FREN 5584/8584 – Documentary Film: History, Theory, Practice

Documentary films tell different kinds of stories than fiction film. They have a different relationship to the real world. Or do they? Do documentarians have a different kind of moral imperative than fiction filmmakers? Do they have a different relationship to the truth? To their audience? What is a documentary film, actually? Students in this course will grapple with these and other fundamental theoretical questions about documentary while gaining a solid foundational knowledge of major works of French and Francophone documentary from the invention of cinema to the present. From the beginning, students will be asked to adopt the dual perspective of a scholar and a practitioner. They will be viewers, scholars and critics of a wide variety of documentary films. They will read widely in French film history and theory in order to explore questions about film, communication, truth, and reality. They will write several essays, prepare and deliver an oral presentation, and create original audiovisual material. All viewing, most reading, and all written, oral and audiovisual work is conducted in French.

W 3:30 PM – 6:00 PM (Levine)

FREN 5570/8570 – French Literature Now!

When I first taught an iteration of this course, in the early aughts, contemporary French literature seemed to be in crisis. In his incendiary rant La littérature sans estomac (2002), for example, Pierre Jourde lamented the lack of aesthetic standards in the production of contemporary French fiction, claiming instead that the market had been overrun by mediocrity. Similarly, Jean-Philippe Domecq created a stir when he attacked a certain cadre of literary critics who, he claimed, do nothing but elevate the vast array of livres de divertissement to the status of “high art.” Acclaimed (and highly provocative) author Richard Millet, in L’Enfer du roman: Réflexions sur la postlittérature (2010), issued a scathing critique of the contemporary novel, lashing out against its role in the degradation of the French language. And in one of the few articles on the state of the field to have ever appeared in the New York Times, Alan Riding pondered the curious state of “French” literature in 2006, a year in which not only were the winners of four of the country’s most esteemed literary prizes awarded to “foreign” authors (American Jonathan Littel, to cite one example, won both the Prix Goncourt and the Prix de l’Académie française for Les Bienveillantes), but one of the most popular novels of the year (in France as well as in the US) was actually written in the 1940s by a Russian-born émigré who would later disappear in the camps (Irène Nemirovsky, Suite française). All of which seemed to beg the question, as Riding asked: “Is French literature burning?”

Lately, however, after many years marked by the successes of the retour au récit (Echenoz, Toussaint…), signs of a new kind of creative and even socially-conscious dynamism have emerged. From the roman d’enquête and documentary-style exofictions to novels that exhibit a fascination for animots and a particularly Gallic iteration of eco-consciousness (I’m not sure whether to call it “nature writing” or not), the literary scene seems to have been enlivened by the inescapably present world in which authors—in which all of us—dwell. Rather than propose a definitive answer to Riding’s problematic and expressly provocative question, then, this survey of some of the most acclaimed and/or widely read prose works of the last 20 years (more or less) invites participants to ascertain the situation for themselves. Along with introducing participants to a number of essential and readily available resources for scholars and enthusiasts of contemporary French literature, including the major journals, anthologies, radio programs, websites, and blogs, the course will also seek to provide opportunities to read and, more importantly, critique cutting-edge criticism on the works under consideration. Consider this part of the seminar a practicum on critical writing about contemporary French writing.

While we will read all primary texts (and some critical analyses) in French, the course will be taught in both French and English.

T 5:00 PM – 7:30 PM (Blatt)

FREN 7559 - Premodern Francophone Worlds

This seminar is intended to introduce students to the premodern francophone world through a global perspective that recognizes French as a premodern lingua franca extending beyond the French kingdom to include England, Italy, the Mediterranean, the crusader states, and North America. Select primary materials, produced between 1100 to 1700, will range from song, romance and travel narratives to encyclopedias, religious and historical writings, and legal and medical treatises. These materials will serve to examine cultural networks of exchange that privilege cross-fertilization and the transfer of knowledge and traditions. This seminar is crosslisted with PMCC 6000, the required course for the Premodern Cultures & Communities graduate certificate, and in this context, the francophone tradition will be placed in conversation with the global premodern world. Several invited speakers from Arts & Sciences as well as outside guest speakers will lead sessions on topics ranging from travel and trade, the invention of race and the Atlantic Slave Trade, multilingualism and translation, the global book arts, gender and sexualities, and global religious practices. In addition to class presentations of primary and secondary scholarship, students will have the option of writing a traditional seminar paper on a French text that reflects the multidisciplinary approach modeled in the seminar or to produce non-traditional scholarship, whether in the form of a co-authored seminar paper, a digital project, or a collaborative podcast series.

R 5:00 PM – 7:30 PM (McGrady)