Fall 2021 Class Schedule
fall 2021 class Schedule
fall 2021 course descriptions
Introductory and Intermediate French Language Courses
FRENCH 111-1: Elementary French
French 111-1 is the first course of a three-quarter sequence (Fall, Winter and Spring) for beginners. This course covers grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, conversation and culture. The aim of the course is to learn and develop skills in speaking, understanding, reading, writing and cultural competence. Class meets four times a week and will be conducted in French.
FRENCH 115-1: Intensive Elementary French
French 115-1 is the first course of a two-quarter sequence (Fall and Winter) that covers the same material as the three-quarter sequence of French 111, but which assumes some prior knowledge of the language. The aim of the course is to review and develop skills in speaking, understanding, reading, writing and cultural competence. Class meets four times a week and will be conducted in French.
FRENCH 121-1: Intermediate French
French 121-1 is the first quarter of a three-quarter course for students who have completed French 111-3 or have been placed in that course by the French department. The aim of the course is to develop students’ communication skills and cultural knowledge. Class meets four times a week. No P/N allowed.
FRENCH 125-2: Intensive Intermediate French
French 125-2 is the second quarter of a three-quarter course for students who have completed French 125-1 or been placed in the course upon taking the French Placement Test.
The primary goal of this course is to strengthen oral and written communication skills by immersing students in authentic cultural contexts and language. A review of essential grammar will reinforce linguistic foundations. Class meets three times a week and will be conducted in French. (Taught in Fall only.)
FRENCH 201: Culture and Society: Introduction to French Studies
French 201-0 is a one-quarter introductory third-year course, offered only in the fall. This course is designed to develop the students’ mastery of French by giving them the opportunity to practice the language in a variety of cultural contexts while deepening and expanding their insights into contemporary French culture. French 201-0 will introduce students to a sampling of social and cultural topics central to an understanding of France and French-speaking peoples. Classes meet three times a week and are conducted in French. Students are expected to attend class regularly and prepare outside of class. A grade of C- or above in French 201-0 fulfills the WCAS foreign language requirement.
FRENCH 202: Writing Workshop: Cultural Encounters in Contemporary France
This course is designed to develop and improve writing skills through a variety of classroom activities: discussion, writing, editing. Students will learn how to write a college-level analytical paper. Selected grammar points will be discussed in class, and course content will be provided by a novel and two films. Homework will include short writing exercises and compositions as well as the preparation of grammar exercises related to the writing objectives. This course serves as prerequisite for most other 200 and 300-level French classes.
FRENCH 203: Oral Workshop: Individual and Society in France Today
This course is designed to build fluency in speaking and understanding French. Classes will concentrate on increasing listening comprehension through viewing of videos and films, building vocabulary and idiom use, and enhancing oral communication skills. One group project based on a play.
FRENCH 210: Reading Literatures in French: Les Formes du mal
Why do we feel sympathy for the devil? This course will explore representations of “le mal” in French literature from the Middle Ages to the present. The word “mal”, in its complexity and breadth, can signify evil, wrong, damage, pain, disease, angst, etc. Looking across multiple literary genres including poetry, prose, drama, and the graphic novel, we will discuss the origins of evil, its moral boundaries as well as the multiple forms of its representation. Why are we attracted to bad or frightening characters? What is the function of pain or illness in the moral, social, and political perspectives that literary texts propose? How does gender shape the portrayal of evil in fiction? This course will focus on close reading and the development of critical writing skills. All lectures and readings will be in French.
FRENCH 211: Reading Cultures in French: Introduction to French Cinema
The course is an introduction to the immense and diverse scope of French (-language) cinema, focusing on the ways in which film can contribute to the construction and critique of national identity. We will interrogate how films show and reinforce particular identities, as well as how they critique and challenge others. In addition to exploring films that attempt to present a more or less coherent vision of what it means to be French, this course will include films that bring in marginalized perspectives and insist on looking at French culture from the ‘outside’. We will examine a broad overview of films, ranging from the Lumière Brothers’ early days of cinema to the French New Wave, modern banlieue cinema and on, acquiring the main terms of cultural and formal analysis. The goal of this course is for students to learn how to ‘read’ French culture through some of its most important films.
FRENCH 271-0: Reading Cultures in French
This introduction to the French novel from the 18th to the 20th century aims to familiarize students with key periods in the history of the French novel as well as help them develop skills in literary reading, analysis and interpretation. While introducing students to various genres and periods (the philosophical and epistolary novel, Romanticism, Realism, the Fantastic, the roman beur and migrant Québécois literature), we will focus on the question of identity and the roles of the “other” (race, gender, class, colonial, im/migrant) in the narrative in order to reflect on the relationships between the novel, culture, politics and history. In this course, we will further develop the techniques of close reading and detailed critical analysis through class discussion and presentations, the creative/reflective assignment, the analytical essay, the use of pedagogical editions, and the practice of annotation.
Courses with Prerequisites in French
FRENCH 301: Advanced Language in Context: Advanced Grammar Through French Media
Advanced Grammar Through French Media is designed for students who are interested in news media. The purpose of this course is to study, understand and practice grammar in context. A variety of authentic documents, from newspapers articles to radio interviews, will illustrate and enliven specific grammar points.
French 301 will help students master the finer points of French Grammar while preparing them to communicate competently (in writing and orally) in informal and formal situations.
FRENCH 333: Topics in Renaissance Literature: Montaigne and Modernity
Michel de Montaigne was one of the most important writers and philosophers of the early modern period; his Essais continues to be a book to live by. This seminar explores Montaigne’s writings in depth, along with those of his most important interlocutors, in the context of the emergence of modern subjectivity in the period we call “Renaissance”. Placing the distant past into conversation with the present, we will consider a set of problems relative to the constitution of the self, of the body, of cultural and gender identity, educational ideals, and political freedom. We will explore the rise of cultural norms surrounding death, love, friendship, faith, and violence. Montaigne’s writings are a gateway into a turbulent and transformative period of history, one which has much to say to our own. All readings, discussion and papers in French.
FRENCH 379/HUM 370-6-23: Topics in French Literature and Culture: National Cinema/World Cinema
What makes a film “French” or “Korean” or “Mexican”? It is where the film is made or where it takes place? The languages spoken or the actors who play the roles? Do national cinemas have distinct visual styles—and if so, how does that sit with the idea that cinema is somehow a “universal” language?
In this course we will explore debates about the national and/or global dimensions of cinema, from some of the classic texts of early film theory to such recent films such as Parasite. Following a series of readings on the concepts of cinema and the nation, we will study the global circulation of ideas about the films of the great director Yasujiro Ozu, routinely said to be the “most Japanese” of all filmmakers, but also an influence on directors throughout the world. In our longest unit, we will explore the idea of “new wave” cinemas. Originally used to describe innovative French films of the late 50s and 60s, “new wave” became both a critical and a marketing concept to group films from Japan, Poland, Iran, and many other countries around the world, to the present day.
We will watch, read about, and discuss by a wide range of films from around the world, with an emphasis on Western Europe and East Asia. Beyond Ozu, directors may include Sergei Eisenstein, Claire Denis, Wim Wenders, Edward Yang, Abbas Kiraostami, Abderrahmane Sissako, Bong Joon-ho, and Lee Isaac Chung.
FRENCH 384: Women Writing in French: Postwar France through Marguerite Duras
Marguerite Duras was one of the most prolific, influential, and controversial writers in 20th century France. In her lengthy career (1943-1996), Duras composed a creative corpus spanning the modernist and postmodernist eras and comprising works of journalism, theatre, short stories, a children’s story, realist, experimental, and postmodern writings, fictionalized autobiographies, film scenarios and films. She understood writing and other artistic processes as sites of formal and intellectual experimentation, transgression, and discovery; processes through which one might discover “new values” for use--or not-- “after the revolution.” Deeply entwined with her social and political thought, Duras’s work forms a sustained response to the rapidly transforming social, cultural and political contexts from which it emerged, of which this class focuses on the following: World War II, the camps, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki; French colonialism, decolonization, rising immigration and colonial nostalgia; postwar Marxist and psychoanalytic feminist thought, and issues of education. In addition to Duras’s work, we will read and present on these contexts, permitting us to gain a sense of both the historical eras in question and of Duras’s creative responses to them. Our work will include video screenings outside of class, on a schedule to be determined in our first meeting.
FRENCH 393/403: Foreign Language Teaching: Theory and Practice
The course provides a foundation in approaches, methods, and materials for the teaching of French from the perspectives of Second Language Acquisition research. The theoretical background will be applied to the teaching of the four skills such as speaking, listening, reading and writing and the teaching of culture to help students develop their own philosophy of foreign language teaching. Students will acquire the pedagogical tools and metalinguistic awareness that they need to become successful language instructors.
French Graduate Courses
FRENCH 403/393: Foreign Language Teaching: Theory and Practice
The course provides a foundation in approaches, methods, and materials for the teaching of French from the perspectives of Second Language Acquisition research. The theoretical background will be applied to the teaching of the four skills such as speaking, listening, reading and writing and the teaching of culture to help students develop their own philosophy of foreign language teaching. Students will acquire the pedagogical tools and metalinguistic awareness that they need to become successful language instructors.
FRENCH 490: Visual Culture: Art History & Literature: Proust and the Arts
In this course we will read about half of Proust’s A la Recherche du temps perdu/In Search of Lost Time, focusing on the importance of the arts both within the world of the novel and for the construction and style of the text. In addition to our reading of the novel, then, we will consider relevant works of music, architecture, photography, and painting, ranging from Gothic cathedrals to Japanese woodblock prints and violin sonatas—and critical responses to these. No background in these other areas is assumed.
Students who can read the text in French should do so, but all readings will be available in English as well and reading knowledge of French is not mandatory. Most readings and other materials will be provided via Canvas. Critics we will read may include Hannah Freed-Thall, Gérard Genette, Suzanne Guerlac, Siegfried Kracauer, Elisabeth Ladenson, and Jacques Rancière. If at all possible, the course will include a group visit to the Art Institute of Chicago.
FRENCH 490-0: Francophone Women’s Writing and French Feminist Theory: Sexuality, Violence, Subjectivity
In this seminar we read novels by Francophone women from the hexagon, the Caribbean, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Mauritius and La Reunion in conversation with fundamental writings by earlier “French feminist” theorists. Our novelists include Maryse Condé, Ananda Dévi, Assia Djebar, Marguerite Duras, Linda Lê, Véronique Tadjo, and Monique Wittig, and the theoretical pieces include works by Beauvoir, Irigaray, Cixous, and Wittig. Our aim is to introduce graduate students to the bodies of work under consideration and develop a nuanced understanding of the social and historical situations and struggles from which theses writings emerged and the ways in which their perspectives complement and complicate, call into question and enrich one another.
Courses Taught in Italian
ITALIAN 101-1: Elementary Italian
A beginning course in Italian language and culture, Elementary Italian is devoted to developing all four language skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) within the three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, presentational). While studying the language, students will be introduced to Italy and its people and they will gain both language and cultural competence. At the end of full-year Italian 101 sequence, students will be able to handle successfully a few uncomplicated communicative tasks, participate in simple conversations on topics related to personal information, personal preferences, daily activities, and immediate needs.
This course is the first in a three-part sequence for beginning students of Italian. Classes are conducted entirely in Italian and are very lively, with lots of give-and-take among participants. Students with some experience in Italian may take the online placement test to place out of any or all of the first-year sequence.
ITALIAN 102-1: Intermediate Italian
Intermediate Italian continues and completes the two-year sequence in Italian language and culture. At the end of the full 102 sequence (102-1,2,3), students are expected to create with the language when talking and writing about familiar topics, to understand the main ideas and some supporting details from a variety of texts (newspaper articles, short stories, …), to describe and narrate, with some consistency, in all major time frames while organizing their discourse into paragraphs. Students will significantly increase their knowledge of Italy’s history and culture. After the completion of the entire sequence of Italian 102, students will be eligible to study in Italy and will be ready to embark on the minor or major in Italian. The second-year Italian course sequence completes the two-year WCAS language requirement.
The classroom is very lively, with lots of conversation, partnering, and small group exercises. Students will be guided toward independence, posing and solving language problems on their own and in collaboration with classmates. While speaking and listening continue as the center of class activity, they will focus more intensively on reading and writing Italian.
ITALIAN 133-1/ITALIAN 134-1: Intensive Italian
Intensive Italian is a double course that fulfills the WCAS two-year language requirement in one academic year. At the end of the entire 133/134 sequence, students will be able to create with the language when talking and writing about familiar topics; to understand the main ideas and some supporting details from a variety of texts (newspaper articles, short stories, …); to describe and narrate, with some consistency, in all major time frames while organizing their discourse into paragraphs. While studying the language, students will be constantly exposed to the Italian culture. By the end of the intensive sequence, students are expected to achieve language, cultural, and intercultural competence enabling them to study in Italy and to embark on the minor or major in Italian.
Intensive Italian classes are small and highly interactive.
Students MUST be registered for both Italian 133-1 and 134-1. However, students should wait until the add/drop period to register for 134-1, to avoid potential issues with adding a 5th course.
ITALIAN 205-0 Voyage to Italy: Migration, Identity, Narrative
The course explores narratives about Italy by focusing on stories and visions of migration to and from Italy. Deconstructing romantic ideas of Italy fostered by the Grand Tour tradition, this course offers an insight into alternative visions of Italy and Italians as they emerge in a large body of literature and artefacts that reflect on migration as an essential experience to understand the country’s cultural and social identity . Students will investigate the representation of the relationship between place and people in different historical or cultural circumstances, from the early XX century Italian external and internal emigration (to the Americas as well as to the North of Italy), to the more recent migration to Italy from Africa and Europe. They will reflect on the multiple significations and complexities of Italy as place, representation, perception, dream, image, memory, desire.
Italian Courses with Readings and Discussion in English
ITALIAN 275-0: Dante's Divine Comedy: To Love Through Justice
Refashioning the conventions of poetry, Dante (1265-1321) used the account of his presumed journey through the three realms of the Christian afterlife – Hell, Purgatory and Paradise – to explore the world at the close of the Middle Ages. The poem is both an adventure story and an exhaustive assessment of the state of politics, society, religion, literature, philosophy, and theology at the beginning of the fourteenth century. This course examines a selection of cantos Dante’s Inferno and Purgatorio in its cultural, social and political context. In particular we will explore how the underground world imagined by the poet relates to late medieval urban life and culture. A guiding concern of the discussion is to assess the ways in which Dante changed our understanding of the relationship between the human and the divine, justice and love, will and reason, happiness and knowledge, literature and the Bible. Political turmoil, philosophical and theological paradigms, social and religious conflict all converge in the making of Inferno and Purgatorio and will thus form crucial elements of our investigation. Taught in English.