French and Francophone Studies

Last updated: July 19, 2013 at 1:38 p.m.

Objectives

As Michel de Montaigne wrote, "Learning to speak, read, write, and think a new language teaches us to knock off our rough corners by rubbing our minds against other people's." The French and Francophone Studies program puts Montaigne's advice to use by allowing students to study the development of French and Francophone culture throughout the world. The cultural capital represented by French language and culture played a crucial role both in the creation of a French national identity and in the response to it in many Francophone countries.

The French and Francophone Studies curriculum is designed to teach students to express themselves clearly and effectively in written and oral French, as well as to acquaint them with the historical depth and geographical breadth of literary and cultural expression in French.

Learning Goals

Skills of language and cultural interpretation are essential in our era of increasing globalization as well as the pluralistic environments of Europe and North America. Francophone culture has maintained a coherent intellectual tradition from the Middle Ages to the present. Speakers of French in the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan and North Africa and Quebec extend the influence of the French language and its cultures. To achieve advanced competence in the French language many students spend all or part of their Junior year in a French-speaking country.

Core Skills

  • advanced proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, writing and knowledge of French and Francophone cultures;
  • ability to analyze, evaluate and interpret works in words (e.g., literature, films, newspapers, critical articles, essays, etc.) and in other media (painting, music, songs, etc.);
  • ability to explain how cultural differences help determine political, economic and social institutions

Knowledge

  • understanding of the principal historical events and foundational cultural tenets (including notions drawn from politics, literature, sociology, philosophy, etc.) that shape France and the Francophone world;
  • understanding how creative works in French reflect the past and present and announce future developments and influence world culture;
  • understanding of the instrumental role that language (written and oral production of all types) plays in the formation of cultures, histories, and identities of the French and Francophone world;
  • appreciation of the cultural and linguistic diversity in France and the Francophone world.

Social Justice

The world today requires intercultural knowledge, experience, and judgment. Students who are literate in more than one language develop self-critical perspectives that also advance communication skills in their native language and culture. French and Francophone Studies prepare students to understand events on several continents, thus reflecting the multiracial and multicultural realities of the global world. After graduation, our majors and minors enter a wide variety of fields, such as law, journalism, human rights, the arts, and education.

How to Fulfill the Language Requirement

In order to graduate, you must be able to function at an intermediate level in reading, writing, speaking, and listening in a foreign language. You may satisfy this requirement in several ways:

  • If you scored or 620 or higher on the SAT II language exam, 4 or higher on an Advanced Placement exam in language or literature, or 5 or higher on the International Baccalaureate Higher Levels Exam, you have completed the language requirement. We encourage you to continue your studies in our department (please see below to choose a course at the appropriate level).
  • If you pass an exam that shows you have gained an intermediate-level proficiency in French, you will have completed the language requirement. Please contact Professor Hollie Harder (harder@brandeis.edu) to make arrangements to take the Proficiency Exam.
  • OR, you may study a language at Brandeis. When you complete a 30-level course with a passing grade, you will have satisfied the language requirement.
Students with further questions about the language requirement should contact the Director of Language Programs, Professor Hollie Harder (harder@brandeis.edu).

How to Become a Major or a Minor

Students considering a French and Francophone Studies major or minor should complete the language requirement as soon as possible.

  • After students complete a 30-level French course, they are advised to enroll in FREN 104b.
  • Students who scored 620–710 on the French SAT II exam, 4 on the French Advanced Placement exam, or 5 on the International Baccalaureate Higher Levels Exam are usually advised to enroll in FREN 105a.
  • Students who scored 720 or above on the French SAT II exam, 5 on the French AP exam, or 6 or higher on the International Baccalaureate Higher Levels Exam should enroll in FREN 106b, the first course in the sequence that counts toward the major or minor.
  • Normally, students should take FREN 106b, FREN 110a, and/or FREN 111a before taking courses numbered above FREN 111.
Students interested in learning more about the major or minor are encouraged to speak with the French and Francophone Studies Undergraduate Advising Head.

Faculty

Michael Randall, Chair of the Department of Romance Studies
Late medieval and Renaissance poetry, prose, and philosophy. Comparative literature. Modern politics and literature in Francophone world.

Jane Hale, Undergraduate Advising Head for French and Francophone Studies
French, education, and comparative literature. Contemporary French fiction and drama. Beckett, Queneau. Literature and painting. Francophone literatures and cultures of Africa and Haiti. Comparative literature. Cross-cultural literacies.

Hollie Harder, Director of Language Programs
French language and culture. Language pedagogy. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century French literature. Women's studies.

Edward Kaplan (on leave academic year 2013-2014)
French romanticism. Modern French poetry and theory. Baudelaire. Jabès. Bonnefoy. Religion and literature. Comparative literature. Translation.

Esther Ratner
French language and culture. Comparative literature.

Catherine Theobald
Early modern French literature and culture. Word and image studies. Portraiture. Early modern prose forms: maxims, portraits, novels. Book illustration. Collecting practices.

Martine Voiret (on leave fall 2013)
French language and culture. 18th century French literature. Women’s studies. Cinema.

Requirements for the Minor

The minor consists of five semester courses:

A. FREN 106b (The Art of Composition).

B. FREN 110a (Cultural Representations) or FREN 111a (The Republic).

C. Three electives from French and Francophone Studies courses numbered 104 or above. FREN 92a may satisfy this requirement according to the guidelines listed below. Cross-listed courses may not be used to satisfy the requirement.

Notes:

  • Students who take FREN 110a and FREN 111a may count one of them as an elective.
  • A French and Francophone Studies minor who wishes to do an internship in a French or Francophone environment on or off campus may enroll in FREN 92a. Students arrange their own internships with prior permission from the Undergraduate Advising Head.

All students pursuing a French and Francophone Studies minor will be assigned an adviser in the department.

Requirements for the Major

The major consists of nine semester courses:

A. FREN 106b (The Art of Composition).

B. FREN 110a (Cultural Representations) or FREN 111a (The Republic).

C. Seven electives French and Francophone Studies courses numbered 110 or above. Only one of the seven may be satisfied with a cross-listed course. FREN 92a and 97a may satisfy this requirement according to the guidelines listed below.

Notes:

  • Students who take FREN 110a and FREN 111a may count one of them as an elective.
  • French and Francophone Studies majors have the option of writing a Senior Essay (FREN 97a) in fall of the senior year as one of their electives.
  • A French and Francophone Studies major who wishes to do an internship in a French or Francophone environment on or off campus may enroll in FREN 92a. Students arrange their own internships with prior permission of the Undergraduate Advising Head.
  • Students may receive credit for an elective for the major for one cross-listed or related course taught in English with prior permission of the Undergraduate Advising Head.

All students pursuing a French and Francophone Studies major will be assigned an adviser in the department.

Honors
To be considered for departmental honors upon graduation, students must successfully complete FREN 97a (Senior Essay) in the fall of their senior year, have a GPA of 3.5 or higher in all French courses, and apply to the department for permission to enroll in FREN 99b (Senior Thesis) in the spring of their senior year. Departmental honors are awarded based on cumulative excellence in all courses taken in the major, including the senior essay and thesis.

Special Notes Relating to Undergraduates

Students may take two 30-level French courses for credit with permission of the Director of Language Programs.

Study Abroad

We encourage internships and study abroad. Our students have enrolled in programs in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Senegal, Mali, Madagascar, Cameroon, and Morocco. Brandeis’ proximity to Montreal offers less formal opportunities for weekend or vacation French immersion experiences.

Students may receive credit for electives for the major or minor for courses taken in French abroad, with prior permission of the Undergraduate Advising Head.

How to Choose a Course at the Appropriate Level

For more information, please refer to the Registrar’s website at www.brandeis.edu/registrar/newstudent/testing.html#frentest or to the Department of Romance Studies website at www.brandeis.edu/departments/roms/studentresources/index.

Courses of Instruction

(1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students

FREN 10a Beginning French
Prerequisite: For students with no previous knowledge of French and those with a minimal background. Students enrolling for the first time in a French and Francophone Studies course at Brandeis should refer to http://www.brandeis.edu/registrar/newstudent/testing.html#frentest.
Intensive training in the basics of French grammar, listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing within the context of French and Francophone cultures. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

FREN 20b Continuing French
Prerequisite: A grade of C- or higher in FREN 10a or the equivalent. Students enrolling for the first time in a French and Francophone Studies course at Brandeis should refer to http://www.brandeis.edu/registrar/newstudent/testing.html#frentest.
Continued work in French grammar, listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing within the context of French and Francophone cultures. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

FREN 32a Intermediate French: Conversation
[ fl ]
Prerequisite: A grade of C- or higher in FREN 20b or the equivalent. Students enrolling for the first time in a French and Francophone Studies course at Brandeis should refer to http://www.brandeis.edu/registrar/newstudent/testing.html#frentest.
Focuses on improving the speaking ability of students who wish to develop greater fluency in conversation while discussing contemporary French and Francophone cultures and issues. Students continue to improve their skills in listening, comprehension, reading, and writing. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FREN 34a Intermediate French: Topics in French and Francophone Cultures
[ fl ]
This is an experiential learning course. Prerequisite: A grade of C- or higher in FREN 20b or the equivalent. Students enrolling for the first time in a French and Francophone Studies course at Brandeis should refer to http://www.brandeis.edu/registrar/newstudent/testing.html#frentest.
Focuses on increasing the knowledge of students who wish to develop greater understanding of fundamental principles of French and Francophone cultures, such as education and identity. Students continue to improve their skills in listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FREN 92a Internship
May be taken with the written permission of the Undergraduate Advising Head.
Combines on- or off-campus internship experience related to French and Francophone studies with written analysis under the supervision of a faculty sponsor. Students arrange their own internships. Counts only once toward the fulfillment of requirements for the major or the minor. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

FREN 97a Senior Essay
Students should consult the Undergraduate Advising Head before enrolling.
FREN 97a offers French and Francophone Studies majors an opportunity to produce a senior essay under the direction of an individual instructor. Students normally enroll in FREN 97a in the fall. Only under exceptional circumstances will students enroll in FREN 97a in the spring. Offered every fall.
Staff

FREN 98a Independent Study
May be taken only with the written permission of the Undergraduate Advising Head.
Reading and reports under faculty supervision. Offered as needed.
Staff

FREN 98b Independent Study
May be taken only with the written permission of the Undergraduate Advising Head.
Reading and reports under faculty supervision. Offered as needed.
Staff

FREN 99b Senior Thesis
May be taken only with the written permission of the Undergraduate Advising Head.
Senior French and Francophone Studies majors who successfully complete FREN 97a (Senior essay) in the fall and who have a 3.5 GPA in all French and Francophone Studies courses may apply to extend the essay into a thesis in the spring.
Staff

FYS 46b JustBooks: La justice sociale Issues of Social Justice in the French and Francophone World
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: A 30-level French and Francophone Studies course or the equivalent. Taught in French.
Explores literary texts, art, and film from the French and Francophone world that address issues of social justice while they improve their writing and speaking skills. All readings are in French. Offered as part of the JustBooks program.
Ms. Harder (Romance Studies)

(100-199) For Both Undergraduate and Graduate Students

All courses are conducted in French except as indicated.

FECS 120b In Search of Marcel Proust in Translation
[ hum ]
Open to all students. Conducted in English with readings in English translation.
While reading Proust's novel, In Search of Lost Time, students will focus on four themes (love and jealousy, art and idolatry, imagination and disappointment, and the passage of time and its redemption through involuntary memory) that contribute to the narrator's decision to become a writer. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Harder

FREN 104b Advanced Language Skills through Culture
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-level French and Francophone Studies course or the equivalent. Students enrolling for the first time in a French and Francophone Studies course at Brandeis should refer to http://www.brandeis.edu/registrar/newstudent/testing.html#frentest.
For students who would like to continue studying French beyond the foreign language requirement. Topics will vary, but all investigate aspects of French and Francophone cultures, such as French history through film, French Impressionism, issues of immigration, culture and cuisine, or understanding contemporary France. Reinforces the acquired skills of speaking, listening, comprehension, reading, and writing. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

FREN 105a France Today: French Conversation
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-level French and Francophone Studies course, FREN 104b or the equivalent. Students enrolling for the first time in a French and Francophone Studies course at Brandeis should refer to http://www.brandeis.edu/registrar/newstudent/testing.html#frentest.
For students who have acquired knowledge of conversational French and wish to develop greater fluency in conversation. Role playing, vocabulary building, and guided speaking and writing activities will develop conversational skills for various situations. Discussions of contemporary French culture through texts and films. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

FREN 106b The Art of Composition
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: FREN 104b, FREN 105a, or the equivalent. Students enrolling for the first time in a French and Francophone Studies course at Brandeis should refer to http://www.brandeis.edu/registrar/newstudent/testing.html#frentest.
A crucial course for students that helps develop greater competence in examining texts in order to write and speak in a more sophisticated manner. Focuses on composing summaries and descriptions, constructing arguments, and analyzing different types of writing to produce thoughtful compositions and textual analyses. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

FREN 110a Cultural Representations
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Examines how alienation, which is often understood as exemplifying western modernity, manifests itself in literary works and films from throughout the Francophone world and French history. We will look at authors such as Assia Djebar, Cheikh Hamidou Kane, Mohammed Dib, Albert Camus, Joachim Du Bellay, Pierre Corneille, and Molière. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Randall

FREN 111a The Republic
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
The "Republic" analyzes how the republican ideal of the citizen devoid of religious, ethnic, or gender identity has fared in different Francophone political milieux. Course involves understanding how political institutions such as constitutions, parliaments, and court systems interact with reality of modern societies in which religious, ethnic, and gender identities play important roles. Usually offered every year.
Mr. Randall

FREN 113a Great French Novels
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Power, passion, and creativity in the French novel. Major novels of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Balzac, Stendhal, George Sand, Flaubert, Zola, and Proust reflect France's social and political upheavals. Topics include psychological analysis, revolution and class conflicts, male and female relationships, and the creative process. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Kaplan

FREN 114b Quest for the Absolute
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Imagination, the drug experience, even madness can convey absolute meaning. We read creative journeys in prose and poetry by Balzac, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Maria Krysinska, Senghor, Bonnefoy to explore topics of good and evil; racial and gender identity; love and intimacy; spiritual faith. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Kaplan

FREN 122b The Renaissance: When France Became France
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
At a moment when the modern nation-state is perhaps coming to an end in supranational institutions like the European Union, it is important to look at how that nation-state came into being in the sixteenth century. During a time of both political and religious turmoil and intense artistic creation, writers of the Renaissance created works that helped define us as both public and private individuals. Works studied include Rabelais' Gargantua, Montaigne's Essays, Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron, as well as the poetry of Ronsard, du Bellay, and Louise Labé. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Randall

FREN 131a Orientalism and Literature
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
An examination of how French literature has often represented the "Orient" or "the East," in particular North Africa, parts of the Middle East and Southeast Asia, as its opposite, its imaginary "other." Will also look at how some twentieth-century writers of North-African backgrounds have reacted to these misrepresentations. The course includes paintings, film, and readings in many different genres (novels, travel literature, etc.). Usually offered every fourth year.
Ms. Voiret

FREN 134b Masculine/Feminine
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Examines diverse representations of masculinity and femininity in French literature with special focus on historical and cultural aspects. Readings include: Racine, Andromaque; Rousseau, Emile; Stendahl, Le Rouge et le Noir; Duras, L'Amant; and articles from Beauvoir and Badinter. Usually offered every fourth year.
Ms. Voiret

FREN 135a Rebellion Against Romanticism
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Liberation and selfhood in nineteenth-century France: short stories, novels, poetry, and theater. Topics include love and intimacy, the struggle for identity, gender roles, myth and folklore, religion and secularization. Authors may include Lamartine, Hugo, Desbordes-Valmore, Musset, Nerval, Sand, and Balzac. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Kaplan

FREN 136b Necessity and Freedom in French Literature
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Explores the relationship of necessity and human freedom in French literary texts and film. We will especially be interested in how individuals express their freedom in face of what often seems an implacable necessity. Authors studied include Pascal, Guillaume de Lorris, Sartre, Camus, Racine and Corneille as well as the filmmaker, Eric Rohmer. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Randall

FREN 137a Literary Responses to Mass Violence
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Studies writers’ responses to humanitarian and political crises of the past hundred years, e.g., Camus’ La peste, Duras’ Hiroshima mon amour, Beckett’s Catastrophe, Diop’s Murambi, Sijie’s Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise, and Laferrière’s Tout bouge autour de moi. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Hale

FREN 139a Bad Girls / Les Mauvaises Filles
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Through a selection of literary texts, images and films, students will explore how artistic works from the Middle Ages to present day depict female figures in the French and Francophone world who have failed to conform to expectations of their gender. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Harder

FREN 141b Introduction to French Cinema: un certain regard
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisites: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Introduces students to the major trends in French cinema since the forties (New Wave, "cinema du Look," feminist cinema, cartoons, "comédie à la française," beur cinema, etc.) Students will learn the critical vocabulary necessary to describe the formal aspects of film and to analyze films from a variety of theoretical approaches. Films will also be viewed as cultural products influenced by their social, political contexts and their modes of production and diffusion ("l'exception française.") Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Voiret

FREN 142b City and the Book
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Analyzes the symbolic appearance of the city in French literature and film from the Middle Ages to the present day. The representation of the city in literature and film is contextualized in theoretical writings of urbanists and philosophers. Literary texts include medieval fabliaux, Pantagruel (Rabelais) and Nana (Zola) as well as theoretical texts by Descartes, Ledoux, Le Corbusier, Salvador Dalí, and Paul Virillo. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Randall

FREN 143a Existentialism: Identity and Commitment
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Sartre and Camus are known as the founders of French existentialism, a philosophy of the absurd, loneliness, freedom, and responsibility. Novels, plays, and essays are read on moral commitment and on black, Jewish, female identities in light of war, colonialism, and the Holocaust. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Kaplan

FREN 145a Baudelaire and his World: Evil, Beauty, Finitude
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
The life and works of Baudelaire, germinal figure of a European literary and cultural revolution, including Les Fleurs du Mal, prose poems, and critical essays. Topics: sex and love, painting, music, laughter, the drug experience, good and evil, the city, and modernity. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Kaplan

FREN 146a Reading Versailles: Portrait, Space and Spectacle under the Sun King
[ fl hum ]
FREN 106b or equivalent or permission of the instructor.
Examines bodies of literature, visual arts, and courtiers at Versailles in the theatrical society of intrigue and exile under Louis XIV. Concentrates on how the texts, maps, and art of the palace fashion a global portrait of absolutism: the Sun King. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Theobald

FREN 147a Jewish Identities in France since 1945
[ fl hum wi ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
After the Holocaust, French thinkers such as Sartre, Levinas, and Memmi provided a foundation for reconstructing Jewish life. Topics include assimilation, Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews, Muslim, black, and Jewish identity, the role of women, secularism, ethics, and religious faith. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Kaplan

FREN 150a Images of the Immigrant in French Media, Literature, and Films
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Examines how the image of the immigrant in modern French both reinforces and challenges popular cliches. We will look at how news reports, books, and films from the French-speaking world help shape our understanding of immigration. Special one-time offering, spring 2013.
Ms. Donovan

FREN 155b Contemporary Theater: Literature or Performance?
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Reading and in-class performance of plays ranging from Jarry’s Ubu roi and Beckett’s Godot to more traditional texts by Sartre and Giraudoux. Concludes with Yasmina Reza’s Le Dieu du carnage. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Hale

FREN 164a Haiti, Then and Now
[ fl hum nw ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Studies Haiti's cultural history through literature, music, painting, film, and journalism. Topics include: Haiti's first inhabitants, the Arawaks and Taino; slavery and colonialism; the world's first black republic; dictators and presidents; Creole and French; Catholicism and Vaudou; the island's ecology; the 2010 earthquake and international aid. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Hale

FREN 165b Subsaharan Africa and the French Language
[ fl hum nw ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Studies writing in French in Subsaharan Africa, with particular emphasis upon its cultural and historical contexts. Topics include Negritude, African languages, defining "tradition," oral and written literature, Islam, film, and gender. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Hale

FREN 186b Literature and Politics
[ fl hum ]
Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
We will be interested in how the literary is political and the political literary. We will organize the class around the relationship of the individual and the community. Texts include: Montaigne’s Essais, Corneille’s Horace, Genet’s Les nègres, Arendt’s What is Politics?, Dumont’s Essays on Individualism, Fanon’s Peau noire, masques blancs. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Randall

Cross-Listed in French

COML 115b Fictions of Liberty: Europe in a Revolutionary Age
[ hum ]
The "Age of Enlightenment" fostered new notions of human rights that found their tumultuous proving ground in the French Revolution. Through writings from several genres and nations, this course explores some of the political, economic, religious, racial, and sexual "fictions of liberty" that have shaped our own time. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Lanser

COML 166b Literacy, Language and Culture
[ hum nw ]
Examines contemporary cross-cultural literary representations of the relationships among languages and cultures. We will read texts such as Hoffman's Lost in Translation, Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions, and Ngugi's Decolonising the Mind as well as poetry and essays from Haiti, French Guyana, the Navajo Nation and a variety of immigrant communities in the US. Questions we will consider include: Does language carry culture? When is language an instrument of power? What's the difference between learning to speak and/or write a particular language? What happens when children must learn a new language when they enter school? Students will share their own richly diverse linguistic experiences. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Hale

ECS 100a European Cultural Studies Proseminar: Modernism
[ hum wi ]
Explores the interrelationship of literature, music, painting, philosophy, and other arts in the era of high modernism. Works by Artaud, Baudelaire, Benjamin, Mann, Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Kandinsky, Schiele, Beckett, Brecht, Adorno, Sartre, Heidegger, and others. Usually offered every fall semester.
Mr. Dowden

ECS 100b European Cultural Studies Proseminar: Making of European Modernity
[ hum wi ]
Investigates how the paradigm of what we know as modernity came into being. We will look at the works of writers and philosophers such as Descartes, Aquinas, Dante, Ockham, Petrarch, Ficino, Rabelais, and Montaigne. Artwork from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance will be used to understand better what "the modern" means. Usually offered every spring semester.
Mr. Randall

FA 155a Impressionism: Avant-Garde Rebellion in Context
[ ca wi ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took FA 171a in prior years.
Focuses on the major artists from the period 1863 - 1886, from the time of Manet and the Salon des Refusés through the eight group exhibitions of Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, Pissarro, Morisot, and Cassatt and company. The antithesis of impressionism, its academic rivals, the backdrop of the sociopolitical context, the Second Empire, and the Third Republic will be provided, as well as the roots of the movement's dissolution. Usually offered every third year.
Ms. Scott

FA 156b Postimpressionism and Symbolism, 1880-1910
[ ca wi ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took FA 174b in prior years.
The course curriculum covers postimpressionist artists Seurat, Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin, and more broadly, symbolist trends, expressionism, and art nouveau at the end of the nineteenth century. These trends are followed through chronologically to the early twentieth century in the art of Matisse and the fauves, and in German expressionism. Usually offered every fourth year.
Ms. Scott

FA 158b Picasso and Matisse
[ ca ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took FA 173b in prior years.
Examines the major contributions of all periods of Picasso's career, with special focus on the development of Cubism, counterbalanced with the color expression of Matisse and the Fauves. The larger circle of artists, poets, and patrons associated with both these masters--from Juan Gris, Fernand Leger, and especially Georges Braque, to Gertrude Stein and Guillaume Apollinaire--forms the core subject matter. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Scott

HIST 145b Introduction to Modern France
[ ss wi ]
Explores French politics and society from 1789 to the present. Emphasis on the shocks from which it has had to recover, including revolutions, wars, and foreign occupation, the implantation of stable institutions, and the continuing role of intellectuals in French society. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Jankowski

HIST 192b Romantic and Existentialist Political Thought
[ ss ]
Readings from Camus, Sartre, Beckett, and others. Examination and criticism of romantic and existentialist theories of politics. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Hulliung

LING 112b Sociolinguistics: Language Variation and Change
[ ss ]
Open to first-year students.
Introduces language variation and change, encompassing historical linguistics (how languages change over time), dialectology (regional variation in language), and sociolinguistics (relationships between language and society). Explores how factors like age, gender, and social class influence human behavior and social organization. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

PHIL 177b Simone Weil
[ hum ]
Studies the French philosopher Simone Weil, revolutionary and mystic. Is divine perfection reconcilable with human suffering? Weil shook the foundations of Christianity and Judaism attempting to answer this question and this course will rejoin her quest. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Yourgrau