2008-2009 Undergraduate Courses in French
| AUTUMN | WINTER | SPRING |
|---|---|---|
| 10100 Beginning Elementary French I | 10100 Beginning Elementary French I | 10200 Beginning Elementary French II |
| 10201 Beginning Elementary French II | 10200 Beginning Elementary French II | 10300 Beginning Elementary French II |
| 10300 Beginning Elementary French II | 10300 Beginning Elementary French II | 20100 Language, History, and Culture I |
| 20100 Language, History, and Culture I | 13100 French through Reading | 20200 Language, History, and Culture II |
| 20200 Language, History, and Culture II | 20100 Language, History, and Culture I | 20300 Language, History, and Culture III |
| 20300 Language, History, and Culture III | 20200 Language, History, and Culture II | 20400 Cours de Perfectionnement |
| 20400 Cours de Perfectionnement | 20300 Language, History, and Culture III | 20500 Ecrire en français |
| 20500 Ecrire en français | 20400 Cours de Perfectionnement | 21500 La Stylistique |
| 21703 Introduction à la littérature française I | 20600 Phonétique et phonologie | 21803 Littérature à l'Age des Lumières |
| 24003 La psychologie morale de Jean-Jacques Rousseau | 21903 Littérature à l'Age des Révolutions | 24000 Fiction and Moral Life |
| 25703 Le Roman et l’Histoire (XIXe-XXe siècles) | 24301 24301 Le règne des passions au XVIIe siècle | 24800 M.A. Exam |
| 29700 Readings in Special Topics | 29700 Readings in Special Topics | 25301 Beautiful souls, adventurers and rogues. The European 18th-century Novel |
| 29900 B.A. Paper Preparation: French | 26103 Les Misérables: Victor Hugo | |
| 29700 Readings in Special Topics |
Some 30000 and 40000-level courses in French (FREN) are open to advanced undergraduates in Romance Languages with consent of instructor. Please contact the department for further information.
Language
These courses must be taken for a quality grade.
10100-10200-10300. Beginning Elementary French I, II, III. Must be taken for a quality grade. This three-quarter sequence is designed for beginning and beginning-intermediate students in French. Its aim is providing students with a solid foundation in the basic patterns of spoken and written French (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, sociocultural norms) to develop their speaking, listening, writing, and reading skills to the level required to demonstrate competency on the French examination. Although the three classes constitute a sequence leading to the French competency examination, there is enough review and recycling at every level for students to enter the sequence at whatever level is appropriate for them. Staff. Summer (complete sequence offered); Autumn, Winter, Spring.
- 10100. FREN 10100 is designed for students who have no previous knowledge of French, and for those who need an in-depth review of the basic patterns of the language.
- 10200. PQ: FREN 10100 or placement. FREN 10200 offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language and expands on the material presented in FREN 10100.
- 10300. PQ: FREN 10200 or placement. FREN 10300 expands on the material presented in FREN 10200, reviewing and elaborating the basic patterns of the language as needed to prepare students for the French competency examination.
10201-10301. Continuing Elementary French II, III. PQ: Placement. Must be taken for a quality grade. This sequence has the same objectives as FREN 10100-10200-10300, but it is reserved for students with enough knowledge of the language to permit a more rapid assimilation of its foundational linguistic and phonetic patterns. Staff Autumn, Winter, Spring.
13100. French through Reading. This course is designed to introduce beginning students to the French language through reading. Students will read a variety of French texts from multiple sources and will acquire a basic set of vocabulary and grammatical structures that will enable reading proficiency in French. Included in the course will be individualized reading according to students' needs and desires. This course is designed for students with little to no background in French. Winter.
20100-20200-20300. Language, History, and Culture I, II, III. PQ: FREN 10300 or placement. Must be taken for a quality grade. In this intermediate-level sequence, students review and extend their knowledge of all basic patterns (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, sociocultural norms) of the language. They develop their oral and written skills in describing, narrating, and presenting arguments. They are exposed to texts and audio-visual material that provide them with a deeper understanding of French literature, culture, and contemporary society. Staff. Autumn, Winter, Spring. (This complete sequence is also offered to participants in the Paris language program in Autumn Quarter.)
- 20100. PQ: FREN 10300 or placement. FREN 20100 is designed as a general review and extension of all basic patterns of the language for intermediate students. Students explore selected aspects of contemporary French society through a variety of texts and audio-visual materials.
- 20200. PQ: FREN 20100 or placement. FREN 20200 is specifically designed to help students develop their descriptive and narrative skills through a variety of texts, audio-visual materials and activities.
- 20300. PQ: FREN 20200 or placement. FREN 20300 is specifically designed to help students develop their skills in understanding and producing written and spoken arguments in French through readings and debates on various issues of relevance in contemporary French society.
20400/30400. Cours de perfectionnement. PQ: FREN 20300 or placement. 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. Winter. (This class is also offered to participants in the Paris language program in Summer and Autumn Quarters.)
20500/30500. Ecrire en français. PQ: FREN 20300 or placement. Enrollment in Paris study abroad program for Summer and Autumn Quarters. This course is strongly recommended for students in the academic year Paris program. 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. Staff. Spring. (This class is also offered to participants in the Paris language program in Summer and Autumn Quarters.)
20600/30600. Phonétique et phonologie. PQ: FREN 20300 or placement. 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. Autumn. (This class is also offered to participants in the Paris language program in Summer Quarter and Autumn Quarter.)
Literature and Culture
All literature courses are conducted in French unless otherwise indicated. French majors do all work in French. With prior consent of the instructor, non-majors may write in English.
21500/31500. La Stylistique. PQ: FREN 20400 or 20500 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.
21703. Introduction à la littérature française I. PQ : FREN 20300 or consent of instructor. This course is designed to give a historical overview of French literature of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and seventeenth centuries. There are close readings and discussions from representative works of this period. Among the authors studied are Rabelais, Ronsard, Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal, Corneille, Racine, Molière, La Fontaine, and Mme. de La Fayette. Daisy Delogu. Autumn.
21803. Littérature à l'Age des Lumières. PQ: FREN 20300 or consent of instructor. This course presents major literary and dramatic works of the eighteenth century such as those by Montesquieu, Prévost, Marivaux, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, and Beaumarchais. The class includes close readings and discussions. Robert Morrissey. Spring.
21903. Littérature à l'Age des Révolutions. PQ: FREN 203 or consent of instructor. An Introduction to some major 19th-century French literary works. This course emphasizes the main cultural debates of the period through some close readings and discussions. We study various literary genres from early Romanticism to the rise of Symbolism. Authors include Chateaubriand, Mme de Staël, Benjamin Constant, Balzac, George Sand, Hugo, Musset, Zola, Lamartine, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine and Mallarmé. Classes are conducted in French. Sylvia Goutas. Winter.
22003. Du moderne au contemporain. PQ: FREN 20300 or consent of instructor. This course presents major literary and dramatic works of the twentieth century, including works by such authors as Gide, Claudel, Mauriac, Aragon, Genet, and Proust. Subjects might include absurdism, existentialism, gender and sexual identity, social upheaval, the post-modern condition, and the rise of cinema. The class includes close readings and discussions. Not offered 2008-2009.
22203/32203. 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.
24000. Fiction and Moral Life. This course examines the moral concerns present in a representative selection of ancient and modern literary texts. We read the works of authors such as Héliodores, Defoe, Kleist, Camus, Tolstoy, Melville, and Su Tong, as well as philosophical works by Plato, Kant, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Classes conducted in English. Thomas Pavel Spring.
24003/34003. 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.
24301/34301. Le règne des passions au XVIIe 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.
25301/35301. Beautiful souls, adventurers and rogues. The European 18th-century Novel. Not open to 1st year undergraduates. The course will examine several major 18th-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.
25703. Le Roman et l’Histoire (XIXe-XXe siècles). While the nineteenth-century novel has a privileged relationship with history, twentieth-century literature is marked by a double movement of engagement with and disengagement from contemporary events. This course will examine this evolution through the study of some key works from the nineteenth century to the present. Themes will include the representation and fictionalization of history, memory and quest, and the transformations of realism. Among the authors studied will be Zola, Proust, Duras, Modiano and Nemirovsky. Alison James. Autumn.
26103. 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.
29700. Readings in Special Topics. PQ: FREN 10300 or 20300, depending upon the requirements of the program for which credit is sought. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. Directed readings in special topics not covered by courses offered as part of the program in French. Because registration in FREN 29700 is subject to departmental approval, the subjects treated and work completed for the course must be chosen in consultation with the instructor no later than the end of the preceding quarter. Autumn, Winter, Spring.
29900. B.A. Paper Preparation: French. PQ: Consent of B.A. adviser. Students are required to submit the College Reading and Research Course Form. This course offers a structure for students writing their B.A. papers. Students work with a faculty member of their choice who directs their paper and supervises their writing. Winter.