Graduate Course Offerings - Fall 2008

University of Virginia

Department of French Language & Literature

FREN 510/810 - Medieval Literature in Modern French I

In the middle of the twelfth century, the precursor of modern French (romans) quite suddenly took precedence over Latin as the written language of courtly culture, and thus French literature was born.  Why did this shift occur then?  What topics did authors consider appropriate for expression in the vernacular?  How did they justify their endeavors?  What patterns did they set for the French literary tradition?  This course will investigate issues of authority, truth, genre and language in representative literary works (hagiography, chanson de geste, romance, drama and lyric) composed before the mid-thirteenth century.   In the course of discussing secondary readings and of preparing the assignments (an oral presentation and a seminar paper), we will consider matters of professional development.

FREN 510L - Old French

Introduction to reading Old French, with consideration of its main dialects (Ile-de-France, Picard, Anglo-Norman) and paleographical issues.  May be taken in conjunction with FREN 512/810 or independently.  Weekly reading exercises, a transcription and translation exercise, and a final open-book exam.  Prerequisite: good reading knowledge of modern French, Latin or another romance language.  Taught in English.

FREN 520/820 – Literature of the 16th Century: The Heptameron and the European Novella

Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron explicitly showcases its relation to Boccaccio’s Decameron, but it grows just as clearly from a variety of other works and literary genres.   We will explore the Heptaméron in conjunction with brief selections from those earlier works, including in addition to the Decameron:  Apuleius’s Metamorphoses (more commonly known as The Golden Ass); late-medieval French nouvelles; histoires tragiques ; and Rabelais’s tales of Pantagruel and Gargantua.  This focus will allow us to consider literature of the court and of the people and to appreciate the evolution of narrative structures, techniques and conventions in the early modern period.  Requirements include frequent response writing, a mid-term writing assignment and a final paper.

FREN 560/860 - Literature of the 20th Century: Consumerism, Mass Culture, and the Spectacle in France (1944-2008)

The three terms under consideration in this seminar, each an integral part of the discourse on culture in the 1950s and 1960s, are crucial to our understanding of the transformations in French society after World War II.  Through a focus on a variety of literary, critical, and theoretical texts, as well as a number of films, we will begin by examining how notions such as “la société de consommation,” “la culture de masse,” and “la société du spectacle” came to define French culture (and critical writing about French culture) during the unheralded period of postwar modernization known as the trente glorieuses.  In the second half of the course, we will explore how discourse about consumerism, mass culture, and the spectacle persists, and has continued to evolve, inthe forty years since May 1968.  Topics may include: consumer society, advertising, and the seductive power of objects; the rise of American cultural hegemony in post-liberation France; modernization, mass culture, and the critique of everyday life; Situationism and the subversion of popular culture; decolonalization and the spectacle of war; postmodern simulacra and the limits of representation; traumatic histories and the spectacular past; immigration, identity politics, and “Frenchness” on display; and, globalization and mass media in hypermodern times.

Discussions will focus on works by, among others, Quignard, Godard, Lefebvre, Perec, Barthes, De Beauvoir, Tati, Debord, Virilio, Simon, Deleuze, Baudrillard, Toussaint, Haneke, Resnais, Alagbé, Daeninckx, Kechiche, Beigbeder, Lipovetsky.

Required work to include an oral presentation, occasional short response papers, and one longer research paper.

FREN 580/880 - Literature and Society: Modern France: Legacies of Revolution

Beginning with a study of the French revolution, this course will examine the complex legacies of that critical event for the social, cultural and literary history of modern France. Readings will address changes in racial identification, gender roles, religious identities, and the literary legacies of revolution.

** Required texts:
- Jeremy D. Popkin , A Short History of the French Revolution (4rd Edition) -- or -- Jean-Clément Martin, La Révolution française

- Roger Chartier, Les origines culturelles de la Révolution française

- Mona Ozouf, Les aveux du roman.

- Jean-Clément Martin, La révolte brisée. Femmes dans la Révolution française et l'Empire.

** Students are responsible for ordering their own books for this class.
     Please contact Prof. Horne ASAP for a detailed book list.

FREN 593/893 - Topics in Literature: Négritude: The Poetry and Philosophy of Léopold Sédar Senghor

This course examines the poetry, essays, as well as the cultural and political life and activities of Léopold Sédar Senghor from his student days in Paris to his final return to Senegal in 2001. We will devote significant time to the detailed study of representative selections from his Oeuvre poétique and key essays in which he developed his conception of Négritude, aesthetics, Métissage culturel, and Socialisme africain as a part of his philosophy. In addition, two documentary films will be viewed and treated as an integral part of the course material.

In addition to regular attendance and contributions to discussions in class, an oral presentation on a poem by Senghor, a midterm and a research paper will be required.

Required texts:

Léopold Sédar Senghor – Oeuvre poétique. Paris: Seuil, 1990 or any recent edition .

 -     The Collected Poetry. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1991 (The bilingual edition)

 -     Liberté I: Négritude et humanisme. Paris : Seuil.

 Souleymane Bachir Diagne – Léopold Sédar Senghor: l’art africain comme philosophie. Paris: Riveneuve Editions, 2007.

 Pius Ngandu Nkashama – Négritude et poétique : une lecture de l’oeuvre critique de Léopold Sédar Senghor. Paris : L’Harmattan, 1992, 158 p.

FREN 700 - Proseminar

This course will investigate three areas of theoretical inquiry – Reception theory (Iser, Jauss, Fish), culture theory (Foucault, Bourdieu, de Certeau, Greenblatt, Darnton), and gender theory (Irigaray, Butler, Sedgwick) -- and consider how these approaches can enhance our understanding of literary texts. In addition to theoretical writings, students will read Guillaume de Machaut’s Voir-dit (14th century). Over the course of the semester, students will write three short papers in which they explore the impact that a given theory can have on their appreciation of Machaut’s work (and vice versa!). One of these short papers will be developed into a 12 - 15 page study.

FREN 704 - Theories & Methods of Language Teaching