(1-99) Primarily for Undergraduate Students

FREN 10a Beginning French

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.

Learners discover the basics of French language and culture while speaking, listening, reading, and writing about everyday situations in French and Francophone countries. Usually offered every semester.

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.

Learners will deepen their knowledge of French and Francophone cultures while expanding their ability to speak, read, listen, and write in French. Usually offered every semester.

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.

Exploring social “controversies” related to, for example, gender identity and Smartphone addiction, this course focuses on essential communication skills such as comprehension, contemporary vocabulary use, and conversational practice. Our materials include videos, music, websites, articles, and short stories, with an emphasis on Haitian culture in the final unit. Usually offered every semester.

FREN 92a Internship

May be taken with the written permission of the Undergraduate Advising Head.

A combined 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.

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.

FREN 98a Independent Study

May be taken only with the written permission of the Undergraduate Advising Head.
Reading and written analyses under faculty supervision. Offered as needed.

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.

(100-199) For Both Undergraduate and Graduate Students

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 advance their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills, while focusing on key elements of French and Francophone cultures. Through the study of films, comics, current events, and cultural comparisons, we explore the ways in which French speakers’ perceptions of time and space differ from our own. We also examine issues of globalization in the francophone world. Usually offered every semester.

FREN 105a The Francophone World Today: Advanced Language Skills through Culture II
[ fl hum ]

Prerequisite: 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 want to improve their speaking skills while learning about and discussing socio-cultural issues that distinguish the French view of the world from that of Americans. Students will focus on expressing themselves better orally while continuing their work on reading, listening, and writing as they explore current topics of debate like slang usage and immigration. Usually offered every semester.

FREN 106b Writing Workshop
[ dl fl hum wi ]

Prerequisite: 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.

Innovative strategies and digital resources enable students to improve their descriptive and analytical writing and speaking skills. Students examine different types of texts (including films, photographs, and AI-generated images), exploring their style, determining their authority and creativity, and understanding how words and images move and manipulate readers and viewers. Usually offered every semester.

FREN 110a Cultural Representations
[ fl hum oc ]

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.

FREN 111a The Republic
[ fl hum oc ]

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.

FREN 112b Anti-Semitism in France from the 1789 Revolution to Today
[ djw fl hum oc ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106, or an equivalent course.

Examines how manifestations of anti-Semitism, which concern religious differences as well as economic, social, cultural, and political differences, first appeared in France and have changed in form and context from the 1789 Revolution to today. After contextualizing the notion of anti-Semitism in contemporary France after October 7, 2023, we will focus on three turning points in the history of anti-Semitism ion France: the Revolutionary period when Jews were granted full citizenship rights, the Dreyfus Affair when the place of Jews in the Republic was called into question, and the consequences of the Vichy regime in anti-Semitism in France today. Usually offered every third year.

FREN 113a Myth and Migration in Francophone North America
[ djw hum ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b.

Examines the linguistic and geographic ebb and flow between New England and francophone Canada, the multiple pressures on Native American societies, and the rich representations—particularly certain “myth cycles”—that arise from those interactions over time. Tracing the establishment of New France, subsequent waves of Catholic and Protestant immigrants (including the diaspora of Acadians), and indigenous displacement and resistance, the class will rely upon maps, stories, historical objects, memoirs, poems, films, and pictures to flesh out the complexities of anglophone, francophone, and autochtone co-existence. Usually offered every third year.

FREN 122b Toads, Salamanders, and Sonnets: Art, Power, and Identity in the French Renaissance
[ fl hum wi ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

This class will look at how forms of cultural expression--from architecture to sonnets and odes--were used to create a sense of national and personal identity in the French Renaissance. We will look at how the poems, novellas, and essays of authors such as Joachim Du Bellay, Pierre de Ronsard, Marguerite de Navarre, Louise Labé, and Michel de Montaigne, the paintings and sculptures of artists like François Clouet and Francesco Primaticcio, and the buildings of architects like Philibert Delorme, were used to produce new forms of national and personal identity in the 16th century. We will also refer to modern authors such as Edouard Glissant to help us understand these developments from a modern point of view. Usually offered every second year.

FREN 125b Mediterranean Crossings
[ fl hum ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Navigating French and Francophone literature and film, we will explore the Mediterranean as a transnational space of multiple circulations, migrations, and cultural crossings in works by Lebanese, Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian, Greek, Romanian, and French writers and filmmakers. Usually offered every third year.

FREN 126b La place de la nature dans le monde culturel francophone
[ fl hum ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b.

Invites students to examine interactions between humans and the environment in texts and images created in Francophone cultures (France, Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Algeria, Morocco, Quebec, and the fictional nation of the Democratic Republic of Coto [based on the Democratic Republic of the Congo]). Students will discover key notions that have shaped ideas about nature in the Francophone world. By engaging with literary texts, films, and visual arts, they will trace, interpret, and evaluate the rapport between humans in Francophone areas and the natural world from the sixteenth century (when the French nation was established) to the present day. Usually offered every third year.

FREN 129a La Révolution tranquille?: Québec's Culture Wars on Stage and Screen
[ fl hum ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Considers the plays and films of the last sixty years that have probed the tensions at the heart of québécois culture to provide a violent counterpart to the sexual, political, and generational "Révolution tranquille" of the 1960's and 1970's. Usually offered every third year.

FREN 139a Bad Girls and Boys: Du mauvais genre
[ fl hum ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Through a selection of literary texts, articles, images and films, students will explore how works from the Middle Ages to present day depict male and female figures in the French and Francophone world who have failed to conform to expectations of their gender. Usually offered every second year.

FREN 141b Introduction to French and Francophone Cinema: un certain regard
[ fl hum ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Introduces students to the major trends in French and Francophone cinema from the postwar period to the present. The course will include a discussion of major works of cinema from a variety of genres, including comedy, documentary, social realism, historical drama, and autobiography. Each work will be studied through formal analysis, different theoretical lenses, and in the context of major historical and artistic turning points. Topics of discussion will include student protest movements, class struggle, and decolonization, as well as the issues of pressing concern today, such as immigration and social, political, and environmental inequality. Usually offered every third year.

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.

FREN 146a Picturing Versailles: Portrait, Space and Spectacle under the Sun King
[ fl hum ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the 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 third year.

FREN 149b Le Livre Illustré: Word and Image in Francophone Texts from Bestiaries to Bandes Dessinées
[ fl hum wi ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Explores the theories and practices of text-image interactions in illustrated francophone books of the past and present by addressing themes such as learning, travel, sentimentality, pornography, politics, and humor. This course will include archival work in the Brandeis library. Usually offered every third year.

FREN 150b French Detective Novels: Major Questions for a Minor Genre?
[ fl hum ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Examines how French and Francophone detective novels take on big questions such as the origin of evil and how do you know what you know. Authors include Fred Vargas, Simenon, Driss Chraibi, Moussa Konate. Usually offered every second year.

FREN 151b Francophone Identities in a Global World: An Introduction to Francophone Literature
[ fl hum wi ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Introduces Francophone literature and film, retracing, through the works of great contemporary Francophone writers and directors, the evolution of the Francophone world, from the colonial struggles to the transcultural and transnational trajectories of our global era. Usually offered every second year.

FREN 153a Food and Identity in the French and Francophone World
[ fl hum ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Why in France is food so intertwined with national identity? This course apprehends French and Francophone culture by thinking with food - its connections with identity, power, gender, social distinction and aesthetics. Foodwriting, films, literary texts, articles by major cultural historians are studied. Usually offered every third year.

FREN 159b Wordplay: Humor in Francophone Texts
[ fl hum wi ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Students will analyze the forms and functions of humor in francophone texts (French, Canadian, and Caribbean) from the Middle Ages to the present day. Course themes will include farce, comedy of manners, wordplay, and satire. The course will include archival work. Usually offered every third year.

FREN 161a The Enigma of Being Oneself: From Du Bellay to Laferrière
[ djw fl hum wi ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Explores the relationship of identity formation and modern individualism in texts by writers working in France, Francophone Africa and Canada. Authors range from modern and contemporary writers Sarah Kofman, Dany Laferrière, Achille Mbembe, Alain Mabanckou, and Edouard Glissant to early-modern writers like Joachim Du Bellay and Michel de Montaigne. Usually offered every year.

FREN 162b From Les Confessions to Instagram: Self-Writing in Contemporary French and Francophone Literature
[ fl hum wi ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106b or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Through the works of major writers, the main goal of the course will be to study the many variations of autobiographical writing that characterize contemporary French and Francophone literature, and to relate them to the renewed exploration of the post-modern subject. We will examine along the way how the self relates to the others, how it engages with filiation, memory and history - (especially World War II and the Franco-Algerian War) - and we will put an emphasis on the notions of self-fashioning and performance. Usually offered every second year.

FREN 186b Literature and Politics
[ fl hum wi ]

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.

FREN Digital Literacy

FREN 106b Writing Workshop
[ dl fl hum wi ]

Prerequisite: 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.

Innovative strategies and digital resources enable students to improve their descriptive and analytical writing and speaking skills. Students examine different types of texts (including films, photographs, and AI-generated images), exploring their style, determining their authority and creativity, and understanding how words and images move and manipulate readers and viewers. Usually offered every semester.

FREN Oral Communication

FREN 110a Cultural Representations
[ fl hum oc ]

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.

FREN 111a The Republic
[ fl hum oc ]

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.

FREN 112b Anti-Semitism in France from the 1789 Revolution to Today
[ djw fl hum oc ]

Prerequisite: FREN 106, or an equivalent course.

Examines how manifestations of anti-Semitism, which concern religious differences as well as economic, social, cultural, and political differences, first appeared in France and have changed in form and context from the 1789 Revolution to today. After contextualizing the notion of anti-Semitism in contemporary France after October 7, 2023, we will focus on three turning points in the history of anti-Semitism ion France: the Revolutionary period when Jews were granted full citizenship rights, the Dreyfus Affair when the place of Jews in the Republic was called into question, and the consequences of the Vichy regime in anti-Semitism in France today. Usually offered every third year.

FREN Writing Intensive