Graduate Seminars
FREN 610a, Old French. R. Howard Bloch. W 3:30–5:20
An introduction to the historical grammar of Old French through reading, translation, and discussion of some of its major literary forms in prose and verse, including epic, romance, lai, and fabliau. We start with easier later prose work and move back in time to earlier verse. Weekly text readings and chapter study in our grammar book, in-class translation, discussion; final examination with a familiar passage, a sight passage, and a take-home essay. The course is conducted in French, though students who are not from the French department may translate into and speak English in class and on the final exam.
FREN 751a, Rousseau. Thomas Kavanagh. M 9:25-11:15
This seminar will examine the relation between Rousseau the writer and Rousseau the political philosopher -- between such works as La Nouvelle Héloïse, Les Confessions, Les Rêveries on the one hand and the two Discours, Emile, Du contrat social, and the Essai sur l'origine des langues on the other. We will look at various approaches (psychoanalytic, historical, semiological) to resolving this opposition while considering the major contemporary critical assessments of Rousseau (Starobinski, Derrida, de Man, etc.).
FREN 893a, Realism and Naturalism. Maurice Samuels. W 9:25-11:15
This seminar interrogates the nineteenth-century French Realist and Naturalist novel in light of various efforts to define its practice. How does critical theory constitute Realism as a category? How does Realism articulate the aims of theory? And how do nineteenth-century Realist and Naturalist novels intersect with other discourses besides the literary? In addition to several works by Balzac, novels to be studied include Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir; Sand’s Indiana; Flaubert’s Madame Bovary; and Zola’s Nana. Some attention also paid to Realist painting.
FREN 920a, Roland Barthes. Yue Zhuo. W 1:30-3:20
A study of Roland Barthes’ works in dialogue with the many postwar literary movements and critical trends with which he successively associated. How does the elasticity of Barthes as a thinker allow him to embrace and resist the theories of the time? The seminar will be organized around the following topics: semiology and social criticism, popular theater, Nouvelle critique, Nouveau roman, communities and utopia, autobiography, photography, desire for the Novel, and the “neutral.” Authors accompanying this intellectual trajectory include Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Brecht, Michelet, Genette, Robbe-Grillet, Sollers, Sade, Fourier, Goethe, Lacan and Blanchot.
FREN 949a, Novel, Film, and History in French Africa. Christopher L. Miller. Th 1:30-3:20
"African history as represented in historiography, novels, and films. Limited to French and Francophone Africa. Themes include: empire and epic; orality and literacy; the slave trade; contact, conquest, and resistance; the Congo Free State; the role of colonial intermediaries; the two world wars; decolonization and neocolonialism; and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Reading knowledge of French required."
FREN 610a, Old French. R. Howard Bloch. W 3:30–5:20
An introduction to the historical grammar of Old French through reading, translation, and discussion of some of its major literary forms in prose and verse, including epic, romance, lai, and fabliau. We start with easier later prose work and move back in time to earlier verse. Weekly text readings and chapter study in our grammar book, in-class translation, discussion; final examination with a familiar passage, a sight passage, and a take-home essay. The course is conducted in French, though students who are not from the French department may translate into and speak English in class and on the final exam.
FREN 751a, Rousseau. Thomas Kavanagh. M 9:25-11:15
This seminar will examine the relation between Rousseau the writer and Rousseau the political philosopher -- between such works as La Nouvelle Héloïse, Les Confessions, Les Rêveries on the one hand and the two Discours, Emile, Du contrat social, and the Essai sur l'origine des langues on the other. We will look at various approaches (psychoanalytic, historical, semiological) to resolving this opposition while considering the major contemporary critical assessments of Rousseau (Starobinski, Derrida, de Man, etc.).
FREN 893a, Realism and Naturalism. Maurice Samuels. W 9:25-11:15
This seminar interrogates the nineteenth-century French Realist and Naturalist novel in light of various efforts to define its practice. How does critical theory constitute Realism as a category? How does Realism articulate the aims of theory? And how do nineteenth-century Realist and Naturalist novels intersect with other discourses besides the literary? In addition to several works by Balzac, novels to be studied include Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir; Sand’s Indiana; Flaubert’s Madame Bovary; and Zola’s Nana. Some attention also paid to Realist painting.
FREN 920a, Roland Barthes. Yue Zhuo. W 1:30-3:20
A study of Roland Barthes’ works in dialogue with the many postwar literary movements and critical trends with which he successively associated. How does the elasticity of Barthes as a thinker allow him to embrace and resist the theories of the time? The seminar will be organized around the following topics: semiology and social criticism, popular theater, Nouvelle critique, Nouveau roman, communities and utopia, autobiography, photography, desire for the Novel, and the “neutral.” Authors accompanying this intellectual trajectory include Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Brecht, Michelet, Genette, Robbe-Grillet, Sollers, Sade, Fourier, Goethe, Lacan and Blanchot.
FREN 949a, Novel, Film, and History in French Africa. Christopher L. Miller. Th 1:30-3:20
"African history as represented in historiography, novels, and films. Limited to French and Francophone Africa. Themes include: empire and epic; orality and literacy; the slave trade; contact, conquest, and resistance; the Congo Free State; the role of colonial intermediaries; the two world wars; decolonization and neocolonialism; and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Reading knowledge of French required."
(Also AFAM 805a/AFST 949a/CPLT 987a)
FREN 820b, The Age of the Cathedral. R. Howard Bloch. W 3:30-5:20
A study of the culture and architectural monuments of the High Middle Ages with accompanying historical and literary works. Emphasis upon Saint-Denis, Notre-Dame, Chartres. Readings include Abelard, Suger, Rutebeuf, Saint Bernard, Joinville, Thibaut de Champagne, Guibert de Nogent, William of Saint-Thierry, Aelred of Rivaulx, the "Miracles de Notre Dame de Chartres," "La Queste del Saint Graal." Discussion of romanesque and gothic, the rise of communes, urban and economic renewal, intellectual life of twelfth- and thirteenth-century Paris, trades and guilds, the economics and industry of cathedral building, sculpture, and stained glass, Crusade against the Albigensians and in the Middle East, sainthood and kingship, expansion of the royal domain, the growth of the judicial state and parliament, monasticism, mysticism, relics, the ancillary architectural arts--tapestry and textiles, liturgical objects and garments, metalwork, woodwork, iron work, and the fate of such objects after the Revolution of 1789, restoration in the nineteenth century. (Also HSAR 576b/CPLT 733b)
FREN 823b, Poésie Lyrique à la Renaissance. Edwin Duval. F 1:30-3:30
An overview of lyric poetry as it evolved from the early sixteenth to the early seventeenth century, with an emphasis on close readings of representative poems. Works by Marot, Scève, Labé, Du Bellay, Ronsard, D’Aubigné, Malherbe, and Théophile de Viau.
FREN 921b, Writing Nation in Maghrebi Literature. Edwige Tamalet Talbayev. T 9:25-11:15
This seminar explores the intersections between literary writing and nation formation in the three countries of the Maghreb ( Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco) from the eve of independence to our global, transnational era. Themes include exile and cosmopolitanism, language, nationalism, memory, the relation to France, feminism, trauma and amnesia, terrorism. Readings from Dib, Feraoun, Kateb, Bekri, Amrouche, Djebar, Mokeddem, Cixous, Stora, Derrida, Fanon, Khatibi.
FREN 930b, Fact and Fiction in the Archives. Alice Kaplan. M 3:30-5:20
The turn to archival research in French literary studies; theoretical and personal essays on the archive (Derrida, Davis, Farge, Coeuré), and fiction that includes archival digging as part of a larger investment in memory. Focus on postwar literature and theory. Will include some practical work.
FREN 938b, l’Extrême Contemporain: Late 20 th Century Poetics. Jean-Jacques Poucel. W 1:30-3:20
A close study of Yves Bonnefoy, Michel Deguy, Emmanuel Hocquard, Francis Ponge, Denis Roche and Jacques Roubaud, based on selections of their poetry and theoretical writings. Emphasis on textual analysis, historicity of poetics, and modalities of reception. A sampling of younger poets will be interspersed into this initiation to contemporary poetics.
FREN 943b, Creole Identities and Fictions. Christopher L. Miller. Th 1:30-3:20
Focusing on the French and English Caribbean, this course analyzes the quintessential but ambiguous American condition: that of the “Creole.” Encompassing all non-native cultures, this term is inseparable from issues of race and slavery. Readings of historical and literary texts: Moreau de Saint-Méry, Bernardi n de Saint-Pierre, Madame de Staël, Charlotte Brontë (and reinventions of Wuthering Heights by Jean Rhys and Maryse Condé), the Créolistes of Martinique. Attention to Louisiana and to the Haitian Revolution. Reading knowledge of French required . ( Also AFAM 851b, CPLT 989b)
FREN 957b, Experiments in Twentieth-Century Fiction. Ora Avni. T 1:30-3:20
This course will examine modern novels and short stories that attempt to break away from traditional narratives. We shall work simultaneously on two planes: 1) Broken narratives as they reflect post-war disillusions, fear of loss of the “self,” and the bewilderment of man cast in a world that is no longer coherent. 2) Formal experiments with narratives that purport to tell “stories” without the support of “heroes,” “characters,” proper sequence, linear time, or even events that can be attributed to a specific persona. Under these conditions, what is left of stories and story-telling? More importantly, to what extent do these experiments succeed in breaking away from literary tradition? Works by Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute, des Forets, Modiano, Chamoiseau, Gary, Cohen, and Nothomb. In French.
