(file last updated: [8/10/1998 - 15:23:29])
Concentrating in a foreignliterature opens the mind, the imagination, the sensibility tothe fullness of life's possibilities. It furthers the potentialfor wider linguistic expression and teaches us to recognize, respect,and appreciate the value of diversity. It is useful for graduateschool, diplomacy, journalism, business opportunities, and theenjoyment of the myriad forms of cultural expression. We can therebylearn to express ourselves more cogently, expand our horizons,and pursue a variety of professions by majoring in one of therichest of the world's traditions: French.
Students considering a Frenchconcentration should complete the language requirement as soonas possible, preferably by the end of their freshman year at Brandeis.They are then normally advised to take FREN 104a or FREN 105a,106b, and 110a before beginning the sequence of advanced courses(120 and beyond). Please note: many French concentrators and minorschoose to study in France for all or part of their junior year.Students interested in learning more about the concentration orminor are encouraged to speak with the undergraduate advisinghead in French.
See Romance and ComparativeLiterature.
The concentration consistsof nine semester courses:
A. FREN106b (Advanced French Composition).
B.Three of the following early period courses: FREN 120a, 122b,130a, 132b.
C.Four additional French courses numbered above 106, however ECS100a, the Proseminar, may be one of those electives.
D.Either FREN 97a or b (Senior Essay), or FREN 99d (Senior Thesis--afull-year course). Candidates for departmental honors must havea 3.50 GPA in French courses previous to the senior year and mustenroll in FREN 99d. Honors are awarded on the basis of cumulativeexcellence in all courses taken in the concentration, includingthe senior thesis.
E.Junior and senior concentrators may apply for admission into graduateseminars of the Interdisciplinary Program in Literary Studiesby permission of the instructor and the undergraduate advisinghead in French.
Students may petition the advisinghead for changes in the above program. Students wishing credittoward the French concentration for French courses crosslistedunder European Cultural Studies will be required to do all thereading and writing assignments in French. (The abbreviation FECSdenotes French and European Cultural Studies courses.)
A.FREN 106b (Advanced French Composition).
B.FREN 110a (Introduction to French Literature).
C.Three additional courses in French numbered above 100. One ofthese may be a course conducted in English, provided that allthe reading and writing assignments are completed in French.
All students pursuing a Frenchminor will be assigned an advisor in the department. Enrollmentin the French minor must be completed by the end of the fall semesterof the senior year.
Students interested in Frenchmay wish to participate in Clusters 3 (Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism),9 (The Enlightenment), 23 (Modern French Culture), 26 (Modernism),30 (The Renaissance), 39 (The Birth of Europe), or 43 (Romanticism).
All courses are conducted inFrench unless otherwise noted.
A student may take at mosttwo 30-level French courses for credit with permission of theLanguage Coordinator.
FREN 10a Beginning French
Enrollment limited to 18per section.
For students who have had noprevious study of French. A systematic presentation of the basicgrammar and vocabulary of the language within the context of Frenchand Francophone culture, with focus on all four language skills:listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Several sections willbe offered. Usually offered every year in the fall.
Staff
FREN 20b Continuing French
Prerequisite: FREN 10a orthe equivalent. Enrollment limited to 18 per section.
For students with some previousstudy of French. Continuing presentation of the basic grammarand vocabulary of the language within the context of French andFrancophone culture, and practice of the four language skills.Special attention to reading and writing skills, as well as guidedconversation. Several sections will be offered. Offered everysemester.
Staff
FREN 31a Intermediate French:Composition and Grammar
[ fl ]
Prerequisite: FREN 20b orthe equivalent. Enrollment limited to 18 per section.
This course focuses on thedevelopment of writing and grammatical skills in the context ofthe continuing development of linguistic competence in French.Usually offered every year.
Staff
FREN 32a Intermediate French:Conversation
[ fl ]
Prerequisite: FREN 20b orthe equivalent. Enrollment limited to 18 per section.
This course focuses on thedevelopment of oral expression and conversational skills in thecontext of continuing development of linguistic competence inFrench. Usually offered every year.
Staff
FREN 33a Intermediate French:Reading
[ fl ]
Prerequisite: FREN 20b orthe equivalent. Enrollment limited to 18 per section.
This course focuses on thedevelopment of reading skills in the context of the continuingdevelopment of linguistic competence in French. Usually offeredevery year.
Staff
FREN 34a Intermediate French:Topics in French Culture
[ fl ]
Prerequisite: FREN 20b orthe equivalent. Enrollment limited to 18 per section.
Topics or themes from French-speakingcultures are the context for continuing development of linguisticcompetence in French. Usually offered every year.
Staff
FREN 97a Senior Essay
Signatures of the instructorand the advising head of French required. Students should firstconsult the area head of the concentration.
Both FREN 97a and 97b offerstudents an opportunity to produce a senior essay under the directionof an individual instructor. Normally, students will enroll inFREN 97a in the fall. Only under exceptional circumstances willa student enroll in FREN 97b in the spring. Offered every fall.
Staff
FREN 97b Senior Essay
Signatures of the instructorand the advising head of French required. Students should firstconsult the area head of the concentration.
See FREN 97a for course description.Offered as needed.
Staff
FREN 98a Independent Study
May be taken only with thewritten permission of the advising head of the concentration andthe chair of the department. Signatures of the instructor andthe chair of the department required.
Reading and reports under facultysupervision. Offered as needed.
Staff
FREN 98b Independent Study
May be taken only with thewritten permission of the advising head of the concentration andthe chair of the department. Signatures of the instructor andthe chair of the department required.
Reading and reports under facultysupervision. Offered as needed.
Staff
FREN 99d Senior Thesis
Signatures of the instructorand the advising head of French required. Students should firstconsult the area head of the concentration.
Usually offered every year.
Staff
The abbreviation FECS denotesFrench and European Cultural Studies courses.
FREN 104a Advanced LanguageSkills
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: 30-level Frenchcourse or the equivalent. Enrollment limited to 15. May be repeatedfor credit with special permission.
Provides additional languagepractice at the advanced level through courses that focus on linguisticskills. Skills courses may include such offerings as French Pronunciation,Stylistics, or Advanced Grammar. Given the considerable languagebackground of students at this level, these courses provide moresystematic generalizations, as well as tackle some of the morecomplex linguistic topics. These courses provide essential preparationfor students wishing to advance to the major or minor. Usuallyoffered every year.
Ms. Cregg
FREN 104b Advanced LanguageSkills Through Culture
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: 30-level Frenchcourse or the equivalent. Enrollment limited to 15. May be repeatedfor credit with special permission.
Provides additional languagepractice at the advanced level through courses that focus on content.Content courses at this level may include such offerings as FrenchHistory Through Film, or French Impressionism. These courses exploretopics in greater depth, practicing language in a more rigorousintellectual framework. These courses provide essential preparationfor students wishing to advance to the major or minor. The topicfor 1998-99 is Impressionism. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Harder
FREN 105a French Conversationand Grammar
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, or the permission of the instructor.Enrollment limited to 18.
A study of oral and writtencommunication in French through class discussions, oral and writtenexercises, presentations, literary and cultural readings, films,and explorations of the media. Emphasizes grammar, vocabulary,and oral and written fluency. Usually offered every semester.
Staff
FREN 106b Advanced FrenchComposition
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.Enrollment limited to 18.
An intense study of writtenFrench. A wide range of texts--newspaper and magazine articles,movie scripts, modern and classical prose--will serve as a basisfor developing and improving writing skills. Usually offered everysemester.
Staff
FREN 110a Introduction toFrench Literature
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.Enrollment limited to 18.
An introduction to French literaturefrom the 16th century to the present. Some Francophone texts included.Usually offered every year.
Staff
FREN 120a The French MiddleAges
[ cl39 hum]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
The Middle Ages was a timeof contrast, obsessed with love of God and the carnal functionsof the body. This course will investigate the dual character ofmedieval literature, looking at the powers of "le rire"and of "le sérieux." Literary forms studied willinclude plays, fabliaux, lais, chansons, ballades,and romances. Usually offered in even years.
Mr. Randall
FREN 122b The Renaissance
[ cl30 hum]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
The literature of the 16thcentury was erotic, tragic, and comic. This class will read thelove poetry of writers such as Louise Labé and JoachimDu Bellay, the darkly comic novels of François Rabelais,the essays of Montaigne, and the baroque and polemical works ofAgrippa d'Aubigné. It will also analyze issues of basicinterest in the Renaissance such as Neoplatonism, the Reformation,and the "Querelle des femmes." Usually offered in oddyears.
Mr. Randall
FREN 130a The SeventeenthCentury
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
The Age of Louis XIV. Topicsinclude: writers and artists of the city and the court; womenand salons; women and the novel; the comedy of Molière;formalism and tragedy; religious fervor and the dawn of scientificreason. Usually offered every third year. Last offered in thespring of 1993.
Ms. Harth
FREN 132b The French Enlightenment
[ cl9 hum]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
The origins of Romanticismand Realism; modern notions of tolerance, the pursuit of happiness,feminism; conflicts between primitivism and progress, rationalismand experience, secular humanism and religious morality. Usuallyoffered in odd years.
Mr. Gendzier
FECS 134a Women and Moralistsin the Ancien Régime
[ hum ]
Open to all students. Conductedin English with readings in English translation.
Examines women's part in changingthe literary, artistic, intellectual, and political culture ofthe 17th- and 18th-century French monarchy. Topics include: salonsand social mobility, learned ladies and renegade nuns, scienceand morality, and subverting authority. Usually offered in evenyears. Will be offered in the spring of 1999.
Ms. Harth
FREN 135a The NineteenthCentury
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Romanticism in poetry, theatre,and utopian, realistic, and naturalistic fiction. Major authors:Lamartine, Hugo, Desbordes-Valmore, Musset, Balzac, Sand, Stendhal,Flaubert, and Zola. Topics include: social intrigue and politicalpower, religion and secularization, love, ambition, personal identity,and the liberation of women. Usually offered in even years.
Mr. Kaplan
FREN 137a The TwentiethCentury
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Major prose and drama of the20th century. Topics may include: the breakdown of genres; languageand its limits; the absurd; questions of personal, national, andethnic identity; rewriting the classics. Usually offered in evenyears.
Ms. Hale
FREN 145a Topics in FrenchFiction
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.Signature of the instructor required. May be repeated for creditwith special permission.
Major novels of the 19th and20th centuries by Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, George Sand, Zola,and Proust reflect France's social upheavals. Topics include:psychological analysis, political intrigue and revolution, powerand money, male and female identities, ambition and love, goodand evil. Usually offered in even years.
Mr. Kaplan
FREN 150b Topics in FrenchPoetry
[ wi hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, FREN 110a, or permission of theinstructor. Signature of the instructor required. May be repeatedfor credit with special permission.
Introduces 19th and 20th centurypoetry beginning with Baudelaire's rebellion against Romanticism.Selected (verse and prose) by Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé,Apollinaire, Eluard, Ponge, Jabès, and Bonnefoy. No previousexperience with poetry is necessary. Topics include: Symbolism,Surrealism, poetry and ethics. Usually offered every third year.Last offered in the fall of 1995.
Mr. Kaplan
FREN 155b Topics in FrenchDrama
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.Signature of the instructor required. May be repeated for creditwith special permission.
Topics may include: Greek mythin French drama; theater of the revolution; comedy and tragedy;Romantic drama; melodrama; farce; the theater of the absurd; Africanand Caribbean drama; French classical theater. Usually offeredin even years.
Ms. Hale
FECS 157a Topics in FrenchFilm
(Formerly FECS 184a)
[ cl13 cl23cl26 hum ]
Open to all students. Conductedin English with readings in English translation. Signature ofthe instructor required. May be repeated for credit with specialpermission.
Topics may include: Méliès,the Lumière brothers, and the early years; politics inthe cinema; films of the Occupation and the Resistance; womendirectors; the Cahiers du Cinéma group; the NouvelleVague; France and (versus?) Hollywood. Usually offered every thirdyear. Last offered in the spring of 1996.
Ms. Harth
FREN 165b Topics in FrancophoneLiteratures
(Formerly FREN 180b)
[ cl3 cl23nw wi hum ]
Prerequisite: A 30-levelFrench course or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.Signature of the instructor is required. May be repeated for creditwith special permission.
An introductory survey of thepoetry, prose, and drama of Francophone writers of Africa or theCaribbean (in alternating sequence). Topics include Négritude,French and African languages, tradition and change, oral and writtenliterature, Islam, the influence of film, the role of women Francophonewriters. Usually offered in even years.
Ms. Hale
FECS 170b History of FrenchCulture
[ cl23 hum]
Open to all students. Conductedin English with readings in English translation.
We shall illuminate the relationshipbetween the moralist tradition and the daily lives of four representativeauthors. We shall locate the writers in their periods, outlinetheir cultural and social frameworks, and try to understand theirviews of life and death, passion and reason, pleasure and pain.Usually offered in odd years.
Mr. Gendzier
FECS 174b Contemporary FrenchCivilization
[ cl23 hum]
Open to all students. Conductedin English with readings in English translation.
Utilizes the notion of LaVie Quotidienne, the organizing principle of Daily Life History,a school founded by Block and Febre that has continued to be influentialto the present day. Sources include the world of ideas as expressedin letters, movies, theater, painting, food, and wine. We considerthe current status of political and literary theories, architecturalinnovations, and feminist criticism. These serve as pathways intothe French mentality and French culture. Usually offered in evenyears.
Mr. Gendzier
FECS 182b French Literatureand Painting
[ cl23 cl26hum ]
Open to all students. Conductedin English with readings in English translation.
Explores the interrelationsbetween French painting and literature through selected textsand corresponding visual images of the 19th and 20th centuries.Topics include Romanticism, Realism, Symbolism, Surrealism, Cubism.Usually offered every third year. Last offered in the fall of1993.
Ms. Hale
FREN 186b French Literatureand Politics
[ hum ]
A historical analysis of thedevelopment of political theory and literature. We analyze howa literary work relates to the political culture in which it wasproduced. Special attention is paid to how "holistic"forms of government develop into more "individualistic"ones. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Randall
FREN 190b Advanced Seminar
[ hum ]
Signature of the instructorrequired. May be repeated for credit with special permission.
An undergraduate seminar, opento concentrators and minors, that will analyze writers, movements,and the cultural and social background of various periods. Topicswill vary from year to year. Qualified nonconcentrators admittedwith the permission of the instructor. Usually offered in evenyears.
Staff
European Cultural Studies:The Proseminar