Undergraduate Course Offerings - Spring 2008

University of Virginia

Department of French Language & Literature

Descriptions of FREN 101, 102, 105, 201, 202, 232, and 101G can be found HERE.

Departmental Writing Requirements :

The following writing requirements apply to courses in which the authorized enrollments do not exceed 20 (French 331 and 332) or 25 (literature and civilization courses numbered higher than French 332):

• FREN 331 and 332: 10-15 pages, typically divided among 4 to 5 papers. Peer editing introduced during class and practiced outside.
• 300-level literature and civilization courses: 10-15 pages, typically divided among 2 to 4 papers. Relatively less sophisticated content than at the 400-level. Peer editing outside of class may be offered to students as an option (or requirement).
• 400-level literature and civilization courses: 15-20 pages, typically divided among 2 to 4 papers. Relatively more sophisticated content than at the 300-level. Peer editing outside of class may be offered to students as an option (or requirement).
• In all courses the quality of written French (that is, accurate use of grammar and vocabulary) is an important factor in grading. Command of the language affects how understandable, persuasive, and impressive writing is. As students move from 300- to 400- level courses they will be expected to show greater sophistication in sentence structure, grammar, and use of idioms.

FREN 331 - Intensive Grammar

Prerequisite: Exemption from FREN 201 & 202; or a score of 3 on the AP French language exam; or a score of at least 660 on the SAT. Required as preparation for all subsequent courses except FREN 333 and FREN 339.

This course offers an intensive review of grammar rules and their application to oral and written communication. Short readings in French will provide a context for discussion, writing, and grammar practice. Students will be graded on short quizzes, dictations, compositions, a mid-term, and a final exam. The course is conducted in French.

FREN 332 - The Writing and Reading of Texts

Prerequisite: French 331. This course is a prerequisite for all undergraduate courses on a higher level except French 333 and French 339.

Ce cours est une introduction à la lecture critique et à l'analyse de textes. Il est à la fois un atelier d'écriture intensive, car le travail de lecture attentive sera accompagné de courts essais de deux à trois pages visant à interpréter les textes. Pour cela, on devra acquérir un minimum de vocabulaire technique spécifique à chaque genre littéraire (qu'il s'agisse de textes de prose, de poésie ou de théâtre) et un lexique analytique générique. Bien entendu, la qualité du français écrit et parlé sera une composante importante de l'évaluation du travail : il convient donc de continuer de prendre la grammaire très au sérieux.

FREN 333 - Oral and Written Expression in French

 Prerequisite: Completion of FREN 232 or equivalent. Permission of instructor for those having completed only FREN 202. Students having completed French 332 may not take this course.

An intensive course designed to give students a better command of present-day spoken and written French. Class discussion of news articles on current events (French and international), including but not limited to politics, economics, education, language, and entertainment, and including some articles which class members choose.  The 2007 French Presidential campaign will be an active topic in this particular semester.  Mastery of advanced vocabulary, weekly graded written or oral assignments including one guided short exposé, several one-two page papers, oral and written quizzes, and a final exam. Consistent attendance and ACTIVE participation constitute 30% of the semester grade.

This course is designed for students who have not had an extended stay in a French-speaking country. Students who have participated in semester study-abroad programs must confirm placement and transfer credit with the instructor to avoid duplication. Students who have studied in a French speaking country for a year should enroll in FREN 334 or above.

FREN 334 - Advanced Oral and Written Expression in French

Prerequisite: Students must have completed French 331 and French 332 or their equivalent. Counts for major/minor credit.

An intensive course designed to improve more advanced students' oral and written language skills. Assignments include discussion on topics of current interest, presentations, translations, and compositions. All materials are French- or Francophone-related. The course focuses on language development in a Francophone cultural context, so students can get familiar with French and Francophone cultures and comfortable in expressing their viewpoints in French. Of course, consistent attendance and active participation are essential.

FREN 339 - Phonetics

French 339 is an introductory course in French phonetics, intended to present basic concepts in phonetic theory and to teach students techniques for improving their own pronunciation. It includes an examination of the physical characteristics of individual French sounds, the relationship between these sounds and their written representations; the rules governing the pronunciation of “standard French”; the phonetic alphabet (IPA); the most salient phonological features of selected regional varieties (e.g. le français méridional), and much more.  Requires a great deal of memorization and discipline.  Taught in French.

FREN 343 (section 0001) - Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Prerequisite: French 332

A survey of representative works of poetry and prose from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this course will explore the various roles that things—from kitchy bibelots, random curios, and talismanic trinkets, to found objects, ethnographic treasures, and the most ubiquitous items of everyday use—have played in modern and contemporary literature.  The writers that comprise our corpus devote their attention to those things that form an integral part of our daily experience, yet which, in many cases, we often fail to notice.  Investing the most ordinary of artifacts with new meanings, the poems, short stories, and novels that we will read—along with the occasional work of visual art—encourage us to ask what the material world (and what modern forms of consumerism) can teach us about being human. 

Along with introducing students to several of the major authors, movements, and narrative styles of French literary and cultural history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the course also aims to hone participants’ oral and written French.

Required work to include: active participation in class, regular response papers (1-2 pages), an oral presentation, and 2 longer papers (4-5 pages). May include works by: Balzac, Gautier, Baudelaire, Maupassant, Breton, Man Ray, Duchamp, Barthes, Perec, Warhol, Spoeri, Arman, Ponge, Koons, Hirst, and Varda.

FREN 343 (section 0002) - Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - “Text and the City”

Prerequisite: French 332

A survey of major literary figures, movements, and narrative styles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this course will explore multiple representations of the "physiognomy” of Paris and its inhabitants in modern works of prose, poetry, art, music, and film.  

Required work to include: active participation in class, regular response papers (1-2 pages), an oral presentation, 2 longer papers (4-5 pages), and a final project. May include literary works by Mercier, Hugo, Sue, Balzac, Baudelaire, Zola, Maupassant, Apollinaire, Colette, Breton, Aragon, Prévert, Perec, Beyala; films by Carné, Clouzot, Autant-Lara, Renoir, Truffaut, and Klapisch; theoretical texts by Benjamin and Corbin.  

FREN 345 - Topics in Cultural Studies: Haitian Voices

On January 1, 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines renamed Saint Domingue as the newly independent nation of Ayiti, the name taken from the Taino word for “land of mountains.”  Thus Haiti, at the time the world’s richest colony, became the world’s first Black Republic.  Less than three years after independence, however, Haiti’s first emperor for life was ambushed and assassinated, setting into motion a domino-effect of national catastrophes that would endure for over two centuries and render the once wealthy island the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. 

Taking into account Haiti’s rich, complicated, and largely tragic history, we will examine the Haitian novel from 1944 to 1992, focusing on such themes as national identity, the intersection of memory and dictatorship, (de)zombification, and exile.  Readings will include novels by Jacques Roumain (Gouverneurs de la rosée), Jacques Stephen Alexis (Compère Général Soleil), Marie Vieux-Chauvet (Amour, Colère, et Folie), René Depestre (Le Mât de Cocagne), and Dany LaFerrière (Le Goût des jeunes filles).  Course requirements will consist of several short papers, a mid-term, a final exam, and active participation.   

FREN 346 – African Literatures and Cultures                                                                            

Prerequisite: French 332

This course will explore aspects of African literatures and cultures. It will focus on selected issues of special resonance in contemporary African life. Oral literature and its continuing impact on all other art forms. Key issues in French colonial policy and its legacy in Africa: language, politics, education. The course will examine the image of the postcolonial state and society as found in contemporary arts, paintings, sculpture, music, and cinema. Selections from painters like Cheri Samba (Democratic Republic of Congo), Werewere Liking (Cameroun) and sculptors like Ousmane Sow, including such popular icons as Mamy Wata and forms such as Souwere glass painting; from musicians like Youssou Ndour (Senegal), Cheb Khaled (Algeria), Seigneur Rochereau, Tshala Muana (DRC), Salif Keita (Mali), and Cesaria Evora (Cape Verde); from Mande, Peul, and Kabyle oral literatures in French translation; from filmmakers D.D. Mambety, Moussa Sene Absa, and Ngangura Mweze. Visit to National Museum of African Arts depending on availability of funding. The final grade will be based on contributions to discussions, a mid-term exam, 2 papers, and a final exam.

FREN 353 – L’immigration En France

Prerequisite: French 332

L’immigration est un sujet de premier plan  dans l’actualité quotidienne en Europe et en France en particulier ; c’est aussi un sujet de polémique au cœur du débat politique et social.

Le fait que la majorité de l’immigration récente vienne d’Afrique (du Nord et Subsaharienne) et se revendique de l’Islam entraîne des interrogations sur l’identité nationale et sur les principes fondateurs de la République comme celui de la Laïcité. En abordant le thème de l’immigration, on traite divers domaines qui facilitent la compréhension de la France d’aujourd’hui : l’histoire à laquelle l’immigration est liée, ses conséquences sociales, culturelles, économiques, politiques et parfois humanitaires.

Des œuvres littéraires, des articles de presse et des films illustreront le cours.

FREN 357 – Le Rire: A Study of Laughter

This course is an examination of the role of laughter in French literature from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.  The evolution of the comic tradition, its recurrent themes and techniques (stock characters, etc.), will be discussed with respect to those how have written about laughter (Bakhtin, Bergson, etc.) as well as representative works from each century.  Each will be viewed within its own social, political, or literary context.  Two papers, a mid-term and final exam.

FREN 406 – Topics in 20th-Century Literature: The Occupation and After

Prerequisite: FREN 332, and at least one other course in the 340-level sequence

The Nazi occupation from 1940-44 was one of the most consequential periods in modern French history, one that left an indelible mark on the French national psyche and which continues, still, to rouse the country’s collective memory (one thinks, for example, of former president Jacques Chirac’s official apology to survivors of the Holocaust for the French government’s “irreparable” behavior during the Vichy years, a concession made more than 40 years after the Liberation, in 1995!).  After an initial examination of life in France under the Nazi regime, this seminar proposes to explore the enduring legacy of those “Dark Years.” More specifically, we will investigate how the complex (and traumatic) history of the Occupation has impacted French culture during the last half of the twentieth century.  Discussions will focus on a variety of documentary and narrative sources—novels and films, primarily—that attest to what many historians refer to as contemporary France’s national “obsession” with the past.

Readings and films may include: Némirovsky, Suite française (selections), Vercors, “Le silence de la mer,” Perec, W ou le souvenir d’enfance, Modiano, Dora Bruder, Clouzot, Le corbeau, Melville, L’armée des ombres, Resnais, Nuit et brouillard, Ophüls, Le chagrin et la pitié, Malle, Lacombe Lucien, Chabrol, L’oeil de Vichy, Audiard, Un héros très discret.

Required work to include: active participation in class discussion, attendance at evening film screenings (7 total), three short response papers (1-2 pages), a midterm exam, and a final research paper (10-12 pages).  Course conducted in French. 

FREN 428/711 – History of The French Language                     

This course will look at some of the ways in which the French language has changed through time, with respect to vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, orthography, meaning, discourse, and the like.  Social, cultural, political, environmental, as well as purely linguistic, factors that have played some part in language change will be considered.  Our approach will be non-traditional and somewhat novel.  We begin with an inventory of penetrating questions, for example:  why does one say ‘cheval’ in the singular but ‘chevaux’ in the plural (and cf. ‘animal ~ animaux,  bail ~ baux’; but  ‘vache ~ vaches’, 'pied ~pieds', 'femmes' ~ 'femmes', etc.); or why did ”nos ancêtres les Gaulois” ‘bequeath’ so few of their  words to the French lexicon;  or what type of  French is spoken in Belgium, Canada, and Africa and why;  or why does the utterance “t’as pas dix balles?” immediately strike you as being ‘non-standard’-- and when was the language conventionalized anyway ...?.  Answers to such questions will provide the impetus for a more in-depth study and discussion of some of the major (underlying) diachronic changes and currents in the language.

Prerequisites: good reading, writing and speaking ability in French.   Previous course work in phonetics, historical linguistics, Latin and other Romance languages helpful.   Course conducted in French

FREN 435 – Tools and Techniques of Translation     

Prerequesite: B+ average in Fren 331, 332, 430.

Written and oral translation exercises to and from the target language.

FREN 438 – French Society and Civilization: Contemporary France

Prerequisite: successful completion of at least one 300-level course in literature or cultural studies beyond 332.

French 438 is designed to provide students with a background in social, cultural, political, and institutional aspects of contemporary French society in the context of recent history. We will examine how geography, history, education, and politics have contributed to shaping contemporary French attitudes, cultural practices, and institutions since the Second World War. We will also study important social questions facing contemporary France, including changing family structures, the role of women, religion, immigration, and France's place in the European Union. 

Course materials include readings from the French press and other published sources, films, music, the internet, and radio and television broadcasts. The course strongly emphasizes oral participation and discussion, and students are expected to follow current events on a regular basis throughout the semester.

FREN 444 – French Literature and Film          

Pre-Requisite: FREN 344

Adaptation and the Nineteenth Century: Moving forward, looking back

This course focuses on the tension between progress and nostalgia in nineteenth-century French narratives adapted to film. We will study essays on adaptation as a biological process, a social strategy, and an artistic practice, and examine the depiction of adaptation in novels and a variety of related films destined for French and American audiences. Primary readings include: Le Colonel Chabert (Balzac), La Mare au diable  (Sand), Madame Bovary (Flaubert), Thérèse Raquin (Zola), and Le Fantôme de l’opéra (Leroux, 1910). We will read non-fiction works such as excerpts from Histoire naturelle  (1749-1804) by George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s La Philosophie zoologique (1809), Mémoires du Sergent Bourgogne 1812-1813, and Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859); essays by Saint Simon, and Walter Benjamin; and articles on film adaptation by critics Robert Stam, Dudley Andrew, and Linda Hutcheon. 

Course work consists of reading (primarily in French, with some articles in English), viewing of films outside of class (weekly), regular in-class presentations and contributions to discussion, three two-page papers, and one research paper.

FREN 445 - Advanced Cultural Studies: Sexuality & Identity: The Medieval    Perspective

From damsels in distress to knights in shining armor, this course will confront and challenge lingering stereotypes about men and women in medieval culture. Women writers and castrated men, female warriors and lovesick boys, cross-dressers and werewolves will serve as our guides in exploring gender, sexuality, and social identity in pre-modern Europe. We will move back and forth between medieval and modern culture: How do medieval views continue to influence modern society? How can the medieval perspective help clarify modern approaches to sexuality and identity?

Readings will include literary, spiritual, autobiographical, philosophical, scientific, and historical writings in modern French.

Students who have completed two 400-level FREN courses with a final grade of B+ or better may register for 500-level FREN courses with instructor permission.

Graduate courses can be found HERE.