Paris's physical landscape underwent its most significant transformations during the nineteenth century. Through the eyes of contemporary writers, painters, city administrators, activists, and architects, this course's interdisciplinary approach will analyze a range of issues such as the enhanced gendering of the public and private spheres, the effects of industrialization, the Haussmannization of Paris, the Franco-Prussian war and the Paris Commune. Through our readings and analyses a city rife with conflict, intrigue, and change will emerge wherein competing definitions challenge the way society defines the masculine and feminine, the bourgeoisie and the working class, the city and the country, the proper and improper, and the pure and impure.

W 4:00PM - 6:30PM

Fall 2004
French 4314: "FRENCH CINEMA, 1935-1995 taught by Janell Watson

French cinema is known for its artistic and intellectually challenging masterpieces by famous directors. Working in chronological order, we will screen one film per week and read related criticism in order to better appreciate the subtleties of films by ambitious directors. We will at the same time be using the vocabulary of cinema studies to analyze the formal aspects of film, such as shots, lighting, sound, and editing. Attendance at both the Tuesday film screenings and Thursday discussions is mandatory.

Meets 4:00-6:20 TR.

Spring 2004
French 4314: "Feminine/Masculine: Constructions and subversion of Gender" taught by Sharon Johnson

In this course, we will study gender constructions of femininity and masculinity in French literature from different historical periods. The analysis of these texts in tandem with influential feminist, social, and psychoanalytic theories on gender will heighten our understanding of how gender traits, roles, and statuses are produced and contested historically to the present. We will also examine the role cultures play in establishing what is or is not socially "acceptable," "natural," and "normal" for men and women.

PRE: FR 3105, 3106, 3305, and 3306. Meets 5:00-6:15 TR

Fall 2003
French 4314: "Seduction and Subversion" taught by Fabrice Teulon

From the 17th century to the 19th century the controversial characters of the libertine, the dandy and of the esthete appear in French literature to question and subvert traditional models of representation. We will analyze in a series of texts the images of such characters as well as the wide range of theoretical implications they raise. The texts will include works by Molière, Marivaux, Beaumarchais, Denon, Laclos, Balzac, Baudelaire and Péladan. We will also read a selection of texts by Freud, Foucault, Kristeva, Kaufman, Baudrillard and others.

PRE: FR 3105, 3106, 3305, and 3306. Meets 5:00-6:15 TR

Spring 2003
French 4314: "Feminine/Masculine: Constructions and subversion of Gender" taught by Sharon Johnson

In this course, we will study gender constructions of femininity and masculinity in French literature from different historical periods. The analysis of these texts in tandem with influential feminist, social, and psychoanalytic theories on gender will heighten our understanding of how gender traits, roles, and statuses are produced and contested historically to the present. We will also examine the role cultures play in establishing what is or is not socially "acceptable," "natural," and "normal" for men and women. Meets 4:00-6:20 M.

Fall 2002
French 4314: FRENCH CINEMA: les grands auteurs, 1990s - 1930s taught by Janell Watson (available via distance learning in Northern Virginia and Tidewater)

French cinema is known for its artistic and intellectually challenging masterpieces by famous directors. Beginning with the 1990s then working in reverse chronological order, we will screen one film per week and read related criticism in order to better appreciate the subtleties of films by ambitious directors. We will at the same time be using the vocabulary of cinema studies to analyze the formal aspects of film, such as shots, lighting, sound, and editing. Attendance at film screenings is mandatory. Meets 4:00-6:20 R.

The last twenty years of the 19th century were marked by the idea that the world--or at least the world as people knew it--was coming to an end. This idea that French civilization had fallen into a state of decadence haunted society in general, but the word "decadent" remained thoroughly ambiguous: what was decadent for some was progressive for others. This course will examine the notion of decadence from different perspectives through a variety of canonical and marginal works of literature and art. PRE: FR 3105, 3106, 3305 and 3306. FR 3205 and 3206 strongly recommended. Meets 4:00-6:20 M.

This course introduces students to detailed interpretation and analysis of texts from selected writers of 17th-century French literature to the present. Students will study how and why writers analyze and criticize social and political institutions and structures. PRE: FR 3105-6, 3305-6; strongly recommended: French 3205-6. M 4:00-6:20

Lire les passions taught by Sue Farquhar. Available via distance learning.

Are our emotions natural or socially constructed? How do theories of the emotions shape the way we see ourselves and others? Can representations of the emotions point to cultural differences? We will "read" the emotions in various French literary genres and contexts to bring out recurrent ideas and concerns: the opposition of reason and passion; views of gender and class; cultural and ethnic differences. Our readings will include poetry, short stories, essays, novellas and plays from the 16th-20th centuries.

For fall 2000

4314 Le Surréalisme taught by Richard Shryock. Available via distance learning to Abingdon and Fairfax County.