Graduate Courses Fall 2009
FREN 5350: Topics in Literature and Culture: Work of Translation: Theory, Function, Practice
Professor Joesph Allen
Contact the instructor for course information.
FREN 5470: Post/Colonial Francophone Literatures
Professor Hakim Abderrezak
Contact the instructor for course information.
FREN 5541: Oral Discourse of French
Professor Betsy Kerr
Are you confused, or intrigued, by the differences between the formal French you've learned in class, and the 'real' French you've heard spoken in France? How does oral language, no matter what the language, differ from written language? This seminar will explore these questions. The main course texts are Ball, Colloquial French Grammar, and Blanche-Benveniste, Approches de la langue parlee en Francais. Ball's text is a thorough treatment of the syntactic and morphological features which distinguish colloquial spoken French from more formal styles of the language. Descriptions and analyses will be illustrated with data from the Minnesota Corpus and other available electronic corpuses (large samples of real-world language). Outside-of-class preparation will include readings, hands-on work such as transcription of recordings of conversation and analysis of data by means of a concordancer (glorified search engine - instruction provided), in-class presentations, and one course project. Readings in French and English, class discussion and assignments in French. The course is intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students with an interest in French linguistics. Note: This course is NOT A CONVERSATION COURSE. Ideally, students should have some background in linguistics (either French or general), but students with advanced proficiency in French (minimum Fren 3015, preferably 3016) may be admitted without prior linguistics coursework. Class meets with Fren 3541. Graduate students will be required to develop one of the course projects into a full-blown research paper, requiring additional outside reading as well as original research. Graduate students will also be expected to demonstrate a more thorough grasp of course topics, and more original responses to course material in class discussions and written work.
FREN 8110: Topics in Early Medieval French Literature: Experiments in Romance
Professor Mary Brown
This course will consider the earliest manifestations of one of the principal genres of the Middle Ages: romance, predecessor of the novel. The genre first appeared toward the middle of the twelfth century, in highly experimental form. In French and Angevin milieux, clerks trained in Latin, who would ordinarily have exercised their literary skills only in that language, for the benefit of their fellow clerks and a small elite of highly educated nobles, began to wish to reach a larger audience. They therefore tried their hand at writing in the vernacular, which we now call Old French but which they referred to simply as "romanz," the "Romance language." Their approaches varied: while some engaged in loose translation/ adaptation of classical epic (the "Romans d'Antiquite"), others adapted Celtic tales (the Tristan and Arthurian legends). Chretien de Troyes, the most synthetic thinker among this coterie of writers, sometimes drew upon broadly divergent traditions in what he called, famously, a "mout belle conjointure" (a "very lovely conjoining"). We shall read a broad selection of these texts, studying not only those well-known romances that have become staples of medieval literature syllabi, but also a few texts neglected in modern scholarship but nevertheless highly significant in their own time and indispensable for an understanding of early romance. Readings will therefore include the Tristan romances of Thomas and Beroul, selections from the Roman de Troie of Benoit de Sainte-Maure and the Roman d'Alexandre, and all five of Chretien's romances. At the end of the semester, we shall look beyond the end of the twelfth century, taking account of the new prose romance of the thirteenth by studying the Quete du saint Graal. This selection of texts opens up a number of avenues for inquiry. Early romance lends itself to analyses of folklore or of translation. Alternatively, these texts may be read through the lens of psychoanalytic, feminist, queer, and postcolonial theory. Since romance could serve both as a bearer of ideology and as a venue for the critique of that ideology, its representations of women, of sexuality, of violence, and of the antique, Muslim, Byzantine, or Celtic Other have all been the subject of scholarship, but there remains much work to be done. Finally, romance's relationship to its own historical context remains a fraught but fascinating question. The course will be taught in English, and students from all programs are welcome. A reading knowledge of Modern French is required. No prior knowledge of Old French is presupposed. Students will read the texts in Modern French translation; those interested in studying the texts in their original language may sign up for the optional, one-credit Old French workshop (one addition hour of instruction per week).
FREN 8220: Staging Modernity: Seminar in Problems of 20th-Century Theatre
Professor Maria Brewer
Problems of 20th-Century French and Francophone Theater at the intersection of a variety of cultural practices and disciplines, modern theater offers productive sites of experimentation with, and at, the limits of representation. This seminar examines major developments in modern French and Francophone drama and performance in France, with a focus on avant-garde innovations at the turn of the century and after 1945 in the work of dramatists and directors who have shaped theater in the 20th-Century. Taking the paradigms of theatricality and common ground, which frame a number of ongoing debates, the seminar will question the material and symbolic dimensions of theater in terms of language, space, time, the body, play, and community. Among other topics, the following will be pursued: 1) theater and the ‘making visible’ of the socius, 2) the stage as material, symbolic, and unconscious representation, 3) gender, sexuality, and performance, and 4) theater and global cultural exchange. Theatrical movements we will be studying include symbolist, existentialist, avant-garde, and contemporary drama and performance. The essential contributions of Antonin Artaud and Berthold Brecht in articulating and theorizing the modern stage will be studied. Plays and critical essays include the work of Aime Cesaire, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Marguerite Duras, Helene Cixous, Ariane Mnouchkine, Bernard-Marie Koltes, Jose Pliya, and Koffi Kwahule. These readings will be informed by selected essays in theater studies, including theater history and Prague School theater semiology as well as psychoanalysis, gender studies, and postmodern critical thought. Video and DVD versions of plays as well as powerpoint presentations of slides and video-clips of stage productions will be viewed and discussed. The seminar will be conducted in French. Students from other programs who know French may participate in English.
FrIt 5999: Teaching of French and Italian: Theory and Practice
Dr. Patricia Mougel
This course is designed primarily for new graduate students who will be teaching language courses in the Department of French and Italian, but is open to advanced undergraduates as well. The course is taught primarily in English. Course goals are both theoretical and practical:
- To understand language acquisition theory as applied to foreign language instruction and the current context of foreign language instruction at the college level.
- To gain a better understanding of the Natural Approach, including both its theoretical foundations and its practical implementation.
- To gain a better understanding of the processes involved in learning and teaching a foreign language and its culture(s) with respect to each of the four skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking).
- To understand how current theory translates into practice through various practical activities.
- To acquire a critical, reflective attitude about one's own teaching.
Assignments include the following: course readings (80-100 pages/week), reports of several class observations, journals, preparation of teaching and testing activities (pedagogical materials portfolio), summaries of professional articles and a final oral presentation on a topic of interest to the student.