FRN 376 - Selfhood and Otherness in Modern French Writings, 3 credit hours

Notes: Required of all French majors.

Prerequisite(s): FRN 202 or equivalent recommended.
French 376 is a study of the literature of France from 1789 until the present. Students will read representative texts and acquire knowledge and appreciation of the major literary genres, movements, and figures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries including: romanticism, realism and idealism, Modern poetry, Belle Epoque poetry, modern French novel, Dada and Surrealism, littérature éngagée, Résistance poetry, Le nouveau roman, and the contemporary novel. Students will gain techniques of close textual reading in the analysis and interpretation of literary texts. They will gain understanding of what constitutes literary genres, and study the stylistic features of texts from the distinct historical periods. In addition, attention in the class will be placed on French literary history and how the French literary tradition has been constituted. We will also explore the intersections of literature and society, politics, religion and aesthetics in order to assess the history of ideas transmitted through the richness and diversity of the French literary tradition. French 376 will continue to provide students the opportunity to develop their skills in spoken and written French in a supportive class setting.

Framing French 376 will be the special topic of “Selfhood and Otherness in Modern French Literature.” How has the self been represented—and constructed–by modern French writers? What is the relation of the self to others? What values govern this relationship? What specificity does literature bring to the articulation of these values? Our trajectory will take us along the following four axes: we will explore intersubjective relations (love, gender and sexual differences, responsibility of self to others); intercultural relations (travel, representations of foreigners and cultural “others,” cultural imperialism); global relations and ethics (representations of war, violence, international solidarity, and social justice); and the ethics of writing (why write?, literature and socio-political engagement, language and liberation, revolt and justice). Students will complete a final paper or creative project and will present their work at an in-class colloquium. The focus in this class should appeal equally to the interests of students of literature who seek to further their practice in criticism and theory, as well as to students with an interdisciplinary focus such as international studies and the sciences who will benefit from the broad-ranging considerations of ethics that will be broached in this class.