
Course taught in English.

Hist. 74300 - Gendered Justice in Europe and the Americas c.1350- 1750
Professor Sara McDougall
Wednesdays, 2:00pm-4:00pm, 
Taught in English (3 credits)
Fully in Person 

The course will explore the role of gender in the prosecution and punishment of crime in social and cultural context in Europe and the Americas c.1350-1750. We will examine gender and justice as it intersected with race, religion, and status, as found in the Atlantic World, and particularly the French and Iberian metropoles and colonies. Our main body of evidence will be trial records, including litigation, witness testimony, confessions, and sentences. In addition, we will engage with a range of other source materials such as law codes, prison records and the writings of incarcerated persons, newspaper reports, true crime narratives, and images of alleged criminals and crime. Training in these subjects welcome but not a requirement, this will be an interdisciplinary inquiry open to graduate and professional students in the humanities and social sciences and related fields.

FREN 77010
Techniques of Literary research 
Prof. Francesca Sautman
Wednesday, 6:30pm-8:30pm
Taught in French
Mode of instruction: hybrid
Course required for all first-year students

 
FREN 70500
Writing the Self: From Augustine to Covidity
Professor Domna Stanton
Tuesday 4:15pm-6:15pm
Taught in English
Mode of instruction: in-person
 
How is the self written, constructed? What forms and shapes does this writing take over time, in different genres? what purposes does it serve, what work does it accomplish for the several selves inscribed in the text and for others (including the self) who will read it? This course will begin by tracing self-writing from the Middle Ages to today, in theoretical texts (Derrida, Butler, Lacan, Lejeune), and primary works, beginning with confession (St Augustine, Rousseau); then early-modern discursive forms of interiority (Gentileschi, Sévigné) that steadily enlarge both the scope of self writing and the figures of the self. We will consider the centuries that women's autogynography and the self-writing of persons of color and other others took to be recognized -- from Kempe, Heloise and Pisan to slave narratives (Equiano, Jacobs, Douglass), and letters, diaries and journals (Woolf, Nin, de Beauvoir). Our readings will culminate with the proliferation of forms in the 20th- and 21st century: from autofiction (Colette, Stein, Eggers) and pictorial modes (Leonard, Bourgeois, Abramovic); Holocaust memorials, trauma narratives (Frank, Levi, Agamben) and testimonials (Manchu); to AIDS memoirs (Arenas, Guibert), the matter of black lives (Cullors, Kendi and Blain), and the global pandemic that engender terror and dying along with possible transformation and rebirth. Finally, given the untraceable lines between the ‘real’ and ‘the fictive,’ we will end by debating whether all writing is self-writing.


DHUM 78000
Special Topics: Technology and Literature,
Prof Erec R. Koch
Wednesday 6:30pm - 8:30pm 
Hybrid, with option for purely online

In this course, we will explore the question of how digital technology has (re-)shaped and continues to (re-)shape literary and cultural studies.  Specifically, what difference does digitaltechnology make for literary and cultural studies by providing platforms for research, formal and informal means of communication, and scholarly tools? What questions pertinent to literary and cultural studies does digital technology help us to address, and what questions does it necessarily elide?  The course will be organized around a series of problematics beginning with a critical assessment of another technological revolution, the passage from “oral culture” to print culture.  Subsequent topics will include the exploration of what information and data are and how they are pertinent to literary studies—how does information map onto literary and cultural studies?--, the question of formats (print/digital), the effects of technological centralization/decentralization on literary and cultural research, the tension between consumer and reader on the internet, the articulation of collaborative and individual research, and finally whether digital technology compels us to rethink what the fields of literature and culture include.  We will also explore some of the new directions that literary and cultural studies have taken, and particularly the elaboration of new (macro) literary and cultural histories.  We will attend to specific methodologies and tools employed by those researchers and focus on the question of the articulation of information and of literary and cultural interpretation, on the passage from one to the other, and on how such macro-histories can inform the work of traditional scholarly research. 
Readings for this course will include works by Walter J. Ong, Dennis Tenen, Luciano Floridi, David Golumbia, James Smithies, Sherry Turkle and Wendy HK Chun, among others, in the first part of the course.  The second will include writings by Katherine Bode, Matthew Jockers, Alan Liu, and Cristophe Schuwey.
Students are not expected to have taken previous DH course work, and students in DH as well as in literary and cultural studies are encouraged to enroll.  Students are asked to participate actively in class discussions and to post weekly directed responses to readings. Students will have the option of writing a final term paper or of designing a DH literary-cultural project.
  

FREN 79130
Contemporary issues in Post-colonial Literatures and Films
Prof. Nathalie Etoké
Thursday, 4:15-6:15pm
Taught in French
Mode of instruction: on-line
 
2010 marked the 50 years of ‘African independences’. This course will explore various dimensions of the francophone post-colonial experience in Sub-Saharan Africa.  We will reflect on the legacy of colonialism and current challenges facing former French colonies. The focus will be on the failure of the postcolonial state, violence, memory, gender, sexuality and immigration. We will also address current debates in Francophone Sub-Saharan African literary criticism.
 
FREN 87400
Slavery, Gender, and Resistance on Hispaniola
Prof. Sophie Maríñez
Monday, 4:15pm-6:15pm
Taught in English
Mode of instruction: hybrid
 
This course examines the institution of slavery on Ayiti/Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It also explores the various modes of resistance that led to its abolition and how various authors have addressed it in their literary works. We begin with theoretical texts on what constitutes slavery, its history, legacy and contemporary forms so as to situate our focus on Hispaniola within a transhistorical, global, human rights context. We then examine the work of historians and critics addressing resistance strategies that took place on both sides of the island and which culminated with the Haitian Revolution, an event of enormous impact on the modern world and on the rise of human rights. Lastly, we analyze neo-slave narratives, that is, recent representations of the experience of the enslaved. Special attention is given to the role of gender and women’s resistance to enslavement through a close reading of novels by Haitian Marie Vieux-Chauvet and Evelyne Trouillot and the poetry of Dominican-American author Ana-Maurine Lara, among others. Readings, papers, and discussions will be in English but students are welcome to read primary texts in either French or Spanish.
 

CROSS-LISTED COURSES
 
FREN 78400
Introduction to Literary Translation Studies
Prof. Esther Allen
Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:30 pm, 
Taught in English
Mode of instruction: In-person
 
Literature is unimaginable without translation. Yet translation is a disturbing, even paranormal practice, mysteriously conferring xenoglossy upon unwitting or suspicious readers. The literary cultures of English, in particular, have often been resistant to, even contemptuous of translation, or have used it as a tool of colonialism. The problem may lie with prevailing concepts of the original, but translation has often taken the blame. Among the aesthetic, ethical, and political questions it raises — questions increasingly crucial to practitioners of literature worldwide— are: Who translates? Who is translated? What is translated? And—yes—how? And also: what does it mean to think of literature prismatically rather than nationally? What constitutes an anti-colonial translation? 
In this seminar, we’ll discuss theoretical and literary readings and engage with the contemporary translation sphere, both in the digital realm and in New York City. We’ll also welcome the perspectives of some notable guest speakers. Students will work towards and workshop a final project, either: 1) a discussion of a specific translation theory or set of theories; 2) an analysis of a specific translation, or comparison of multiple translations, or 3) an original translation into English (of a previously untranslated work) accompanied by a critical introduction and annotation. The class is taught in English, but students should have working knowledge of at least one other language. 
 ​
 
FREN 84000 
Revolution as Civil War, Revolution as War of Independence: Generations and Memory [in France] since 1789
Professor David G. Troyansky
Wednesday 4:15pm-6:15pm
Taught in English
Mode of instruction: Hybrid
 
Historians have long characterized the French Revolution as a civil war (revolution/counterrevolution), and historians of the Atlantic world have also employed that term; meanwhile, a famous article by Pierre Serna has made the point that “all revolutions are wars of independence.”  That idea can be applied to the French themselves but also evokes a more global context, including that of decolonization in the Caribbean.  This course will begin with those overarching ways of describing the French Revolution and examine their usefulness in regional, national, and international contexts.  It will also highlight themes of generation and memory in the transition to the post-Revolutionary era and beyond.  The first part of the course will focus on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and develop those themes as conceptual tools to be applied, in the middle part, to a succession of moments of fracture and revolution in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries (possibly including 1848, 1871, Vichy, Algeria, 1968, or recent debates over race and multiculturalism in France).  The final part will provide an opportunity for students to apply the conceptual tools developed in the course to their own areas of research.  Written work will include historiographical papers and a research paper.


Course Description

FREN 77010
Techniques of Literary research 
Prof. Francesca Sautman
Wednesday, 6:30pm-8:30pm
Taught in French
Mode of instruction: hybrid
Course required for all first-year students

 
FREN 70500
Writing the Self: From Augustine to Covidity
Professor Domna Stanton
Tuesday 4:15pm-6:15pm
Taught in English
Mode of instruction: in-person
 
How is the self written, constructed? What forms and shapes does this writing take over time, in different genres? what purposes does it serve, what work does it accomplish for the several selves inscribed in the text and for others (including the self) who will read it? This course will begin by tracing self-writing from the Middle Ages to today, in theoretical texts (Derrida, Butler, Lacan, Lejeune), and primary works, beginning with confession (St Augustine, Rousseau); then early-modern discursive forms of interiority (Gentileschi, Sévigné) that steadily enlarge both the scope of self writing and the figures of the self. We will consider the centuries that women's autogynography and the self-writing of persons of color and other others took to be recognized -- from Kempe, Heloise and Pisan to slave narratives (Equiano, Jacobs, Douglass), and letters, diaries and journals (Woolf, Nin, de Beauvoir). Our readings will culminate with the proliferation of forms in the 20th- and 21st century: from autofiction (Colette, Stein, Eggers) and pictorial modes (Leonard, Bourgeois, Abramovic); Holocaust memorials, trauma narratives (Frank, Levi, Agamben) and testimonials (Manchu); to AIDS memoirs (Arenas, Guibert), the matter of black lives (Cullors, Kendi and Blain), and the global pandemic that engender terror and dying along with possible transformation and rebirth. Finally, given the untraceable lines between the ‘real’ and ‘the fictive,’ we will end by debating whether all writing is self-writing.


DHUM 78000
Special Topics: Technology and Literature,
Prof Erec R. Koch
Wednesday 6:30pm - 8:30pm 
Hybrid, with option for purely online

In this course, we will explore the question of how digital technology has (re-)shaped and continues to (re-)shape literary and cultural studies.  Specifically, what difference does digitaltechnology make for literary and cultural studies by providing platforms for research, formal and informal means of communication, and scholarly tools? What questions pertinent to literary and cultural studies does digital technology help us to address, and what questions does it necessarily elide?  The course will be organized around a series of problematics beginning with a critical assessment of another technological revolution, the passage from “oral culture” to print culture.  Subsequent topics will include the exploration of what information and data are and how they are pertinent to literary studies—how does information map onto literary and cultural studies?--, the question of formats (print/digital), the effects of technological centralization/decentralization on literary and cultural research, the tension between consumer and reader on the internet, the articulation of collaborative and individual research, and finally whether digital technology compels us to rethink what the fields of literature and culture include.  We will also explore some of the new directions that literary and cultural studies have taken, and particularly the elaboration of new (macro) literary and cultural histories.  We will attend to specific methodologies and tools employed by those researchers and focus on the question of the articulation of information and of literary and cultural interpretation, on the passage from one to the other, and on how such macro-histories can inform the work of traditional scholarly research. 
Readings for this course will include works by Walter J. Ong, Dennis Tenen, Luciano Floridi, David Golumbia, James Smithies, Sherry Turkle and Wendy HK Chun, among others, in the first part of the course.  The second will include writings by Katherine Bode, Matthew Jockers, Alan Liu, and Cristophe Schuwey.
Students are not expected to have taken previous DH course work, and students in DH as well as in literary and cultural studies are encouraged to enroll.  Students are asked to participate actively in class discussions and to post weekly directed responses to readings. Students will have the option of writing a final term paper or of designing a DH literary-cultural project.
  

FREN 79130
Contemporary issues in Post-colonial Literatures and Films
Prof. Nathalie Etoké
Thursday, 4:15-6:15pm
Taught in French
Mode of instruction: on-line
 
2010 marked the 50 years of ‘African independences’. This course will explore various dimensions of the francophone post-colonial experience in Sub-Saharan Africa.  We will reflect on the legacy of colonialism and current challenges facing former French colonies. The focus will be on the failure of the postcolonial state, violence, memory, gender, sexuality and immigration. We will also address current debates in Francophone Sub-Saharan African literary criticism.
 
FREN 87400
Slavery, Gender, and Resistance on Hispaniola
Prof. Sophie Maríñez
Monday, 4:15pm-6:15pm
Taught in English
Mode of instruction: hybrid
 
This course examines the institution of slavery on Ayiti/Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It also explores the various modes of resistance that led to its abolition and how various authors have addressed it in their literary works. We begin with theoretical texts on what constitutes slavery, its history, legacy and contemporary forms so as to situate our focus on Hispaniola within a transhistorical, global, human rights context. We then examine the work of historians and critics addressing resistance strategies that took place on both sides of the island and which culminated with the Haitian Revolution, an event of enormous impact on the modern world and on the rise of human rights. Lastly, we analyze neo-slave narratives, that is, recent representations of the experience of the enslaved. Special attention is given to the role of gender and women’s resistance to enslavement through a close reading of novels by Haitian Marie Vieux-Chauvet and Evelyne Trouillot and the poetry of Dominican-American author Ana-Maurine Lara, among others. Readings, papers, and discussions will be in English but students are welcome to read primary texts in either French or Spanish.
 

CROSS-LISTED COURSES
 
FREN 78400
Introduction to Literary Translation Studies
Prof. Esther Allen
Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:30 pm, 
Taught in English
Mode of instruction: In-person
 
Literature is unimaginable without translation. Yet translation is a disturbing, even paranormal practice, mysteriously conferring xenoglossy upon unwitting or suspicious readers. The literary cultures of English, in particular, have often been resistant to, even contemptuous of translation, or have used it as a tool of colonialism. The problem may lie with prevailing concepts of the original, but translation has often taken the blame. Among the aesthetic, ethical, and political questions it raises — questions increasingly crucial to practitioners of literature worldwide— are: Who translates? Who is translated? What is translated? And—yes—how? And also: what does it mean to think of literature prismatically rather than nationally? What constitutes an anti-colonial translation? 
In this seminar, we’ll discuss theoretical and literary readings and engage with the contemporary translation sphere, both in the digital realm and in New York City. We’ll also welcome the perspectives of some notable guest speakers. Students will work towards and workshop a final project, either: 1) a discussion of a specific translation theory or set of theories; 2) an analysis of a specific translation, or comparison of multiple translations, or 3) an original translation into English (of a previously untranslated work) accompanied by a critical introduction and annotation. The class is taught in English, but students should have working knowledge of at least one other language. 
 ​
 
FREN 84000 
Revolution as Civil War, Revolution as War of Independence: Generations and Memory [in France] since 1789
Professor David G. Troyansky
Wednesday 4:15pm-6:15pm
Taught in English
Mode of instruction: Hybrid
 
Historians have long characterized the French Revolution as a civil war (revolution/counterrevolution), and historians of the Atlantic world have also employed that term; meanwhile, a famous article by Pierre Serna has made the point that “all revolutions are wars of independence.”  That idea can be applied to the French themselves but also evokes a more global context, including that of decolonization in the Caribbean.  This course will begin with those overarching ways of describing the French Revolution and examine their usefulness in regional, national, and international contexts.  It will also highlight themes of generation and memory in the transition to the post-Revolutionary era and beyond.  The first part of the course will focus on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and develop those themes as conceptual tools to be applied, in the middle part, to a succession of moments of fracture and revolution in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries (possibly including 1848, 1871, Vichy, Algeria, 1968, or recent debates over race and multiculturalism in France).  The final part will provide an opportunity for students to apply the conceptual tools developed in the course to their own areas of research.  Written work will include historiographical papers and a research paper.

French 87400 - Colonial Encounters                         
Prof. Nathalie Etoke
Thursday, 4:15pm -6:15pm
Taught in French (2/4 credits)

 
Historically, the relationship between France and Africa has been characterized by a permanent tension. We will use literature and film to reflect on the historical events and, socio-political processes that have shaped the encounter between France and Africa. How are African novelists and filmmakers responding to this relationship? Topics include: the Colonial Encounter, World War II, Decolonization and Immigration.
 
 
French 86200 – Theater Without Drama: In Search of a Contemporary French Tradition.
Prof. Amin Erfani
Tuesday, 6:30pm-8:30pm
Taught in English (2/4 credits)
 
This course provides an overview of 20th & 21st century French and Francophone theater and its theories. Following the emergence of photography and cinema as new art forms, the rise of avant-garde movements questions the notion of “drama” as a discipline and that of “representation” as its founding principle. Simultaneously, modern theater reflects society’s inverted image in challenging concepts of cultural and national identity, while giving voice to anti-heroes, the social destitute, and sexual and gender minorities. From a historical standpoint, the class will examine the crucial impact of France’s “théâtre public” on the dramatic genre at large. In addition, philosophical and psychoanalytic theories of theater will inform our reading of seminal works of modern and contemporary playwrights. The discussion will reframe modern theater as breaking away from the dramatic, psychological, and cathartic models of the prior centuries. In doing so, modern theater rediscovers its ancient origins in ritual, choral, and monologist forms. While acknowledging the recent “post-dramatic” perspective undercutting the text as a central medium, we will investigate emerging forms of writing that prove to be as transformative for the theater as its new-found taste for multidisciplinary staging, performance art, and new media.
 
 
French 83000 - The Nation and its Other: France and Frenchness in the Age of Louis the XIV
Prof. Domna Stanton
Tuesday, 4:15-6:15pm
Taught in English (2/4 credits)
 
Fall 2020 - Course Description
 
French 87400 - Colonial Encounters                         
Prof. Nathalie Etoke
Thursday, 4:15pm -6:15pm
Taught in French (2/4 credits)
 
Historically, the relationship between France and Africa has been characterized by a permanent tension. We will use literature and film to reflect on the historical events and, socio-political processes that have shaped the encounter between France and Africa. How are African novelists and filmmakers responding to this relationship? Topics include: the Colonial Encounter, World War II, Decolonization and Immigration.
 
 
French 86200 – Theater Without Drama: In Search of a Contemporary French Tradition.
Prof. Amin Erfani
Tuesday, 6:30pm-8:30pm
Taught in English (2/4 credits)
 
This course provides an overview of 20th & 21st century French and Francophone theater and its theories. Following the emergence of photography and cinema as new art forms, the rise of avant-garde movements questions the notion of “drama” as a discipline and that of “representation” as its founding principle. Simultaneously, modern theater reflects society’s inverted image in challenging concepts of cultural and national identity, while giving voice to anti-heroes, the social destitute, and sexual and gender minorities. From a historical standpoint, the class will examine the crucial impact of France’s “théâtre public” on the dramatic genre at large. In addition, philosophical and psychoanalytic theories of theater will inform our reading of seminal works of modern and contemporary playwrights. The discussion will reframe modern theater as breaking away from the dramatic, psychological, and cathartic models of the prior centuries. In doing so, modern theater rediscovers its ancient origins in ritual, choral, and monologist forms. While acknowledging the recent “post-dramatic” perspective undercutting the text as a central medium, we will investigate emerging forms of writing that prove to be as transformative for the theater as its new-found taste for multidisciplinary staging, performance art, and new media.
 
 
French 83000 - The Nation and its Other: France and Frenchness in the Age of Louis the XIV
Prof. Domna Stanton
Tuesday, 4:15-6:15pm
Taught in English (2/4 credits)
 
 
This course will begin by questioning the view that the nation is born after l789. We will consider a set of criteria for nationhood and examine the efforts of Louis XIV and his ministers to transform France into a nation state with one monarch, one law and one faith; a centralized political and cultural structure; physical boundaries/borders, and a dominating linguistic idiom.
However, our principal focus will be the idea that a nation forges an inside by creating an outside, that is, by excluding a set of groups or people. To be sure, that enterprise is doomed to fail since the outside (the other) invariably mixes with or constitutes the necessary supplement to the inside, contrary to proclaimed ideology.  Moreover, in late 17th-century France, even insiders, such as members of the  noblesse d’épée, felt marginalized in an absolutistic monarchy, and invoked the idea of the nation over and against tyrannical Louis XIV.
The seminar will be devoted to considering five different others: the others within – a religious other (Jews); the gendered other (women); a sexual other (the sodomite) in a nation of reputedly virile Franks. The two others outside we will study are the oriental/Ottoman Turk; and the African slave transported to the French Caribbean.
Readings will include work on the nation by Anderson, Foucault and Balibar; on the early modern nation by Hampton, Bell, Sahlins and Yardeni;  historical documents, such as Salic Law and the Black Code; and primary readings by Corneille, Molière, Louis XIV, Perrault, Picard, Racine, Saint Simon;  Prideaux, Baudier and Tavernier on the Ottomans; Dufour, du Tertre, and Labat on slaves; and relevant critical texts.
Over and beyond readings and class participation, work for the course will include a presentation in class on a primary text. Those taking the course for 4 credits will also produce a 25-page research paper on some aspect of early-modern nationhood and othering to be determined in consultation with the instructor. For those taking the course for 3 credits, the paper will be no longer than 10-13 pp. Those taking the course for two credits will prepare a written version of the presentation they do in class (5-7 pp.). All students will take the final exam.
For any questions, please contact Domna Stanton (dstanton112@yahoo.com)
  
 
French 77010 – Techniques of Literary Research
Prof. Nathalie Etoke
Wednesday, 4:15pm-6:15pm
Taught in French (4 credits only)
 This mandatory course is open only to first-year students.

 87500- Independent Study
 Distinguished Professor Mary Ann Caws
 Monday, 4:15pm – 6:00pm 
 1 Credit
 We will be discussing the general topics of translation/interpretation and  also omission/obsession

French 87400 - Colonial Encounters                         
Prof. Nathalie Etoke
Thursday, 4:15pm -6:15pm
Taught in French (2/4 credits)

 
Historically, the relationship between France and Africa has been characterized by a permanent tension. We will use literature and film to reflect on the historical events and, socio-political processes that have shaped the encounter between France and Africa. How are African novelists and filmmakers responding to this relationship? Topics include: the Colonial Encounter, World War II, Decolonization and Immigration.
 
 
French 86200 – Theater Without Drama: In Search of a Contemporary French Tradition.
Prof. Amin Erfani
Tuesday, 6:30pm-8:30pm
Taught in English (2/4 credits)
 
This course provides an overview of 20th & 21st century French and Francophone theater and its theories. Following the emergence of photography and cinema as new art forms, the rise of avant-garde movements questions the notion of “drama” as a discipline and that of “representation” as its founding principle. Simultaneously, modern theater reflects society’s inverted image in challenging concepts of cultural and national identity, while giving voice to anti-heroes, the social destitute, and sexual and gender minorities. From a historical standpoint, the class will examine the crucial impact of France’s “théâtre public” on the dramatic genre at large. In addition, philosophical and psychoanalytic theories of theater will inform our reading of seminal works of modern and contemporary playwrights. The discussion will reframe modern theater as breaking away from the dramatic, psychological, and cathartic models of the prior centuries. In doing so, modern theater rediscovers its ancient origins in ritual, choral, and monologist forms. While acknowledging the recent “post-dramatic” perspective undercutting the text as a central medium, we will investigate emerging forms of writing that prove to be as transformative for the theater as its new-found taste for multidisciplinary staging, performance art, and new media.
 
 
French 83000 - The Nation and its Other: France and Frenchness in the Age of Louis the XIV
Prof. Domna Stanton
Tuesday, 4:15-6:15pm
Taught in English (2/4 credits)
 
Fall 2020 - Course Description
 
French 87400 - Colonial Encounters                         
Prof. Nathalie Etoke
Thursday, 4:15pm -6:15pm
Taught in French (2/4 credits)
 
Historically, the relationship between France and Africa has been characterized by a permanent tension. We will use literature and film to reflect on the historical events and, socio-political processes that have shaped the encounter between France and Africa. How are African novelists and filmmakers responding to this relationship? Topics include: the Colonial Encounter, World War II, Decolonization and Immigration.
 
 
French 86200 – Theater Without Drama: In Search of a Contemporary French Tradition.
Prof. Amin Erfani
Tuesday, 6:30pm-8:30pm
Taught in English (2/4 credits)
 
This course provides an overview of 20th & 21st century French and Francophone theater and its theories. Following the emergence of photography and cinema as new art forms, the rise of avant-garde movements questions the notion of “drama” as a discipline and that of “representation” as its founding principle. Simultaneously, modern theater reflects society’s inverted image in challenging concepts of cultural and national identity, while giving voice to anti-heroes, the social destitute, and sexual and gender minorities. From a historical standpoint, the class will examine the crucial impact of France’s “théâtre public” on the dramatic genre at large. In addition, philosophical and psychoanalytic theories of theater will inform our reading of seminal works of modern and contemporary playwrights. The discussion will reframe modern theater as breaking away from the dramatic, psychological, and cathartic models of the prior centuries. In doing so, modern theater rediscovers its ancient origins in ritual, choral, and monologist forms. While acknowledging the recent “post-dramatic” perspective undercutting the text as a central medium, we will investigate emerging forms of writing that prove to be as transformative for the theater as its new-found taste for multidisciplinary staging, performance art, and new media.
 
 
French 83000 - The Nation and its Other: France and Frenchness in the Age of Louis the XIV
Prof. Domna Stanton
Tuesday, 4:15-6:15pm
Taught in English (2/4 credits)
 
 
This course will begin by questioning the view that the nation is born after l789. We will consider a set of criteria for nationhood and examine the efforts of Louis XIV and his ministers to transform France into a nation state with one monarch, one law and one faith; a centralized political and cultural structure; physical boundaries/borders, and a dominating linguistic idiom.
However, our principal focus will be the idea that a nation forges an inside by creating an outside, that is, by excluding a set of groups or people. To be sure, that enterprise is doomed to fail since the outside (the other) invariably mixes with or constitutes the necessary supplement to the inside, contrary to proclaimed ideology.  Moreover, in late 17th-century France, even insiders, such as members of the  noblesse d’épée, felt marginalized in an absolutistic monarchy, and invoked the idea of the nation over and against tyrannical Louis XIV.
The seminar will be devoted to considering five different others: the others within – a religious other (Jews); the gendered other (women); a sexual other (the sodomite) in a nation of reputedly virile Franks. The two others outside we will study are the oriental/Ottoman Turk; and the African slave transported to the French Caribbean.
Readings will include work on the nation by Anderson, Foucault and Balibar; on the early modern nation by Hampton, Bell, Sahlins and Yardeni;  historical documents, such as Salic Law and the Black Code; and primary readings by Corneille, Molière, Louis XIV, Perrault, Picard, Racine, Saint Simon;  Prideaux, Baudier and Tavernier on the Ottomans; Dufour, du Tertre, and Labat on slaves; and relevant critical texts.
Over and beyond readings and class participation, work for the course will include a presentation in class on a primary text. Those taking the course for 4 credits will also produce a 25-page research paper on some aspect of early-modern nationhood and othering to be determined in consultation with the instructor. For those taking the course for 3 credits, the paper will be no longer than 10-13 pp. Those taking the course for two credits will prepare a written version of the presentation they do in class (5-7 pp.). All students will take the final exam.
For any questions, please contact Domna Stanton (dstanton112@yahoo.com)
  
 
French 77010 – Techniques of Literary Research
Prof. Nathalie Etoke
Wednesday, 4:15pm-6:15pm
Taught in French (4 credits only)
This mandatory course is open only to first-year students.

87500- Independent Study
Distinguished Professor Mary Ann Caws
Monday, 4:15pm – 6:00pm 
1 Credit
We will be discussing the general topics of translation/interpretation and  also omission/obsession

French 70700:  Le cinéma moderne: fragments d’une histoire
Prof. Sam Di Iorio
Tuesday 6:30pm – 10:00pm
2 or 4 Credits
**Course will be taught in French

The word ‘modern’ designates slippery terrain in postwar French cinema. Some define it in reference to historical events, making cinematic modernity indivisible from the cataclysm of the Second World War, the global unrest of the 1950s and 60s, or the advent of post-industrial society. Others foreground the word’s aesthetic dimensions, using the phrase cinéma moderne to evoke formal innovations that were variously associated with Neorealism, the New Wave, or Michelangelo Antonioni's L’avventura. Our course is situated at the juncture of these diverging paths. In order to examine how competing notions of the modern emerge in French film and French film criticism between 1945 and 1968, we will look to history as well as aesthetics, and trace this contested term’s connection to postwar debates about a cinematic avant-garde, to the reinvention of montage in French documentary, to the rehabilitation of aesthetic classicism in the 1950s, and to the international turn towards the New Cinemas of the 1960s 
 
 Our weekly 6:30-10:00PM sessions will include a film screening as well as discussion. Please note that this course is offered in French: all readings will be in French and some films will not be subtitled. Films will include shorts and features by Roberto Rossellini, Nicole Vedrès, Alain Resnais, Charles Chaplin, Jean Rouch, Raoul Walsh, François Truffaut, Carole Roussopoulos, Jean-Luc Godard, Philippe Garrel, and Shirley Clarke. Readings will include essays by André Bazin, Claude Edmonde-Magny, Serge Daney, Sylvie Lindeperg, Antoine de Baecque, Nicole Brenez, Éric Rohmer, Hélène Fleckinger, and Roland Barthes. 

 
French 71110: Problems in French Literary History- The Novel
Prof. Andrew Jones
Tuesdays 4:15pm – 6:15pm
2 or 4 Credits
**Course will be taught in French
Required for first-year students of French, who must write their papers in French, 4 crs. 
Open to students outside of French, who may write in English, (2-4 crs.). 
Readings in French. 
Check with the professor for details on the editions we will use.
 
After introductory readings on theories of the narrative, we will study the novels listed below, along with critical readings specific to each of them.  This will provide us with an overview of the evolution of the form from the early modern period to the contemporary moment.  Our goals will be to articulate a historical and theoretical overview of the French and Francophone novel as a literary genre; to investigate questions of social class, gender, sexuality, colonialism, history, memory, politics and aesthetics in relation to the novel; and to improve our thinking and critical writing about theoretical and literary texts.
 
Novels:
Madame de Lafayette.  La Princesse de Clèves.
Choderlos de Laclos.  Les Liaisons dangereuses.
Honoré de Balzac.  Le Père Goriot.
Gustave Flaubert. Madame Bovary.
Marcel Proust.  “Combray” (Du Côté de chez Swann)
Marguerite Duras.  Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein
Maryse Condé.  Traversée de la Mangrove.

 
French 73000: Orientalisms In Early-Modern France
Distinguished Prof. Domna Stanton (Office: 4205.05)
Tuesdays 2-4 p.m
2 or 4 Credits
This course will focus on Orientalisms in France's relations with the Ottoman empire. Beginning with 16th-century orientalists such as Postel (long before Said's Orientalism begins to track these figures), we will examine theories of Orientalisms as well as a number of discourses, including cartographic representations, travel narratives and letters; commercial relations (and the European desire for oriental luxury items); pilgrimages; conversion narratives from Christian to Muslim to Christian; and phantasms of oriental harems and baths, and the gendering of the Orient itself as feminine and effeminate, despite the coincident stereotype of Turks as militaristic, violent, and cruel. We will consider closely theatrical works produced in France (Paris and the port city of Rouen) in the period 1600-1680 (e.g. Manfray,  La rhodienne (1621), Scudéry,  L'amant libéral (1638), Desfontaines, Perside (1644), when openness and "tolerance" of alterity seem to decline during the reign of Louis XIV (e.g. Molière, Le bourgeois gentilhomme; Racine, Bajazet), just when the Ottoman threat to Europe is temporarily ended by the European victory at Vienna in (1683).  We will analyze the nature of the perceived threat of and desire for Oriental despotism during the long reign of Louis XIV.

The course will be conducted in English. A reading knowledge of early-modern French is important. In addition to close readings of primary as well as historical and theoretical texts, work for the course will include an in-class presentation of one primary reading and a final exam. After consultation with the instructor, those taking the course for four credits will submit a 25-page research paper; those taking it for three credits, will produce a 10-13-page research paper. Those who wish to take the course for two credits will write up their class presentation (5-7-pages) and take the final exam.
The research papers can deal with sites other than France, including states bordering the Mediterranean, England or Northern Europe.
The syllabus for the course will be posted on line by January 15, 2019. Readings for the course will appear on Blackboard before the first class.

Please address any questions to Domna Stanton at dstanton112@yahoo.com


French 81000: Sex and Single Mothers in Medieval France
Prof. Sara McDougall
Monday 2pm – 4pm
2 or 4 Credits
It is hard to imagine anything other than terrible consequences for a woman pregnant from illicit sex living in medieval France. That said, both literary sources and documents of legal practice suggest many possible outcomes, including a less than tragic fate for the child and also for the mother. Christian doctrine condemned illicit sex, and operated with a double standard that often excused men while punishing women, but there was also an insistence on mercy and charity, and on the value of the life of an infant. Honor mattered enough to justify murder for some, but in other cases the preservation of honor by discretion and secrecy might also have led to different responces.  
This course will examine ideas about and portrayals of women contending with out-of-wedlock pregnancy in a wide range of different kinds of French sources, from mystery plays and miracle stories to romance, from law codes and royal pardons to sermons and chronicles, fabliaux and farce, and prescriptive texts including hospital foundations, conduct literature, and gynecological treatises.
This course will be taught in English, with texts available in French and in translation.
 
French 85000: Novel Markets: The Rise of Popular Literature, 1800 – 1900
Prof. Bettina Lerner
Thursday 4:15pm – 6:15pm
2 or 4 Credits
This course examines the narrative structures and mediatic forms that gained dominance in nineteenth-century France, England and America and which continue to inform contemporary cultural production. Taking romance, the dime novel and the roman feuilleton as our primary foci, we will situate these texts alongside other cultural forms that developed in tandem with them and on which they often drew, including the mass press, staged spectacles and, eventually, photography and cinema as well. As we make our way through texts by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Charles Dickens, Paul de Kock, Alexandre Dumas fils, George Lippard, Pierre Souvestre, and Eugène Sue, among others, we will trace the rise of specific reading publics and counter-publics while examining the tensions between sentimentality and sensationalism, leisure and social protest, containment and resistance that these narratives exploit. We will also attend to how critics contemporary to these novelists helped to transform the popular into an equivocal category of cultural analysis while also examining how these hierarchies have been questioned and reimagined in recent literary and cultural theory. Requirements will include a short presentation and a final paper. Taught in English. Reading knowledge of French recommended.


French 87400: Existence in Black
Prof. Nathalie Etoke
Thursday 6:30pm – 8:30pm
2 or 4 Credits
Course description:

This course examines problems of existence and freedom posed by black life. We will explore how the racialization of people of African descent through the means of violence and oppression translates into an existential predicament addressing the human confrontation with hope and hopelessness, freedom and human degradation, being and non-being. We will discuss the existentialist implications, challenges and possibilities of blackness in Africana literature, film and music. How do cultural expressions of black people simultaneously engage being acted upon by the external forces of enslavement and racism, while acting against those forces? Through critical analyses of music, film, fiction, and contemporary events, this class will generate theoretical interventions embedded in the poetics and politics of (self) representation, freedom, and social constructions of black existence.
 
Films
Camille Deslauriers, The Middle Passage.
Haile Gerima, Sankofa.
This Far by Faith African American Spiritual Journeys (PBS)
Stanley Nelson, Looking for me in the Whirlwind, documentary.
Orlando Bagwell, Make it Plain, PBS documentary.
Göran Olsson,The Black Power Mix Tape.
 
Books
James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time.
Ta Nahesi Coates, Between the World and Me.
Brogdon Lewis, Hope on the Brink.
Lewis Gordon, Existence in Black: An Anthology of Black Existential Thought.
 
French 87500: Independent Study - Surrealism II
Distinguished Prof. Mary Ann Caws
Wed 4:15pm – 6:15pm
1 Credit
Starting with André Breton’s return to France after his stay in the US, including Tzara’s denunciation, Surrealism and Painting, and the reach of surrealism beyond France: Belgium, the UK, and Latin America.

Français 87200 : Entre Rire et Châtiment : La Formation de la Satire moderne à la Renaissance
Prof. B. Renner
Thursday, 6:30-8:30
2 or 4 Credits

La satire est une des formes d’expression littéraire les plus complexes. Elle se place à la fois dans un contexte strictement littéraire (p. ex. parodie de genres tels l’épopée où de conventions telles l’amour courtois) et dans un cadre politique, religieux ou social. Son objectif principal est d’habitude de nature morale : elle vise à guérir les maux de la société à travers une multitude d’approches critiques et esthétiques. La Renaissance offre un champ d’étude particulièrement fertile pour la satire. De nombreuses traditions satiriques différentes se mélangent à cette époque pour aboutir au concept moderne de la forme : le modèle classique de la satire en vers (Lucilius, Horace, Perse, Juvénal), L’épigramme (Martial), la variante ménippéenne (Lucien de Samosate), le drame satyrique grec et la variante populaire en vernaculaire (farce et sottie). Quasiment tous les auteurs, canoniques ou non, souscrivent à cette écriture militante riche et complexe qui combine de manière exemplaire un éventail représentatif d’aspects littéraires et extralittéraires. L’étude de la satire renaissante nous permettra donc de mieux comprendre l’évolution de la littérature française (et européenne) en vernaculaire dont les débuts étaient dominés par les soucis de l’imitatio et de l’anoblissement des lettres nationales.

Liste préliminaire des textes étudiés :

--La Farce de Maître Pathelin.
--François Rabelais, Pantagruel. Paris : Seuil, 1996.
--Clément Marot, « L’Enfer ».
--Bonaventure Des Périers, Le Cymbalum mundi.
--Barthélemy Aneau, Lyon marchant. Satire françoyse.
--Le Paradoxe contre les Lettres.
--Joachim Du Bellay, Les Regrets ; Divers Jeux rustiques.
--Pierre de Ronsard, Discours des Misères de ce Temps.
--Agrippa d’Aubigné, Les Tragiques.
--La Satyre Menippee.

French 87500: Independent Study - Surrealism I : Prose, Poetry, and Visual Art of Surrealism from 1924- 1944.
Prof. Mary Ann Caws
First five Wednesdays of Fall 2018
4:15pm-6:00pm
French Thesis Room

Description: Beginnings and “heroic “ period, including works by Aragon, Artaud, Bellmer, Brauner, Bunuel, Breton, Cahun, Carrington, Cesaire, Desnos, Freddie, Lamba, Magritte, Malkine, Masson, Matta, Nouge, Oppenheim, Peret, Picasso, Sage, Tanguy, Philippe Soupault, and Remedios Varo.


French 87200: REFUGEE CRISES: HISTORY AND LAW, NARRATIVE, POETRY AND FILM.
Distinguished Prof. Domna Stanton
Tuesdays 4:15-6:15
2 or 4 credits

Why are we in the midst of an unparalleled refugee crisis that involves 65 million people? Such dislocations and displacements have occurred since the late 17^th century, when the term was first coined; and they have proliferated over the past century, notably since 1915. Who is a refugee? Who qualifies for asylum, why and why not? What about unaccompanied minors; victims of forced migrations? What is the status of economic migrants; of internally displaced persons? How should we classify those fleeing climate catastrophes? Are these others viewed as human?
This course in critical refugee studies will begin with history (and histories), then focus on the development, successes –and failures--of the human rights regime, humanitarian law and regional instruments, such as those of the European Union. We will examine transnational North-South disparities as drivers of migration, and lastly, the current ideological and nationalist trends that have led to securitization, the closing of borders, and authoritarianism in the post 9/11 world.
We will consider particular cases: the Armenian genocide; the Holocaust; the aftermath of the Vietnam war; the intractable Palestinian problem; persecutions in Darfur and South Sudan; the flight from dictatorships, gangs and failing economies in the Americas (including Haiti); the European Union’s integrity. We will end with the present crisis catalyzed by the Syrian war.
Our approach will be interdisciplinary: critical studies in history, theory and law will combine with close readings of novels, including graphic texts, poetry, memoirs/testimonials, and documentaries that represent/construct figures of refugees as well as themes of longing, remembering and return in refugee art.
Authors/film makers include Abdelrazaq, Agamben, Ai Wei Wei, Arendt, Balibar, Bauman, Butler, Dandicat, Darwish, Derrida, Dummett, Eggers, Erpenbeck, Hisham, Lanzmann, Said, Viet Than Nguyen
Work for the course will involve, beyond close readings of assignments, a class presentation (and write-up) of a case study with other members of a team; a 20 page paper on a topic developed in consultation with the instructor; and a final exam. Course materials will be uploaded to Blackboard cAugust 15, 2018.
Please direct all questions about the course to Domna Stanton (dstanton112@yahoo.com).

French 87500: Independent Study - Surrealism I : Prose, Poetry, and Visual Art of Surrealism from 1919- 1937.
Distinguished Prof. Mary Ann Caws
First five Wednesdays of Fall 2018
4:15pm-6:00pm
French Thesis Room

Description: Beginnings and “heroic “ period, including works by Aragon, Artaud, Bellmer, Brauner, Bunuel, Breton, Cahun, Carrington, Cesaire, Desnos, Freddie, Lamba, Magritte, Malkine, Masson, Matta, Nouge, Oppenheim, Peret, Picasso, Sage, Tanguy, Philippe Soupault, and Remedios Varo.

French 77010: Techniques of Literary research
Prof. Francesca Sautman
Thursdays 1:30pm – 3:30pm
French Thesis Room
Course required for all first year students.

FREN 87400 - GLOBALIZING THE ENLIGHTENMENT
Professor Helena Rosenblatt
Tuesdays, 4:15-6:15
2 or 4 credits
#68712

Course Description:

The Eighteenth Century European Enlightenment is widely seen as a transformative moment in Western culture, one which gave birth to many of our most cherished ideals. We are often told, for example, that it is to the Enlightenment that we owe our modern notions of human rights, representative government, and liberal democracy. However, the recent “global turn” in scholarship has led historians to ask some new and often unsettling questions. How, for example, did eighteenth-century European thinkers perceive the world beyond their own borders? How did they get their information and to what purposes was that information put? Did regions outside of Europe experience an Enlightenment too? With the help of both primary and secondary sources, we will ask how adopting a “global” perspective on the Enlightenment might change our view of it. Is it even correct to call the Enlightenment European?

French 71110: Problems in French Literary History: The Novel.
Professor Domna Stanton.
Tuesday 4:15-6:15
GC: Room 4202.11
Course taught in French
Required for first-year students 4 credits.
Open to students outside of French, 2-4 credits.
This course on the history and theory ofGC the novel will begin with a set of readings (Scholes, Bakhtin, Brooks, Genette, Barthes, Sedgwick) on aspects of narrative and narratology. We will then read closely six novels beginning with La Princesse de Clèves (Folio Classique, 2000) and Les liaisons dangereuses (Petits Larousse Classiques, 2007), followed by Mme de Duras' Ourika (Folio Classique 2007) and Madame Bovary (Folio Classique 2001) and ending with Du côté de chez Swann (Folio Classique, 1988) and Djebar's Ombre sultane (Livre de Poche, 2006) . [These editions will be on reserve in the GC Library, but if you purchase your own texts, please make sure to buy the same editions so we are all on the same page.] Our discussions will be informed by critical readings for each text, listed in the syllabus, and available on Blackboard.
Goals of this course include: gaining an understanding of the sweep of the French novel; reading novels intensively for their narratological, thematic, stylistic, ideological/political and gender scripts; writing analytical papers on literary texts; doing literary research; reading critical theory critically; and improving spoken and written literary/critical French (or English).

Work for the course, over and above class preparation and engaged participation, involves for those taking the course for 4 credits: two short papers 5-7 pp), one of these a class presentation of a critical text, a final 15-page paper (topic developed in consultation with the instructor ), and a final exam; for those taking the course for 2 credits: there will be the class presentation of a critical text (written up into 5-7 pp); and the final exam, in addition to class preparation and participation.

The course will be conducted in French; written work will be in French for students in French; students from other departments may write their papers in English.

For further information and all questions, please contact Domna Stanton (dstanton112@yahoo.com).
French 79140: Le roman arabe d'expression française.
Professor Marlene Barsoum.
Thursday 4 :15-6 :15.
Course taught in French

The following selection of writers hailing from North Africa and the Middle East will be studied in this course with an eye on highlighting the religious and ethnic diversity of the Arab world : Andrée Chedid (Egypt/ Lebanon/France), Edmond Jabès (Egypt/France), Tahar ben Jelloun (Morocco/France), Malika Mokeddem (Algeria/France), Albert Memmi (Tunisia/France) and Leila Sebbar (Algeria/France). The condition of being embedded in more than one culture has had a considerable impact on the writings of the novelists on the program. We will discuss that imprint by examining tropes pertaining to the crossing of boundaries such as the notion of exile, home, the ethics of hospitality, the importance of language to identity, and the construction of self and the perception/construction of the other. In recent times, we have seen a heightened preoccupation with the question of war which consequently has become a prevalent topic in multiple domains. We will therefore open up a discussion about the discourse on war which can be both historical and figurative and which reevaluates relationships between the individual and the collective and their confrontation with the other. Such a discourse raises questions about perception of otherness - the operative metaphor in discussions surrounding war. This will lead to an analysis of the notion of identity, a topic which has been under scrutiny by writers and theorists alike for the past few decades. Required reading: Ben Jelloun, Tahar. L'enfant de sable Chedid, Andrée. La Maison sans racines Jabès, Edmond. Le Soupçon, le désert. Maalouf, Amin. Les Identités meurtrières Memmi. Albert, La statue de sel Mokeddem, Malika, Les hommes qui marchent Sebbar, Leila & Nancy Houston, Lettres parisiennes, autopsie de l'exil

French 86000: Exécrer son temps, penser son époque: de Proust à Despentes.
Professor Maxime Blanchard.
Thursdays 6:30-8:30

"Zola célèbre son temps, moi je l'exècre" déclara Joris-Karl Huysmans. Héritier de Nerval et de Flaubert, l'auteur d'À rebours s'inscrivait ainsi dans une lignée de misanthropes et de nostalgiques qui ont haï leur monde, qui ont regretté d'y vivre. Ce cours sur le XXième et XXIième siècles abordera l'oeuvre (roman, essai, pamphlet, etc.) d'écrivains modernes insérés dans cette tradition pessimiste. En effet, il s'agira d'étudier des écrivains atrabilaires ou mélancoliques qui, soit par la critique acerbe de leur contemporainéité, soit par une anachronique loyauté à "ce qui fut", ont continué de dénoncer les dogmes et les modes de leur temps, les lieux communs et les conformités de leur époque. Textes à l'étude: Le temps retrouvé (1927) de Marcel Proust Minima Moralia (1951) de Theodor Adorno Amour, colère, folie (1968) de Marie Vieux-Chauvet Faut-il brûler Sade? (1972) de Simone de Beauvoir Fragments d'un discours amoureux (1977) de Roland Barthes Des arbres à abattre (1984) de Thomas Bernhard Commentaires sur la société du spectacle (1988) de Guy Debord Bicentenaire (2004) de Lyonel Trouillot Oscar de Profundis (2016) de Catherine Mavrikakis Vernon Subutex (2015-2017) de Virginie Despentes En ce siècle si satsifait de lui "C'était mieux avant" *************

FRENCH 87500: Cross-Disciplinary Translation: an Experiment.
Distinguished Professor/Resident Professor Mary Ann Caws
5 weeks/one credit.
Indepent Study
4:15-6 on Wednesdays, January 31, through Wednesday February 28

This seminar is an investigation into different ways and methods of the translation process as it can be applied to various genres and disciplines. It is a brief and highly experimental attempt to see what kinds of carrying-over are most effective in the several fields it will bring to the fore, both verbal and visual. The predictive plan is as follows, with adjustments probably to be made as the five weeks unfold: first a consideration of translation as we ordinarily think of it, introducing several examples from the different genres we will be looking at. The subject of translation will be initially related to the prose poem - its shape, substance and potential power. Next, a text into film study, the selection to be discussed with the participants. Then, the kind of art and text relation I have been developing in almost all my seminars at the Graduate School, most probably dealing with necessarily limited examples from symbolism, cubism, futurism, dada and surrealism, translating again in the sense of seeing variously across borders. The final two weeks will consider the issues of fragmentation and collage, ending with the serial impulse. Outside readings will include these topics, and as preparation for each session, participants will write and submit a paragraph considering the issue at hand. The sessions will begin with a presentation, general and particular, to be followed by a general discussion in which the participants from their own various disciplines and orientations will engage. My own varied interests have led me to such publications as The Eye in the Text: Essays on Perception, Mannerist to Modern; A Metapoetics of the Passage: Architextures Surrealist and After; The Art of Interference: Stressed Readings in Visual and Verbal Texts: MANIFESTO: A century of isms, Modernist Manifestos and Surprised in Translation (whence the title for the seminar). Experimental indeed, because the range is vast and varied, and the time deliberately limited.

French 87200: "Seminar in Film Theory: Theories of the Cinema"
Crosslisted with FSCP 81000
Professor Jerry W. Carlson
Mon 2pm – 6pm
2/4 credits

This course presents a survey of "classical" and contemporary film theory. The contributions of the most important early theoreticians such as Eisenstein, Bazin, Epstein, Arnheim, Dulac, Merleau-Ponty, Balázs, and Kracauer, as well as such contemporary theorists as Metz, Mitry, Baudry, Mulvey, and Heath will be reviewed and contextualized. Questions about the structure and functioning of the filmic text, the nature of cinematic representation, and film spectatorship raised by the various scholls of thought, including phenomenology, Marxism, semiology, psychoanalysis, and feminism, will be of major concern. Attention will focus on the analysis of primary theoretical texts, although secondary texts as well as historical works and films that assist in contextualizing film theory may be assigned as well.


French 87500: Independent study Professor Sautman, The late Medieval Theater.
2/4 credits.
Day/times tba

FRENCH 70500: Writing The Self: From Augustine to Selfies
Domna C. Stanton (dstanton112@yahoo.com)
Tuesday: 4:15 to 6:15
2 or 4 Credits

How is the self written, visualized, constructed? What different forms and shapes do such texts take over time, in different genres? What purposes do they serve, for the several selves inscribed in a text and for others (including the self) who will read it.This course will begin by examining several theoretical texts on writing the self (Lejeune, Smith, Derrida, Glissant, Stanton), then trace self-writing from the Middle Ages (Augustine, Kempe, Pisan) through the early-modern periods, focusing on both the global (travel narratives on conquest --Columbus, La Casas, Equiano), and on various forms (letter and diary, for instance) of gendered interiority (Cavendish, Gentileschi, Sévigné, Westover). Signal texts on post-Enlightenment confession and memoir (Rousseau, Sand) will be followed in the second half of the seminar by a more thematic approach to issues of modernity, including slavery and liberation always deferred (Jacobs, Douglass, Wright, Coates); modernism and the limits of experimentation (Woolf, Nin, Kafka, Cahun); autofiction (Colette, Joyce, Stein); dislocated, traumatized selves in wars and holocausts (de Beauvoir, Sartre, Anne Frank, Levi, Henson [comfort women]); testimonio, the indigenous (Hurston, Levi Strauss, Menchu) and human rights narratives (Eggers); and French post-structuralism and the psychoanalytic (Barthes, Kristeva, Cardinal, Louise Bourgeois, Lacan). Our last two seminars will lead to a discussion of contemporary inscriptions of sexual and medical bodies, featuring birthing, AIDS, cancer and transgender selves (Arenas, Guibert, Bornstein, Leonard, N.K. Miller), and end with digital/virtual self-writing and the selfie (Smith, Giroux, Nemer and Freeman). Throughout, we will consider what the enduring obsession with confessing/revealing/ concealing; constructing and deconstructing selves might mean; and finally, whether, at bottom, all writing is self-writing

Work for the course: Whether the course is taken for 2, 3 or 4 credits, all students will be responsible for doing the readings closely and for engaging consistently in class discussion.
a, Students who take the course for 2 credits will present in class a reading of one primary text, which will also be submitted in writing (c 5-7 pp); these students will also take the final exam.
b, Students who take the course for 3 credits, will do all of the above and in addition, they will do a 10-13 page paper on a topic they select, after consultation with the instructor. They will also submit a thesis statement, a bibliography and an outline, and the introduction (the schedule will be indicated on the syllabus).
c, Students who take the course for 4 credits will do all of the above, but will do a 20-25-page paper on a topic they select, after consultation with the instructor; they will also submit a thesis statement, a bibliography and an outline, and an introduction (the schedule will be indicated on the syllabus).
Please contact Domna Stanton with any questions (dstanton112@yahoo.com).

The syllabus and the course materials to be downloaded will be posted on Blackboard by August 15, 2017.

The class will be conducted in English; readings are in English and French; all French readings will be listed in the syllabus along with their translations.
 
FRENCH 77010: Techniques in Literary Research
Bettina Lerner
Thursday: 4:15pm – 6:15pm
4 Credits
This course considers some of the major theoretical approaches to literature since the Enlightenment with the aim of helping first-year students situate and refine their own critical voices. The course opens with Kant and Hegel and goes on to examine the figure of the critic as it emerged during the first half of the nineteenth century (Mme de Staël, Sainte-Beuve, Baudelaire). We will then examine representative essays drawn from twentieth-century approaches to textual analysis including structuralism, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and deconstruction as well as from feminist and queer theory. Finally, we will look at more recent interventions by French, Francophone and American thinkers such as Jacques Rancière, Achille Mbembe and Lauren Berlant. We will reinforce our in-class discussions through regular written assignments modeled on rhetorical exercises which have become central to academic writing both in the United States and abroad, including abstracts, conference papers and grant proposals. We will practice these not just as writing exercises in themselves, but also as a way of scaffolding the final project in the course: a forty-page paper on a subject that reflects each student’s research interests. This course is open only to first-year students in the PhD Program in French and will be taught in French.

FRENCH 70700: Myth in French Literature and Film
Royal Brown
Tuesday: 6:30pm – 8:30pm
2 or 4 Credits
 
The course will focus first of all on the very phenomenon of myth: how it relates to the cultures that produce it, and the ways in which it communicates. Various specific myths, such as the myth of Orpheus, will be examined, along with their manifestations in two films, Jean Cocteau’s Orphée (1950) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), which is based on a French novel, along with various other works found in French literature and film. The course will also focus on various contemporary theories of myth from writers such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, René Girard, and Mircea Éliade as well as on several non-French theorists such as Joseph Campbell and Carl-Gustav Jung. Works of French literature and film will be studied as illustrations of these theories.​
 
Cross-listed Courses
 
HISTORY 71200: The Intellectual Politics of the French Revolution
Helena Rosenblatt
Wednesday: 4:15pm – 6:15pm
2 or 4 Credits
 
This course is an in-depth introduction to the French Revolution and the heated debates it has engendered. We will privilege political/cultural/intellectual perspectives, focusing on the Revolution's relationship with "modernity" and its various ideologies (socialism, liberalism, totalitarianism, feminism, etc.) Scholarship on the French Revolution will be placed in historical and political context in an effort to answer the question: "what is at stake when scholars adopt certain methodologies and perspectives on the French Revolution?"
 
COMP LIT 85000-Lyric, Prose, Modernity, Tuesdays, 2-4pm, 2,4 credits
Joshua Wilner
Tuesday: 2:00pm – 4:00pm
2 or 4 Credits
 
In one of Baudelaire’s late prose poems, a poet tells of losing his halo while dodging traffic on a crowded boulevard: “It slipped from my head into the mire of the pavement, and I didn’t have the courage to pick it up - better to lose my insignia than to break my bones.” In this allegorical sketch, Baudelaire propels the desanctified language of the lyric poet into the busy, crowded world of prose.
The cultural condition Baudelaire evokes and its connection with a changing sense of the relationship between poetry and prose will be the subject of this course. We will begin by examining a group of romantic texts (some pages from Rousseau’s Reveries, some fragments by Schlegel, the debate over “poetic diction” between Wordsworth and Coleridge) which more or less directly challenge neo-classical genre theory and adumbrate formal possibilities which will emerge more distinctly over the course of the century. We will then turn to another group of romantic texts, including writings by Dorothy Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Mary Shelley, to study the gender sub-text which informs this history:  a sub-text in which the figure of poetic election is male and the matrix of prose female. Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, which was a self-conscious experiment in “impassioned prose,” and the prose poems of Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen, a number of which are directly influenced by De Quincey, are at the historical center of the course. These writings will provide a bridge between the romantic writers with whom we began and the late nineteenth and early twentieth century writers of experimental prose with whom we will conclude, among them Rimbaud, Stein, Woolf, and Benjamin.
Requirements: 4 credits – a weekly reading journal, informal class presentations, a term paper; 2 credits – a weekly reading journal.
 

SOCIOLOGY 80000: Foucault, Bourdieu and Baudrillard:  Power, Culture and Social Change
Marnia Lazreg
Monday: 4:15pm – 6:15pm
2 or 4 Credits
Like Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu as well as Jean Baudrillard addressed issues pertaining to the transformations of French-qua-Western culture.  Yet they also sought, directly or indirectly, to distinguish their sociology from Foucault’s social philosophy.  In 1977 Jean Baudrillard wrote that Foucault’s conception of power is a “mythic discourse” rather than a discourse that purportedly reveals the truth about the nature of power relations.  In 1968, Bourdieu, a one-time former student of Foucault, turned Foucault’s question “What is an Author?”  into “How to read an Author.”  However, Baudrillard also shared with Foucault a rejection of the core concepts of Cartesian rationalism and a “poststructuralist” orientation, while Bourdieu intended to stake out a sociological perspective that incorporated a number of Foucault’s critical theoretical insights.  What historical, philosophical, political and biographical factors account for these French sociologists’ mixture of reticent admiration for, and skepticism about Foucault’s ideas and political engagements?  Did they resolve the ambiguities and antinomies present in Foucault’s theoretical orientation and methodology? To what extent sociology transforms or is transformed by Foucault’s social philosophy?
Using methods borrowed from the history of ideas as well as the sociology of knowledge, this course examines Bourdieu and Baudrillard’s efforts to build a critical sociology with practical applications for social change as they grapple with Foucault’s conceptual innovations. Special attention will be given to the meanings and articulations of key concepts and issues, including structure and event/history; language, rules and discourse; power and subjectivation; body, sex/sexuality and gender; biopolitics and liberalism; revolution and political spirituality; security/war and self-defense.  The course will further examine the concrete socio-political activities in which each author engaged as a result of his theoretical commitment.  
Although students are encouraged to read each author’s seminal works, special attention will be given to Foucault’s Lectures at the College de France in addition to the Order of Things, and Madness and Civilization; Bourdieu’s Pascalian Meditations, Practical Reason, Acts of Resistance, and Masculine Domination; Baudrillard’s Seduction, Simulacra and Simulation, Symbolic Exchange and Death.
Students are expected to immerse themselves in the works of these authors, and write a paper focusing on three critical issues with which one of them grappled. Selecting current socio-political events or issues as testing ground for the three theorists’ ideas is also encouraged. The paper will be elaborated in stages to be discussed in class until its completion.
Room:  Seminar

FRENCH 71110 - Problems in French Literary Literary History: The Novel Prof. Bettina Lerner
GC: TH, 4:15-6:15,
2/4 credits
Professor Bettina Lerner (in French)
 
In this seminar we will examine the evolution of the French novel from the early modern period to the twentieth century.  We will begin with a brief overview of theoretical challenges posed by the novel as a literary genre that has repeatedly redefined itself. We will then explore how this protean narrative form developed into a privileged site for cultural struggle. Over the course of the semester, we will see how each novel we read frames and negotiates a number of tensions that structure the specific historical iteration of the literary field in which they intervene, including sentimentality and realism, politics and aesthetics, high and low, individual and society, history and memory. Discussion will be in French. Students in the French department must write their final papers in French. Students from other departments may choose to write their final papers in English. Novels will most likely include: Madame de La Fayette's La Princesse de Clèves, lAbbé Prévost, Manon Lescaut, George Sand's Indiana, Gustave Flaubert's L'Éducation sentimentale, Marcel Proust's Du Côté de chez Swann and Georges Perec's W, ou le souvenir d'enfance.
 
 
French 83000 - (Un)Classical Bodies (in English).
GC: T, 4:15-6:15
2/3/4 credits
Professor Domna Stanton
 
This course will examine diverse and dissimilar constructions of the body in seventeenth-century France. We will begin by examining recent theories of the early-modern body in Bakhtin, Elias, Lacqueur, and Bordo, but most notably (and influentially) in Foucault and his notion of “the classical” and disciplined body.  These readings will inform our discussion of different – and potentially contradictory – discourses imbricated in the production of early-modern gendered bodies over and beyond the Cartesian body:  the medical (anatomical), sexual (sodomitical and tribadic), reproductive, perverse and grotesque body; the social, civilized, courtly (honnete) body; the cross-dressed body; the rhetoric of the face and the portrait; the king’s bodies; and the religious and mystical (ecstatic) body.
 
Authors to be read include:  Bourgeois, Chorier, De Grenailles, Descartes, Duval, Faret, Foigny, Guyon, Héroard, La Fontaine, La Rochefoucauld, Molière, Montpensier, Paré, Pascal, Poulain de la Barre, Saint-Simon and Venette.  If we can arrange it, we will also visit the collections of anatomical drawings at the New York Academy of  Medicine.
 
Class discussions will be conducted in English; readings will be in French (although some, eg Descartes, Poulain, La Fontaine can also be found in translations). Work for the course will include a 25-page paper and an oral presentation of one of the primary readings for those taking it for 4 credits; for those taking  the course for 3 credits, there will be a 10-12 page paper, as well as the oral presentation; for two-credit students, the oral presentation will be written up (5-7 pp.). Everyone in the course will take the final exam.
 
A prior knowledge of seventeenth-century French literature and culture is recommended, but not required.
 
For any questions about the course, please contact Domna Stanton (dstanton112@yahoo.com)
 
 
FRENCH 707 - William Faulkner & France: 75 Years of Transnationalism (in English)
GC: W, 4:15-6:15
2/3/4 credits
Prof. Jerry Carlson
 
A recent poll asked one hundred French speaking writers to name their most admired novelists. It might surprise Americans but not the French that William Faulkner placed second after Marcel Proust and before Gustave Flaubert. Indeed, the French admiration for Faulkner reaches back as far as a 1931 essay in La Nouvelle Revue Française. The transatlantic romance shows no signs of cooling more than seventy-five years later. Why? This course will explore the many ways in which Faulkner’s work has been received, interpreted, adapted, and remodeled by French intellectuals, writers, and filmmakers. The object will not be to construct a simple linear model of influence. Rather, it will be to understand a rhizomatic entanglement of relations.
 
First, we absorb Faulkner’s most cited work The Sound and the Fury. We then examine influential early essays by Maurice Edgar Coindreau, Claude Edmonde Magny, André Malraux, and Jean-Paul Sartre that set the template for the “French” Faulkner. Next we explore Faulkner’s impact upon the narrative aesthetics of the nouveau roman through close readings of novels by Claude Simon and Kateb Yacine. At stake is how narrative innovation challenges received ideas about national and colonial history. Next Faulkner’s influence upon the nouvelle vague in French cinema will be analyzed through films by Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, and Agnès Varda.  Their works are frequently cited as more “Faulknerian” than the screenplays written by Faulkner himself in Hollywood. What might that mean? Lastly, we examine Faulkner’s central role in the créolité movement of the French Caribbean. After a close look at Faulkner, Mississippi by Edouard Glissant, we turn to prose fiction by Patrick Chamoiseau and Gisèle Pineau.
 
 
2 credits = 5 page essay + 5 page essay
3 credits = 5 page essay + 10-15 page essay
4 credits = 5 page essay + 15-20 page essay
 
The course will be conducted in English, but the novels may be read in French or English.

MONDAY 

Monday 4:15-6:15 French 84000
18th-Century Enlightenment. Professor Helena Rosenblatt

TUESDAY 

Tuesday 4:15-6:15 French 87100
Feminist Theory. (Dist.) Professor Domna Stanton

Tuesday 6:30-8:30 French 82000
Rabelais. Professor Bernd Renner

WEDNESDAY
Wednesday  2:00-6:00 FSCP 81000 (cross-listed) Film/Art
Visual/Verbal Interrelations. (Dist.) Professor Mary Ann Caws 
 
FRIDAY
Friday 11.30 am -1.30 pm
First-year Techniques of Literary Research, Professor Julia Przybos


Course Descriptions:

Professor Rosenblatt
French 84000 - The Eighteenth Century Enlightenment
Monday 4:15pm – 6:15pm
 
It is a widely recognized fact that the modern Western world owes many of its fundamental--and most cherished-- concepts to the European Enlightenment. It is also true that since the mid-20th century, the Enlightenment has come under sustained attack. It is accused of a variety of purported sins, including Euro-centrism, imperialism, racism, sexism, and proto-totalitarianism. In this course, we will read texts by some of the most important writers of the Enlightenment (Rousseau especially, but also Montesquieu, Hume, Locke, Lessing, and Wollstonecraft) with a focus on the following themes: the social contract and the role of government, property and commerce, religion, race and slavery, sex and gender. We will also read recent critiques and defenses of the Enlightenment, with a view to deciding for ourselves what we might still be able to learn from it.
 

Professor Stanton
French 87100 - Feminist Theories and Their Differences
Tuesday 4:15-6:15     
 
This course will examine the various strains of feminist thought since the l970s, and strains within feminist theoretical positions.  Beginning with conflicts around poststructuralism and postmodernism, we will analyze the women's studies/gender studies issue; the paradigm shift that writing of women of color represented (and the invisibility of whiteness); the sex wars; écriture féminine; the essentialist debates;  postcolonial and transnational feminisms and (im)migration studies; women's rights as human rights; material feminisms, class and social inequalities; and queerness and transgenderism.  The course will end with summary readings of some of the theories we did not discuss: ecocriticism, disability studies, the posthuman and technoscience. Our last session will debate the necessary but problematic connections between advocacy and activism to theoretical work (praxis); the relation of feminist theories to other oppositional practices.
Work for the course: Whether the course is taken for 2, 3, or 4 credits, all students will  be responsible for doing the readings closely and for engaging consistently in class discussion.
a.  Students who take the course for 2 credits will present in class a critical reading of one theoretical text,  a reading that will also be submitted in writing (c 5-7 pp); these students will also take the final exam.
b.  Students who take the course for 3 credits, will do all of the above and in addition, they will do a 10-page paper on a topic they select, in consultation with the instructor. They will also submit a thesis statement, a bibliography and an outline (the schedule will be indicated on the syllabus).
c.  Students who take the course for 4 credits will do all of the above, but instead of a 10-page paper, they will do a 20-25 page paper on a topic they select, in consultation with the instructor; they will also submit a thesis statement, a bibliography and an outline (the scheduled will be indicated on the syllabus).
All readings and the syllabus for the course will be posted on Blackboard by August 20, 2016 at the latest.
Goals of the course:
1. to become conversant in the various theoretical strains in feminist thought from 1970s to today.
2. to develop a capacity to read feminist theoretical texts critically.
3. to write analyses and critiques of theoretical texts (for the final exam; for the class presentations; and either in the 10 -page paper for 3 credits or the 20-25 page paper for 4 credits.)
Please address all questions to Domna Stanton (dstanton112@yahoo.com).
  
 
Professor Renner
Français 72000 - François Rabelais et l’humanisme
Tuesday 6: 30pm – 8: 30pm
 
Ce cours offre la possibilité d’étudier de manière approfondie les œuvres d’un des auteurs les plus importants du patrimoine littéraire mondial, François Rabelais. Les quatre livres authentiques des Chronicques pantagruelines de ce moine/médecin/humaniste constituent un tour de force linguistique, littéraire et culturel. Ils nous permettent donc un accès privilégié et fascinant à la France historique et humaniste au seuil des temps modernes ainsi qu’à une littérature « en devenir » dont les concepts et stratégies témoignent de ce flou créatif qui rend le seizième siècle si essentiel pour le développement ultérieur dans ces domaines (politique, social, intellectuel etc.). Une bonne compréhension des siècles suivants ne saurait être concevable sans l’étude de ce qu’on appelle d’habitude la « Renaissance », et nous ne nous référons pas seulement aux domaines à portée largement morale cités ci-dessus, mais aussi, et peut-être même davantage d’un point de vue « littéraire », à l’exemplarité en matière de poétique, de rhétorique et d’esthétique qui caractérise la première modernité. C’est aussi pour ces raisons que ce cours s’adresse à tous les étudiants de la langue, littérature et civilisation françaises et non pas seulement à ceux qui étudient la Renaissance.
Nous allons nous pencher sur une multitude d’aspects qui sortent de ces textes, tels que la question du genre, le jeu entre sens littéral et figuré ou bien le rôle du comique sous toutes ses facettes pour n’en mentionner que trois exemples. La binarité exemplaire du texte (populaire/sérieux, grossier/savant, prosaïque/ poétique etc.) qui dérive de ces analyses semble au cœur de l’intentionnalité d’une œuvre complexe et subtile, œuvre dont la modernité ne cesse de surprendre et ensuite d’enthousiasmer ses lecteurs. La lecture du texte rabelaisien sera complétée d’un choix d’autres auteurs primaires (Lucien, Érasme, Bonaventure Des Périers et d’autres) et d’études secondaires qui enrichiront nos discussions.
Pour des raisons pratiques, les étudiants sont priés de se procurer les éditions bilingues (version originale et français moderne) indiquées ci-dessous.
 
Liste des textes requis de François Rabelais:
 
Pantagruel, éd. G. Demerson (Paris: Seuil, 1996) ISBN 2-02-030033-8.
Gargantua, éd. G. Demerson (Paris: Seuil, 1996) ISBN 2-02-030032-X.
Le Tiers Livre, éd. G. Demerson (Paris: Seuil, 1997) ISBN 2-02-030176-8.
Le Quart Livre, éd. G. Demerson (Paris: Seuil, 1997) ISBN 2-02-030903-3.
 
Professor Caws
FSCP 81000 - Film Art: Visual/Verbal Interrelations  (Crosslisted with Film)
Wednesday 2:00pm-6:00pm
 
 My previous film courses have had to do with the representation of great works of literary art into film (James, etc., with the movements of Dada and Surrealism, and also with various careers as they have been represented: architecture, priesthood, librarianship, writings, etc. I want to consider again – thinking of the anxiety of representation, my original title, various picturings (biographical and documentary) of verbal and visual artists. Of particular interest are the deformations, additions, and omissions occasioned by the differing viewpoints of the writers, filmmakers, and directors, as well as the available stars and their strengths and weaknesses.
 
How we speak and write about the cinematic along with the pictorial and the literary is the point of this seminar. Readings and viewings will include selections such as the following, not necessarily these 1) novels and stories --Henry James (The Golden Bowl in its two versions, the Altar of the Dead), Marcel Proust (we would choose, depending on the participants and their concerns); Edith Wharton ( Age of Innocence), Virginia Woolf ( To the Lighthouse, Orlando) 2)  reading of Stéphane Mallarmé’s essays on dance and versions of dance films: Russian Ark, The Black Swan, Frederick Wiseman’s film La Danse, the Russian  ballet film, and so on; 3) films of Joseph Cornell and readings from his letters and source files together with Stan Brakhage’s Wonder Ring (backwards), Jerome Hill’s films overpainted  4)  surrealist films including Le Chien Andalou and writings by Dali, such as his novel Hidden Faces ; Jean Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet;  or then, or extracts from  Les Parents Terrible, Les Enfants Teribles 5) if we can get Peter Greenaway’s presentations of Veronese  and his films with Tom Phillips,  such as  The Tempest; and Rembrandt’s “J’accuse” and “Nightwatching”. What kinds of very different questions are elicited by these interrelated concepts, works, and materials?
 
Readings will probably include, as well as the obvious ones in relation to these films  George Bluestone’s Novel into Film – and reference books on the relations of art and text, such as those by W.J.T. Mitchell on the side of theory, and on the visionary side: Joseph Cornell’s Theatre of the Mind: Selected Diaries, Letters and Files: (ed. M.A. Caws) and other writings on Cornell and his relation to surrealism; and readings from my The Eye in the Text and the Surrealist Look,: an Erotics of Encounter; Tom Phillips’ the Humument and other art books.
 
Let me give some examples of the kind of questions that arise: in “Carrington,” Christopher Hampton’s film about Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey, the male writer, Lytton, is allowed to be bisexual whereas Carrington, definitely bisexual also (see her writings about and nude portraits of Henrietta Bingham) is painted as heterosexual Why the complexities of one and not the other? Still on Bloomsbury, the renderings of To the Lighthouse, and the very great Orlando, with Tilda Swinton (how not?) and of the intrigue of Virginia Woolf and the no less interesting  Vita Sackville-West, glancing at the BBC version of their lives together with  the intrusive and unforgettable Violet Trefusis. We might, if there is time and interest, make a stab at films and videos about Picasso and his various mistresses, reading along with what is relevant. How to picture genius, that kind of thing. Speaking of genius, and given the genius of Derek Jarman, we may well confront his baroquely splendid Caravaggio, which we would see alongside Francine Prose’s book Caravaggio, and plunge into various films/biopics about Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, and the recent Mr. Turner.
 
RESUME: IN GENERAL:We will be especially dealing with diverse applications and interrelations of various ways in which the fields of art and literature have entered into the universe of film. Among our investigations some of the following will be included, depending on the interests of the participants, the time  slots and the availability of the DVDs, videos, and so on:

1. novel, story, poem, and dance as they can be related to film-- certain questions of omission and deformation will arise
2. paintings and film (artist biographies, video and exhibition films, gustatory visuality)
3. performance art (dance, drama, musical concert)and film (poetic readings, opera,ballet) -- videos
4. documentaries: Frederick Wiseman and the ballet, the art gallery and readings and viewings
   Each participant will present at least once an interrelation between some work of art and some film, and write on another interrelation for a final paper, so that each person will have a minimum of two investigations, preferably in two very different fields. Museum visits encouraged.
    
   Mary Ann Caws
   Distinguished Professor of French,, English, and Comparative Literature
   maryanncaws@gmail.com
   www.maryanncaws.com

Prof. Julia Przybos
Techniques of Literary Research I
Friday 11.30 am -1.30 pm
L’objectif de ce cours est double : étudier quelques textes fondateurs de la théorie littéraire et rédiger un mémoire en français d’une quarantaine de pages.
 
L’étude des textes marquants de la critique littéraire écrits ou traduits en français initiera les étudiants aux multiples façons de penser la littérature. Nous commencerons par les Anciens, à savoir des passages de La République et de Cratyle de Platon, La Poétique d’Aristote et L’Epître aux Pisons d’Horace. Nous lirons ensuite des extraits de L’Art poétique de Boileau, anis que ceux Du beau et du sublime de Kant et Du Laocoon de Lessing. Parmi les théoriciens du XIXème siècle nous retiendrons Taine et sa conception déterministe de l’œuvre littéraire ainsi que Baudelaire et sa vision de la modernité. Nous aborderons le XXème siècle par « Contre Sainte-Beuve » de Proust et des passages tirés du Cours de linguistique générale de Ferdinand de Saussure. Nous étudierons ensuite des courants de pensée qui ont marqué la première moitié du XXème siècle : la théorie marxiste (G. Lukacs), les formalistes russes (Chklovsky, Eichenbaum), ainsi que leurs « prolongements » structuralistes (Jakobson, Lévi-Strauss) et narratologiques (Tzvetan Todorov, Gérard Genette). Nous compléterons ces lectures théoriques par des textes de quelques auteurs qui ont profondément influencé la très riche production critique de la deuxième moitié du XXème siècle et du début du XXIème siècle (Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucauld, René Girard).
 
Dès le premier cours, les étudiants tenteront de déterminer le sujet qu’ils développeront dans un mémoire de 40 pages qu’ils remettront à la fin du semestre. En suivant un plan détaillé, ils remettront tout au long du semestre les ébauches de leur travail. Ces brouillons seront commentés et corrigés par le professeur. Il s’agira pour les étudiants de faire des recherches, d’embrasser une approche critique, de développer un argument raisonné et méthodique en français et de suivre de près le « style MLA ».
 
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th Edition
Goals :
Students will gain knowledge of most important schools of thought in the history of literary criticism that, up to the raise of post-structuralism, dominated thinking about literature.
Students will become skilled in employing methodologies based on theories of literature to research a topic of their choice.
Students will learn to apply literary theory to the analysis of literary texts.
Students will write a 40 page graduate level research paper.
For more information please contact Prof. Przybos at jprzybos@gc.cuny.edu

TUESDAY

TU. 4:15-6:15 French 81000
Matériaux et matérialité du genre au Moyen Age. Professor Francesca Canadé Sautman
La construction du genre [gender]—la mise en place de l’ordre sexe/genre—ne s’effectue pas dans un texte médiéval par le seul moyen de déclarations sur le sujet, ni même par les actions des protagonistes dans un récit. Objets et substances participent dynamiquement à cette construction et constituent en quelque sorte les matériaux du genre, ou sa base matérielle—sa matérialité. La peau, le parchemin, le sang, les larmes; les armes et les outils ; les objets domestiques, y compris les ustensiles de cuisine ; les textiles et les techniques qui les produisent, d’autres objets encore sont autant de supports à la fabrication du genre et à son expression textuelle. En combinant les enseignements des études du genre et la théorisation de la culture matérielle et de la circulation des biens de consommation—en particulier, le concept que tout objet, et même tout matériau, a une/son histoire-- le cours envisage les lieux textuels ou genre et matérialité se rejoignent. Nos textes du Moyen Age comprennent des textes canoniques et d’autres moins : plusieurs lais de Marie de France, Perceval (le Conte du Graal) de Chrétien de Troyes, les textes composant la légende de Tristan et Yseut (il n’en existe aucun texte unique complet), quelques fabliaux et contes, les Jeux à vendre de Christine de Pizan et la tradition des Adevineaux amoureux, des textes de Villon, puis de Coquillart et Molinet pour les rhétoriqueurs... Les approches critiques réunissent, entre autres, les travaux de Judith Butler, E. Jane Burns, Peggy McCracken, Karma Lochrie, avec ceux d’Arjun Appadurai et Igor Kopytoff. Le cours est donné en français mais la plupart des lectures critiques sont en anglais. [Course is given in French but students in Programs other than French are absolutely welcome : as long as they can follow discussions in class in French, they can participate, present orally, and do all written work in English. Most critical and theoretical works assigned are in English.]

TU 6:30-8:30 French 85000 (in French)
LA CRISE DU ROMAN DANS LA DEUXIEME MOITIE DU XIXE SIECLE. Professor Ali Nematollahy

La crise du roman dans la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle. Avec Flaubert commence une période où le roman subit une sorte de déroute. Dans les décennies qui suivent la publication de L’Éducation sentimentale on ne cesse de s’interroger sur la nature de ce genre, de le déclarer en décadence, d’annoncer sa disparition prochaine et de déclarer son mépris pour un genre déchu. On examinera les différents courants où se manifeste le roman dans les dernières décennies du XIXe siècle. Les écrivains considérés seront, entre autres, Flaubert, Barbey d’Aurevilly, Zola, Barrès, Huysmans, et le jeune Gide.

WEDNESDAY

Wed 4:15-6:15 French 77020 (in French)
Techniques of Literary Research II. Professor Royal Brown.

Limited to first-year cohort in semester 2 (required) See Handbook for general description. Details to follow.


THURSDAY

TH 4:15-6:15 French 79120 (in French)
Poétiques et identités de la Caraïbe. Professor Thomas Spear

Poétiques : poésie, critique, récits non canoniques. Identités : historiques, multiples, nouvelles. Exemples de repères et sources d'inspiration classiques : en poésie (Laleau, Césaire, Damas, Phelps), critique (Price-Mars, Fanon, Glissant, Benítez-Rojo) et en prose (Alexis, Roumain, Chauvet, Depestre, Chamoiseau). Explorations principales dans d'autres voies / de nouvelles voix de création littéraire de la Caraïbe et de sa diaspora : 1.) une poignée de romanciers (M-C Agnant, A Alexandre, M Jeanne, F Kanor, F Pasquet, R Philoctète, L Trouillot), 2.) autant de poètes (Brouard, Castera, Davertige, Magloire-Saint-Aude, Monchoachi, Morand, Noël, Rupaire) et 3.) de nombreux auteurs de styles et de publics différents : poésie (en performance, vidéo ou chantée), prose (journalistique, essais, blogs), productions multimédia (son, lumière, images) et l'autoédition (Delsham, Frankétienne). Redéfinir l'antillanité, la créolité, l'insularité, la littérature.

TH 6:30-8:30 French 87000 (in English)
Literary Theory and Criticism Part II. Professor Bettina Lerner (cross-listed with CL)
History of Literary Theory and Criticism II. This course offers students an overview of the development and key elements of literary criticism from the late eighteenth century until the present day. We will first examine Enlightenment and nineteenth-century discourses about literature in the context of the emergence of a semi-autonomous cultural field. As we move forward into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we will turn our attention to various critical paradigms including psychoanalysis, structuralism, semiotics, deconstruction, feminism, and post-colonialism. We will look at how these various approaches seek to redefine the relationships between aesthetics and politics, authority and authorship, subjectivity and textuality, historicity and materialism. Readings will include Kant, Staël, Sainte-Beuve, Eliot, Marx, Nietzsche, Arnold, Freud, Auerbach, Benjamin, Barthes, Derrida, Blanchot, Foucault, Kristeva, Cixous, Bourdieu, Rancière, Said, Mbembe, Casanova.