Undergraduate Course Offerings - Fall 2007

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 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 most salient phonological features of selected regional varieties (e.g. le français méridional), and much more. Taught in French.

FREN 341 - Literature of the Middle Ages and Sisteenth Century

“Medieval” and “Renaissance”: such tidy words to control 600 years of history! While French society was taking shape from the year 1000 to 1599, the arts emerged as a vehicle both to reflect and to challenge a society in gestation. Today our notions of romantic love, heroism, individualism, nationalism, violence, justice, and even authorship and readership are often associated with these periods. To appreciate fully the richness of this time frame, we’ll visit the world(s) of knights in shining armor, damsels in distress, shape shifters, crusaders, and explorers. Along the way, we’ll discover their lesser-known counterparts: authors who dared to mock kings and criticize the Church; playwrights who stressed the dangers of money and power; knights struggling with constructions of masculinity; women writers challenging the establishment; and poets proclaiming their divine role as prophets. Assignments will include two 5-page papers, a group presentation, a mid-term and a final.

FREN 342 - Literature of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Performing the Self

The 17th and 18th centuries stressed the importance of conscious self-fashioning and self-presentation in society.  Many approaches to this activity appear in important literary works from the period.  One might conform to existing social types or attempt to run against prevailing norms.  The results of either approach might be comic or tragic, for the social world was represented as pitiless.  In this course we will read works by Molière, Corneille, Lafayette, Rousseau, Laclos, and Montesquieu.

FREN 343 - Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Le cours est consacré à la littérature moderne, de l'époque révolutionnaire à nos jours. Les auteurs retenus sont Staël, Duras, Lamartine, Baudelaire, Loti, Allégret et Genet. Dans le courant du semestre chaque étudiant fera deux exposés oraux et préparera un dossier de recherche d'une quinzaine de pages. Le dossier de recherche examinera de façon analytique un aspect d'une ou plusieurs oeuvres que nous aurons examinées ensemble. Il comporte obligatoirement un travail de recherche en bibliothèque. Le sujet est à débattre avec le professeur. La note finale sera établie de la manière suivante : 1/3, la moyenne des rapports oraux ; 1/3, l'examen partiel ; 1/3 le dossier de recherche. L'étudiant désireux de s'inscrire dans ce cours aura, au préalable, suivi avec succès les cours 331 et 332.

A survey of representative prose works considered in light of their historical and cultural contexts, this course will explore what literature has to say about love and relationships in the modern world.  From Flaubert’s celebrated portrait of the quintessentially desperate housewife to Robbe-Grillet’s dizzying look into the mind of a jealous husband, we will read a selection of narratives that collectively complicate the mythical status of the amorous ideal and put the proverbial French twist on such matters as gender, sexuality, seduction, fidelity, and pleasure.

Readings may include prose works by Balzac, Flaubert, Maupassant, Gide, Robbe-Grillet, and Duras.  Three short papers, an oral presentation, and a final exam.  Course taught in French.

FREN 344 - Topics in French Cinema

This course explores the development of French cinema from the silent era to the present, including early experimental film, the Golden Age and the Occupation, the New Wave, colonial cinema, and recent French cinema. Students will be expected to acquire a working knowledge of film vocabulary in French and to include film clips in their analytical papers, which will be displayed on the web.

FREN 347 - Francophone Literature and Culture

FREN 351 - History and Civilization of France: Revolution to 1945

Beginning with a study of the French Revolution, this course focuses on
the cultural and historical influences which have shaped Modern France.
We will explore the relationship between culture and political power,
the
changing role of government, and how ordinary men and women experienced
social change. Readings will be drawn from primary documents, memoirs
and
secondary historical texts. Visual elements will be incorporated in this
course through the use of electronic classroom, the World Wide Web and
selected films. Readings in this course will be done in both French and
English. All lectures, discussions and writing will be done exclusively
in French.

FREN 352 - The History of Paris from 1850 to 1900

This course will explore the history of Paris from the French Revolution to the present. The principal theater of the Revolution, Paris became over the course of the nineteenth century not only the central focus of French intellectual, political, and artistic life, but also the model of a nineteenth-century European city. Through a broad variety of written and visual texts, we will study the topography, architecture, politics and daily life of nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century Paris as well as the development of the imagined city in art and literature. We will also consider how the traces of the past are inscribed on the modern urban landscape.

FREN 355 - Victor Hugo:  poète, dramaturge, romancier, critique social, artiste

En étudiant les oeuvres de Victor Hugo, on aborde le romantisme, le lyrisme, la critique sociale, la politique, une révolution théâtrale, l’exil, et l’histoire de la France depuis la Révolution de 1789 jusqu’à la déclaration de la Troisième République en 1875.  En explorant les thèmes universels (l’amour, la liberté, l’injustice, les droits de l’homme et de la femme, le rôle de Dieu, entre autres), Hugo a créé des histoires et des personnages qui scintillent aujourd’hui comme à son époque:  par exemple, Notre-Dame de Paris, les Misérables, Ruy Blas.   

Dans ce cours, nous étudierons des oeuvres choisies de Victor Hugo (de la poésie, une pièce, un roman, des dessins, des essais) afin d’apprécier son génie et de trouver des perspectives et des thèmes dont nous pourrions nous servir individuellement.  Inclus dans le travail du cours:  des discussions, des rédactions, des travaux en groupe, des intérrogations, une présentation orale, un travail de recherche personelle qui servira à l’exercice final et qu’on fera à travers le semestre. 

FREN 409 - Topics in Twentieth-Century Literature

LITTERATURE D'AUJOURD'HUI

The course will focus on significant literary works produced since the mid-twentieth century by such authors as Beauvoir, Camus, Duras, Ernaux, and Césaire. Concepts of gender and the gendered text will be examined in relation to fiction, autobiography, and theater. Success in this course requires a reasonable level of cultural competence (measured by completion of at least two FREN 300-level literature courses with a grade of B or better) and the ability to speak and write literary French correctly. Students' grades will be computed as follows: participation in class, including collaborative oral presentations (1/3), a midterm and a final exam (1/3), and a substantial research paper (1/3). Strongly recommended for French and Women's Studies majors. Motivated students from other departments and programs such as English and Comparative Literature are encouraged to enroll if they have the requisite language skills.

FREN 411 - Francophone Literature of Africa

Introduction to the Francophone literature of Africa; survey, with special emphasis on post- World War II poets, novelists, and playwrights of Africa. The role of cultural and literary reviews (Légitime Défense, L'Etudiant noir, and Présence Africaine) in the historical and ideological development of this literature will be examined. Special reference will be made to Caribbean writers of the Negritude movement. Documentary videos on African history and cultures will be shown and important audio-tapes will also be played regularly. Supplementary texts will be assigned occasionally. Students will be expected to present response papers on a regular basis. 
In addition to the required reading material, 2 essays (60%), regular class attendance, and contribution to discussions (10%), and a final exam (30%) constitute the course requirements. Papers are due on the dates indicated on the syllabus.
 
Required reading
Diop, Birago. Les contes d’Amadou Koumba .
Chevrier, J.  Anthologie Africaine: Poésie
Bâ, Mariama. Une si longue lettre.
Assia Djebar. Femmes d’Alger dans leur appartement (Toolkit).
Boudjedra, Rachid. L'escargot entêté.

FREN 430 - Grammaire et Style

FREN 443 - Africa in Cinema

This course is a study of the representation of Africa in American, Western European and African films. It deals with the representations of African cultures by filmmakers from different cultural backgrounds and studies the ways in which their perspectives on Africa are often informed by their own social and ideological positions as well as the demands of exoticism. It also examines the constructions of the African as the other and the kinds of responses such constructions have elicited from Africa’s filmmakers. These filmic inventions are analyzed through a selection of French, British, American, and African films by such directors as John Huston, S. Pollack, J-J Annaud, M. Radford, Ngangura Mweze, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Souleymane Cisse, Gaston Kabore, Amadou Seck, Dani Kouyate, Brian Tilley, Jean-Marie Teno on a variety of subjects relative to the image of Africa in cinema. The final grade will be based on one mid-semester paper (select a film by an African filmmaker and provide a sequential reconstruction of the story based on the methods of P. S. Vieyra and of F. Boughedir ), a final paper (7-10 pages), an oral presentation and contributions to discussions. Each oral presentation should contribute to the mid-semester paper and to the final research paper. The final paper should be analytical, well documented and written in clear, grammatical French using correct film terminology supplied with this description.

Reading list (on reserve, see Toolkit for FREN 443)
Required
Ferid Boughedir -/Le cinéma africain de A a Z/
(Specific selections of the following works will be announced weekly.)
Kenneth W. Harrow - /Matatu- With Open Eyes: Women and African Cinema/
Gardies, André - /Cinéma d’Afrique Noire Francophone : l’espace-miroir./
Vieyra, P. S. - /Le cinéma africain/
/- Sembène Ousmane, cinéaste/
Ukadike, F. N. - /Black African Cinema/
/Research in African Literatures - Special Issue: African Cinema./ Vol. 26, No.3, Fall 1995.
Diawara, Manthia - /African Cinema.

FREN 445 - Advanced Cultural Studies

Modern Debates on French National Identity

The question of "national identity" has once again been thrust into the spotlight by contenders for the 2007 presidential elections in France. By focusing on education, language, religion, and colonialism, this course will examine the historical underpinnings of contemporary political discourses on French national identity.

What did it mean to be French in various historical periods? Is French identity a matter of "national character" determined by geography and the notion of a "shared past"? Or is it a voluntary construction, created by individuals who willingly adhere to certain values? Since the French Revolution, public education has been used to forge national identity and the French language to achieve national cohesion. Later, secularism and religious freedom became cornerstones of an enduring republican model of national identity. Finally, to what extent are the experiences and memories of the French colonialism at the heart of today's debate on what it means to be French?

This is an advanced seminar intended for students who are very interested in history and have previously taken a French history course and/or a 300-level French civilization course. Readings will be in French and English. All writing and speaking in this course will be in French. Class size will be limited to 15.

FREN 483 - Advanced Seminar in Literature

Renaissance Travelers

The Sixteenth Century saw French adventurers setting out for exotic ports in the New World and hallowed destinations in the Old.   For many writers, a journey to Rome became a required intellectual pilgrimage, while French explorers took colonists to both North and South America, the French court sent emissaries to Suleiman and his advancing Ottoman Empire.   The written accounts of those journeys inspired in turn stories of travels taken only in the imaginations of their authors.  We will emphasize the New World narratives and what they reveal about events changing the culture and mentality of Europe: the printing revolution, the Protestant Reformation, and France’s first efforts to “civilize” the world beyond its borders.  We will read these works in the original sixteenth-century French and examine many of them in the sixteenth-century editions available in our library’s Gordon Collection.  The tentative reading list includes selections from: 

Giovanni da Verrazano (1485-1528) Relation du voyage de la Dauphine (1524)

Jacques Cartier (1491-1557), Relations (1534; 1535-6, 1541-2) ;

François Rabelais (1483-1553), Le Quart Livre (1548, 1552)

André Thevet (1516?-1592), Cosmographie de Levant (1554) ; Les Singularités de la France Antarctique (1557) ; 

Jean de Léry (1534-1611?), Histoire d'un voyage fait en la terre du Brésil (1578, 1580).                           

Michel de Montaigne (1533-92), Essais (1580-95)

Prerequisite :  Completion of a 400-level FREN literature course or permission of instructor

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.