University Bulletin (2009-2010)

FREN 10a Beginning French
Prerequisite: Students enrolling for the first time in a French course at Brandeis must take the online placement exam at www.brandeis.edu/registrar/frentest.html. Students must earn a C- or higher in FREN 10a in order to enroll in a 20-level French course.
For students with no previous knowledge of French and those with a minimal background. 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 course at Brandeis must take the online placement exam at www.brandeis.edu/registrar/frentest.html. Students must earn a C- or higher in FREN 20b in order to enroll in a 30-level French course.
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
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Prerequisite: A grade of C- or higher in FREN 20b or the equivalent. Students enrolling for the first time in a French course at Brandeis must take the online placement exam at www.brandeis.edu/registrar/frentest.html. Students must earn a C- or higher in FREN 32a in order to enroll in a 100-level French course.
Focuses on improving the speaking ability of students who wish to develop greater fluency in conversation while discussing contemporary French and Francophone cultures. Students continue to improve their skills in listening, comprehension, reading, and writing. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FREN 33a Intermediate French: Reading
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Prerequisite: A grade of C- or higher in FREN 20b or the equivalent. Students enrolling for the first time in a French course at Brandeis must take the online placement exam at www.brandeis.edu/registrar/frentest.html. Students must earn a C- or higher in FREN 33a in order to enroll in a 100-level French course.
Focuses on improving the reading ability of students who wish to develop greater competence in reading comprehension. Selections from modern literature, political essays, and newspaper articles, and so on form the basis for examining various topics in French and Francophone cultures. Students continue to improve their skills in listening comprehension, speaking, and writing. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FREN 34a Intermediate French: Topics in French and Francophone Cultures
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Prerequisite: A grade of C- or higher in FREN 20b or the equivalent. Students enrolling for the first time in a French course at Brandeis must take the online placement exam at www.brandeis.edu/registrar/frentest.html. Students must earn a C- or higher in FREN 34a in order to enroll in a 100-level French course.
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 97a Senior Essay
Students should consult the undergraduate advising head before enrolling.
FREN 97a offers students 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 and the chair of the department.
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 and the chair of the department.
Reading and reports under faculty supervision. Offered as needed.
Staff

FREN 99b Senior Thesis
Students should consult the undergraduate advising head before enrolling.
Usually offered every year.
Staff

All courses are conducted in French unless otherwise noted. The abbreviation FECS denotes French and European Cultural Studies courses, which are taught in English.

FECS 147a Jewish Identities in France since 1945
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Open to all students. Conducted in English with readings in English translation with French originals available.
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 104b Advanced Language Skills through Culture
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Prerequisite: A 30-level French course or the equivalent.
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, or understanding contemporary France. Reinforces the acquired skills of speaking, listening, comprehension, reading, and writing. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FREN 105a France Today: French Conversation
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Prerequisite: A 30-level French course or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
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 texts and films assist in vocabulary building. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

FREN 106b The Art of Composition
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Prerequisite: FREN 104b or FREN 105a or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
For students who want to improve their knowledge of written French and develop greater competence in examining and interpreting texts in order to better understand how to think à la française. Focuses on writing résumés, analyzing récits and portraits, and composing explications de texte and dissertations. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

FREN 110a Cultural Representations
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Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
A foundation course in French and Francophone culture, analyzing texts and other cultural phenomena such as film, painting, music, and politics. Usually offered every year.
Staff

FREN 111a The Republic
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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 constititutions, 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 French Fiction
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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
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Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor. Readings, discussions, and papers in French, with some translation.
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 120a The French Middle Ages: Before France Was France
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Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Before the creation of the French nation-state in the sixteenth century, what we know as France today was a tapestry of feudal and postfeudal states. The strangeness of this culture can confound modern understanding as much as many foreign cultures. Studies works such as eleventh-century hagiographies, Le Roman de la Rose, the knightly romances of Chrétien de Troyes, as well as the poetry of the troubadours, Christine de Pizan, and François Villon. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Randall

FREN 122b The Renaissance: When France Became France
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Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
The creation of the modern nation-state in the sixteenth century was inextricably linked to the literature and art of the period. The defense of French language and culture was the battle cry of the cultural vanguard of the Renaissance. The political and religious turmoil of the period is matched only by the intensity and beauty of its artistic creations. Works studied include Rabelais's 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 130a The Seventeenth Century: Reason and Passion
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Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Heart and mind in French Classicism. The combat of passion and reason in seventeenth-century masterpieces of comedy, tragedy, Pascal's Pensées, and the psychological novel La princesse de Clèves. Topics include the conflict of love and duty, social class, skepticism and religious faith, gender roles. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Kaplan

FREN 131a Orientalism and French Literature
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Prerequisite: FREN 106b. This course may not be taken for credit by student who took FREN 190b section 1 in fall 2006.
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 year.
Ms. Voiret

FREN 133b Visions of Change in Eighteenth-Century French Literature
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Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
An examination of how eighteenth-century French literature generated new frames of thinking and how these visions influenced contemporary values in such areas as religion, politics, society, education, and the family. Readings from Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Diderot. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Voiret

FREN 134b Masculine/Feminine in French Literature
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This course may not be repeated for credit by students who took FREN 190b 2 in fall 2006.
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, Badinter, and so on. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Voiret

FREN 135a The Nineteenth Century
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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 137a The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: Plague, War, and Human Power
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Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
Compares literary responses written in French to humanitarian and political crises of the last century to those written in response to today's crises. Authors may include Boris Diop, Giraudoux, Camus, Beckett, Sebbar, Sartre, and Sijie Dai. Usually offered every year.
Ms. Hale

FREN 142b City and the Book
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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 symbolic representation of the city in literature and film will be contextualized in theoretical writings by urbanists and philosophers. The symbolic and theoretical depictions of the city will be used to understand the culture in which they were produced. Usually offered every second year.
Mr. Randall

FREN 143a French Existentialism: An Introduction
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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 et son monde: Evil, Beauty, Finitude
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Prerequisite: FREN 110a or the equivalent.
The complete 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 155b French Drama of the Twentieth Century
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Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
A study of plays corresponding to the following movements, era, and styles: Jarry's Ubu Roi revolutionized what could happen on stage, announcing the absurdist theater of such authors as Ionesco, Genet, and Beckett. Sartre, Camus, and Yourcenar wrote neoclassical plays in the same years. Francophone theater in the Caribbean, Quebec, and Africa (Schwarz-Bart, Farhoud, Mbia) borrowed from and adapted aesthetic principles from the French dramatists to dramatize colonial and postcolonial experiences. Students may choose to perform a play as a final class project. Usually offered every fourth year.
Ms. Hale

FREN 164a Haiti, Then and Now
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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. Usually offered every second year.
Ms. Hale

FREN 165b Francophone Literatures and Cultures of Subsaharan Africa
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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 French Literature and Politics
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Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.
A historical analysis of the development of political theory and literature. The class analyzes how a literary work relates to the political culture in which it was produced. Usually offered every third year.
Mr. Randall

FREN 190b Advanced Seminar
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May be repeated for credit with permission. Refer to the University Writing section of this Bulletin for information regarding applicability to the writing-intensive requirement. Usually offered every fourth year.
Staff

HUM 125a Topics in the Humanities
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An interdisciplinary seminar on a topic of major significance in the humanities; the course content and instructor vary from year to year; may be repeated for credit, with instructor's permission. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

ECS 100a European Cultural Studies Proseminar: Modernism
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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
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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