FREN-250 Rdg Txts/Fr-Speak World: Cultures

Faculty:

Durmelat, Sylvie

Sobanet, Andrew

Spielmann, Guy

Webel, Alissa

Young, Paul

General Description of the Sequence:

French 250 and 251, required of all French majors and open to other qualified undergraduates, is a post-advanced level sequence that can be taken in any order and is designed to meet two goals. First, the sequence prepares students for upper-division French courses and for direct matriculation overseas study programs by focusing on the development of critical thinking and advanced writing abilities. Second, it enhances students’ capacities to perform close reading and analysis by introducing them to a variety of texts and documents selected to increase their content knowledge of the culture, geography, history, literature, and artistic media of the French-speaking world. Individual sections of these courses will emphasize specific approaches to French and Francophone cultures and literatures, such as the anthropological, the historical, the thematic, the formal (including notions of genre) and/or the rhetorical, depending on instructor expertise. Study and analysis will be carried out in class discussion, as well as through specific writing formats (such as explication de texte, dissertation, research paper) for which students will receive structured training, including systematic procedures for organization, drafting, and rewriting, as well as an introduction to research materials and methodology in the discipline. The final paper for each course will be designed to mobilize the reading, analytical and research competencies developed over the course of the semester. Prerequisites for these courses are Intensive Advanced French II (112) or Advanced Grammar & Writing (151) or direct placement through AP, SAT II and/or formal placement test results.

FREN 250 Reading Texts in the French-Speaking World: Cultures
French 250 offers a broadly-defined introduction to the complex, multi-ethnic cultures and social practices of France and the French-speaking world. This course focuses on texts, from all historical periods but especially since the French Revolution, that might be categorized as “documents”: among them, essays, ethnographies, political and historical tracts, life writing and testimonials, journalism, studies, literature, documentary images, and films. In what context were these texts created, how were they crafted, and what impact have they had? What issues and problems do they illuminate within and beyond their communities of origin, and how do we appreciate their “documentary” value or “authority”? In order to address such questions, students will be given methodological tools and techniques that will allow them to approach texts in a systematic, cogent, and critical manner, both for their content and their form. Key notions such as genre, ideology, autobiography and autofiction, (self-)censorship, and frame will be explored and applied to multiple readings of works selected.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: See Above

Other academic years
There is information about this course number in other academic years:

• 2007-2008 Fall and Spring
• 2008-2009 Fall and Spring
• 2009-2010 Fall and Spring
• 2010-2011 Fall and Spring
• 2011-2012 Fall and Spring
• 2012-2013 Fall and Spring

More information
Look for this course in the schedule of classes.

The academic department web site for this program may provide other details about this course.