2008-2009 Graduate Courses in French
| AUTUMN | WINTER | SPRING |
|---|---|---|
| 30400 Cours de perfectionnement | 30400 Cours de perfectionnement | 30400 Cours de perfectionnement |
| 30500 Ecrire en français | 30600 Phonétique et phonologie | 30500 Ecrire en Francais |
| 31403 Love’s Books, Love’s Looks: Textual and Visual Perspectives on the Roman de la Rose | 32500 Rabelais | 31500 La Stylistique |
| 32203 The Literary Avant-Garde | 34301 Le règne des passions au XVIIe siècle | 36103 Les Misérables: Victor Hugo |
| 34003 La psychologie morale de Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 35900 MA Seminar II | 35301 Beautiful souls, adventurers and rogues. The European 18th-century Novel |
| 35800 MA Seminar | 37000 Aesthetics of French Classicism | 42100 Reading and Research |
| 42100 Readings and Research | 42100 Readings and Research |
Graduate Course Descriptions
30400. Cours de perfectionnement. This course is designed to help students attain high levels in reading, writing, speaking, and listening through readings and debates on various issues of relevance in contemporary French society with emphasis on summarizing textual and oral documents. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
30500. Ecrire en français. The goal of this course is to help students achieve mastery of composition and style through the acquisition of numerous writing techniques. Using a variety of literary and nonliterary texts as models, students examine the linguistic structures and organization of several types of written French discourse and are guided in the acquisition of the rules underlying each discourse type. This course is strongly recommended for Paris Program-bound students. Staff. Autumn, Spring.
30600. Phonétique et phonologie. This course involves a systematic study of the French phonological system, placing equal emphasis on the recognition and the production of French sounds in context. Students also examine the relationships between the French sound system and French orthographic norms and grammatical distinctions. Classroom exercises and homework include examining authentic spoken discourse representing a variety of discourse styles and activities to promote the acquisition of spoken proficiency. Staff. Winter.
31403. Love's Books, Love's Looks: Textual and Visual Perspectives on the Roman de la Rose. This course will initiate students into the complex allegorical narrative of the Roman de la Rose and its images. Through discussion of topically organized scholarship on the Rose and its historical ambient the seminar will also provide students with the historical and historiographical orientation required for sophisticated interpretation of the work. Finally, the seminar will provide a setting for discussion and debate that draws from the special disciplinary skills of seminar participants and works toward a more integrated and mutually engaging conversation about how we can work to ‘see' the Rose collaboratively. Daisy Delogu. Autumn .
31500. La Stylistique. PQ: FREN 20400 or consent of instructor. This course focuses on linguistic and literary problems of textual analysis. It examines literary and stylistic techniques in poetry and prose with concentration on the explication de texte method of literary study. Daisy Delogu. Spring.
32203. The Literary Avant-Garde. (Les Avant-gardes littéraires au XXe siècle). This course surveys the history and aesthetics of French avant-garde groups and tendencies in the twentieth century, from Dada and surrealism to the Nouveau Roman and Oulipo. While our focus will be on literary texts, we will also consider theoretical perspectives on the avant-garde and explore connections and contacts between literature and the other arts. Authors studied include Apollinaire, Artaud, Breton, Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute, and Perec. Course taught in French. PQ: Advanced undergraduates admitted with consent of instructor. Alison James. Autumn.
32500. Rabelais. Nous lirons les ¦uvres complètes de Rabelais dans leur contexte social, politique et économique. Chaque étudiant aura la responsabilité d'une présentation orale reflétant une approche critique de Rabelais . Philippe Desan. Winter.
34003. La psychologie morale de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. PQ: Open to 3rd and 4th year undergrads only. Through close readings of texts selected from both autobiographical and theoretical writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the course will explore various aspects of his “morale observatrice”, as he calls it, that it to say his conception of our moral knowledge of human beings in their diversity. The aim will be to locate Rousseau's moral psychology within Enlightenment theories of socialization, as well as to spell out the moral dimension of some literary forms such as the Portrait or the Confession. (The course will be given in French.). Vincent Descombes. Autumn.
34301. Le règne des passions au XVII e siècle. A study of the French neo-classicist vision of human passions, as reflected in literature. We will read plays by Corneille and Racine, narratives by d'Urfé, Saint-Réal, and Mme de La Fayette and maxims by La Rochefoucauld and Pascal. The course will be taught in French and all required texts are in French. Thomas Pavel. Winter .
35301. Beautiful souls, adventurers and rogues. The European 18th-century Novel. Not open to 1 st year undergraduates. The course will examine several major 18 th -century novels, including Manon Lescaut by Prevost, Pamela by Richardson , Shamela by Fielding, La Nouvelle Héloïse by Rousseau, Jacques le Fataliste by Diderot, and The Sufferings of Young Werther by Goethe. The course is taught in English. A weekly session in French will be held for majors and graduate students in French and Comp Lit. Thomas Pavel. Spring .
35800. MA Seminar I. Staff. Autumn.
35900. MA Seminar II. Staff. Winter.
36103. Les Misérables: Victor Hugo. In this course we read Les Misérables . We will discuss the work's message, structure and aesthetic vision. We will be particularly attentive to Victor Hugo's role as an observer of nineteenth-century French society as well as an actor in the political life of his times. All classes and texts in French; presentations preferred in French, but English will be acceptable depending on the concentration. Written work in French or English. Robert Morrissey . Spring.
37000. Aesthetics of French Classicism. Though "aesthetic" philosophy first developed as an autonomous field in the mid-eighteenth century, it has important roots in earlier eighteenth- and seventeenth-century debates concerning literature and the arts. In the wake of Cartesian rationalism, could reasoned method be reconciled with non-rational creativity, or decorous order with the unruly "sublime"? Just what kind of "truth" was revealed by poetry or painting? Readings will include Boileau, Racine, Bouhours, Perrault, Du Bos, Montesquieu, Voltaire and Diderot, as well as the French reception of British writings on the subject by Pope and Addison. Larry Norman . Winter.
42100. Readings and Research. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring.