French (FREN)

FREN 0080 Laughter and Tricky Topics

This course takes a comparative approach to studying the philosophy and praxis of laughter in a variety of artistic media — texts, films, performances and memes. We will seek to develop a critical apparatus to answer the following questions: How does laughter unite us? How does it divide us? How does it contribute to identity and community formation? We will focus on humoristic expression produced in contexts considered too serious for lightheartedness, such as death, race and gender-related oppression, and disenfranchisement. Together, we will wonder whether everything can be a laughing matter, if irony is even funny (and what does it mean anyway?), and whether humor has the potential to effect meaningful sociopolitical change. Our theoretical corpus will include works by Bakhtin, Baudelaire, Bergson, and Freud, who conceptualized laughter in wildly different ways—respectively as carnivalesque, satanic, social, and as a coping mechanism. In the 1940s, René Ménil, a Franco-Caribbean philosopher, synthesized these early theories and further developed them into a means of resistance for colonial subjects. To see these concepts in action, we will engage with materials spanning three centuries, from a short story written by Jonathan Swift to contemporary French comedies (subtitled in English). Should laughter occur throughout the semester, its causes will be dutifully analyzed and presented in diverse oral and written assignments.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 0080, COML 0080

1 Course Unit

FREN 0081 Decolonizing French Food

Wine and cheese, baguettes and croissants, multiple courses and fresh ingredients straight from the market—these are the internationally recognized hallmarks of French food. Yet, even as the practices surrounding the mythical French table have been deemed worthy of a place on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since 2010, culinary traditions in France remain persistently rooted in legacies of colonialism that are invisible to many. In order to “decolonize” French food, this seminar turns to art, literature, and film, as well as archival documents such as advertisements, maps, and cookbooks. In what ways do writers and filmmakers use food to interrogate the human, environmental, and cultural toll that French colonialism has taken on the world? How do their references to food demonstrate the complex cultural creations, exchanges, and asymmetries that have arisen from legacies of colonialism? We will interpret artworks, read literature (in English or in translation), and watch films (subtitled in English) that span the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by authors and directors from across the Francosphere—from Haiti, Guadeloupe, and Martinique in the Caribbean; to Mauritius in the Indian Ocean; from the Vietnamese diaspora in France, Canada, and the United States; to North, Central, and West Africa. Just as food can be examined from many angles, our discussions will focus on art, literature, and film, but also take into account perspectives from the fields of history, anthropology, and environmental studies. Moreover, we will employ the theoretical tools supplied by food studies, feminist and gender studies, critical race studies, and postcolonial studies.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: AFRC 0081, COML 0081

1 Course Unit

FREN 0090 The Fantastic Voyage from Homer to Science Fiction

Tales of voyages to strange lands with strange inhabitants and even stranger customs have been a part of the Western literary tradition from its inception. What connects these tales is that their voyages are not only voyages of discovery, but voyages of self-discovery. By describing the effects these voyages have on the characters who undertake them, and by hinting at comparisons between the lands described in the story and their own society, authors use fantastic voyages as vehicles for incisive commentary on literary, social, political, and scientific issues. In this course, we will see how voyage narratives as seemingly distant as Homer’s Odyssey and Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes fit into a bigger tradition of speculative fiction. We will determine what the common stylistic elements of speculative fiction are, such as the frame narrative, or story-within-a-story, and what purpose they serve in conveying the tale’s messages. We will see how voyagers attempt to understand and interact with the lands and peoples they encounter, and what these attempts tell us about both the voyagers and their newly discovered counterparts. Finally, we will ask ourselves what real-world issues are commented upon by these narratives, what lessons the narratives can teach about them, and how they impart these lessons to the reader. Readings for this course, all of which are in English or English translation, range from classics like the Odyssey and Gulliver’s Travels to predecessors of modern science fiction like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells to seminal works of modern science fiction like Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes, Karel Čapek’s War with the Newts, and Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris. We will also look at how films like Planet of the Apes (1968) and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) or television shows like Star Trek and Futurama draw upon literary or cinematic models for their own purposes. Students will also have the opportunity to examine and present on pieces from the Mark B. Adams Science Fiction Collection at Penn’s Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts, which comprises over 2,000 volumes of science fiction, speculative fiction, and fantasy. This course is meant not only for SF fans who would like to become better acquainted with the precursors and classics of the genre, but for all those who wish to learn how great works of fiction, far from being intended solely for entertainment and escapism, attempt to improve upon the real world through the effect they have on the reader.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: COML 0090

1 Course Unit

FREN 0100 Elementary French I

This course is the first semester of the elementary-level sequence designed to develop functional proficiency in the four skills and gain familiarity with French and Francophone culture. The primary emphasis is on the development of the oral-aural skills, speaking and listening. Readings on topics in French culture as well as frequent writing practice are also included in the course. As in other French courses, class will be conducted entirely in French. You will be guided through a variety of communicative activities in class which will expose you to a rich input of spoken French and lead you from structured practice to free expression. You will be given frequent opportunity to practice your newly acquired vocabulary and grammatical structures in small group and pair work which simulate real-life situations. The course will introduce you to French and Francophone culture through authentic materials including written documents, simple articles, songs, films, videos and taped conversations between native speakers. Out-of-class homework will require practice with the online component of the textbook (MyFrenchLab) as well as regular writing practice. The course will also invite you to explore the Francophone world on the Internet.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

FREN 0120 Intensive Elementary French for Beginners

This course is an intensive elementary language course for students who have not studied French, but who have met the language requirement in another foreign language. This course will provide an introduction of the basic structures of French, with intensive work on speaking and listening designed to prepare students to take Intermediate French. Due to the nature of the course, the first half will progress rapidly with the more difficult material presented after the midterm period. As in other French courses, class will be conducted entirely in French. You will be guided through a variety of communicative activities in class that will expose you to a rich input of spoken French and lead you from structured practice to free expression. You will have frequent opportunities to practice your newly acquired vocabulary and grammatical structures in small group and pair work that simulate real-life situations, so please prepare each day's lesson attentively. The course will introduce you to French and Francophone culture through authentic materials including written documents, simple articles, songs, films, videos, and conversations between native speakers. Homework will consist of aural comprehension exercises in the online workbook as well as regular writing practice. The course will also invite you to explore the Francophone world by completing an engaging, interactive project in the final stage of the semester. By the end of this course, you should be able to meet a variety of day-to-day needs in a French-speaking setting and to handle a range of basic travel transactions. You will be able to engage in simple conversations on familiar topics such as family, lodging, daily routines, leisure activities, etc. You will begin to be able to speak and write in the past, present and the future, make comparisons, and describe people and things in increasing detail. You will develop reading skills that should allow you to get the gist of simple articles and you will more readily discern information when you hear native speakers talking in a simple fashion about topics familiar to you. Permit required.

Fall

2 Course Units

FREN 0150 Intensive Elementary French Abroad

French 0150 covers the equivalent of FREN 0100 and FREN 0200 at Penn. This course is open to any student interested in learning French. No background in French is necessary.

Summer Term

2 Course Units

FREN 0200 Elementary French II

This course is the second semester continuation of the elementary-level sequence designed to develop functional proficiency in the four skills and gain familiarity with French and Francophone culture. The primary emphasis is on the development of the oral-aural skills, speaking and listening. Readings on topics in French culture as well as frequent writing practice are also included in the course. As in other French courses, class will be conducted entirely in French. You will be guided through a variety of communicative activities in class which will expose you to rich input of spoken French and lead you from structured practice to free expression. You will be given frequent opportunity to practice your newly acquired vocabulary and grammatical structures in small group and pair work which simulate real-life situations. The course will introduce you to French and Francophone culture through authentic materials including written documents, simple articles, songs, films, videos, and taped conversations between native speakers. Out-of-class homework will require practice with the online component of the textbook, as well as regular writing practice. The course will also invite you to explore the Francophone world on the Internet.

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: FREN 0100

1 Course Unit

FREN 0210 Accelerated Elementary French for False Beginners

This course is an intensive one-semester language course for students who have had some French before but who can benefit from a complete review of elementary French. This course will provide a re-introduction of the basic structures of French, with intensive work on speaking and listening designed to prepare students to take Intermediate French. Due to the nature of the course, the first half of the semester will progress rapidly, with much more difficult material being presented after the midterm period. As in other French courses, class will be conducted entirely in French. You will be guided through a variety of communicative activities in class that will expose you to a rich input of spoken French and lead you from structured practice to free expression. You will be given frequent opportunity to practice your newly acquired vocabulary and grammatical structures in small- group and pair work activities that simulate real-life situations, so please prepare each day's lesson attentively. The course will introduce you to French and Francophone culture through authentic materials including written documents, simple articles, songs, films, videos, and conversations between native speakers. Out-of-class homework will consist of aural comprehension exercises in the online workbook as well as regular writing practice. The course will also invite you to explore the Francophone world by completing an engaging, interactive project in the final stage of the semester. By the end of this course, you should be able to meet a variety of day-to-day needs in a French-speaking setting and to handle a range of basic travel transactions. You will be able to engage in simple conversations on familiar topics such as family, lodging, daily routines, leisure activities, etc. You will begin to be able to speak and write in the past, present, and the future, make comparisons, and describe people and things in increasing detail. You will develop reading skills that should allow you to get the gist of simple articles and you will more readily discern information when you hear native speakers talking in a simple fashion about topics familiar to you.

Fall

1 Course Unit

FREN 0300 Intermediate French I

In French 0300, you will be "parachuted" to Paris where you will choose where you want to live and explore your chosen neighborhood in depth. Every week we will discuss a different theme of Parisian life and French culture. As you discover your arrondissement, you will share information about it with your classmates and develop a collective knowledge of the French capital. You will tell your imagined experiences through your journal and therefore as a class, we will "raconter Paris". French 130 is the first half of the intermediate sequence designed to help you attain a level of proficiency that should allow you to function comfortably in a French-speaking environment. This course will build on your existing skills in French, increase your confidence and ability to read, write, speak, and understand French, and introduce you to more refined lexical items, more complex grammatical structures, and more challenging cultural material. As in other French courses at Penn, class will be conducted entirely in French. In addition to structured oral practice, work in class will include frequent communicative activities such as role-plays, problem-solving tasks, discussions, and debates, often carried out in pairs or small groups. Through the study of authentic materials such as articles, literary texts, songs, films, videos, you will deepen your knowledge of the French language and culture.

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: FREN 0200 OR FREN 0210

1 Course Unit

FREN 0340 Accelerated Intermediate French

An intensive two-credit course covering the first and second semester of the intermediate year. See descriptions of French 0300 and 0400. Students must have a departmental permit to register. Also offered in the summer Penn-in-Tours program in France.

Spring

2 Course Units

FREN 0400 Intermediate French II

French 0400 is the second half of a two-semester intermediate sequence designed to help you attain a level of proficiency that should allow you to function comfortably in a French-speaking environment. You are expected to have already learned the most basic grammatical structures in elementary French and you will review these on your own in the course workbook. This course will build on your existing skills in French, increase your confidence and ability to read, write, speak and understand French, and introduce you to more refined lexical items, more complex grammatical structures, and more challenging cultural material. This course focuses on the culture of French-speaking countries beyond the borders of France. Along with your classmates, you will explore the cities of Dakar, Fort-de-France and Marrakesh, investigating the diversity of the Francophone world through film, literature and music. As in other French courses at Penn, class is conducted entirely in French. In addition to structured oral practice, work in class will include frequent communicative activities such as problem-solving tasks, discussions, and debates, often carried out in pairs or small groups. Daily homework will require researching in the library and on the Internet, listening practice with video clips, in addition to regular written exercises in the workbook.

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: FREN 0300

1 Course Unit

FREN 0800 Advanced French in Residence

Open only to residents in La Maison Francaise. Participants earn 1/2 c.u. per semester. Course can be taken twice for credit.

Two Term Class, Student may enter either term; credit given for either

0.5 Course Units

FREN 1000 Advanced French

French 1000 is a third-year level course aimed at better understanding contemporary French society, language and culture, with a special focus on today's young generation. What defines a generation in the first place, and how do the lives of young people in France compare to those of their American counterparts? To answer these questions, students in this course will delve into numerous aspects of French youth experience from the school system to family life, and from the workplace to the political arena, with the aid of resources including contemporary films, news articles, songs, literary texts, and the recent sociological project "Generation Quoi." In addition, they will forge connections with the French community on Penn's campus, as they embark on a journey of cultural exploration and reflexive self-discovery. While this course is not a grammar-focused course, particular attention will be given to recognizing and employing the different registers of spoken and written French. The course constitutes excellent preparation for study abroad in a French-speaking region. Prerequisite: Open to students who have completed the language requirement. Students who are continuing from French 0340 or 0400 should take French 1000 before moving on to more advanced French courses.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

FREN 1071 Fashion and Modernity

In this class we will study the emergence of the Modernist concept of the "new" as a term also understood as "new fashion." We will move back and forth in time so as to analyze today’s changing scene with a view to identify contemporary accounts of the "new" in the context of the fashion industry. Our texts will include poetry, novels, and films. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings.

Also Offered As: ARTH 2889, COML 1072, ENGL 1071, GRMN 1065

1 Course Unit

FREN 1212 Advanced French Grammar and Composition

Intensive review of grammar integrated into writing practice. A good knowledge of basic French grammar is a prerequisite (French 1000 or equivalent is recommended). Conducted entirely in French, the course will study selected grammatical difficulties of the French verbal and nominal systems including colloquial usage. Frequent oral and written assignments with opportunity for rewrites. Articles from French newspapers and magazines, literary excerpts, and a novel or short stories will be used as supplementary materials in order to prepare students to take content courses in French in disciplines other than French.

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: FREN 1000

1 Course Unit

FREN 1214 Advanced French Conversation and Composition

This course is intended to improve communicative skills through extensive practice in a variety of styles and forms. It aims to enhance student understanding of contemporary French culture, thought and modes of expression by promoting both cross-cultural understanding and critical thinking and developing students' communicative abilities (in the presentational, interpretive, and interpersonal modes). The specific language functions we will focus on are: narration; description; offering and soliciting advice and opinions; expressing feelings; critique and analysis; argumentation. It is organized around the themes of current events, identity and art. Activities include the study, analysis and emulation of model texts as well as discussion and debates about events and social issues as covered by the French news media (television, print, Internet sources). The oral work include video blogs and group presentations on selected topics and current events. Written practice will comprise reflective journals, essays and collaborative work on Web projects. On completing this course, students will feel more confident and be able to speak and write effectively on a range of contemporary issues. Recommended for students who are planning to study abroad in France.

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: FREN 1000

1 Course Unit

FREN 1217 French Phonetics

This course is designed to provide students with a solid foundation in French phonetics and phonology. Part of the course will be devoted to learning how to produce discourse with native-like pronunciation and intonation. The course will also focus on improving aural comprehension by examining stylistic and regional differences in spoken French.

Fall

Prerequisite: FREN 1000

1 Course Unit

FREN 1226 French History and Culture to 1774

This civilization course presents the fabric/fabrication of the so-called national memory through its places of memory (lieux de memoire), as well as its places of non-memory (lieux de non-memoire), going from the Gauls to the Enlightenment. As the course tells the story of the rise and fall of the French monarchy, one is encouraged to envision it as a palimpsest and to become aware of the roles played by myths and legends. It helps see how French history has been manipulated by the collective memory, how retrospection often redefines, fabricates events and people depending on the needs of the moment. This course is taught in French.

Fall

Prerequisite: FREN 1212 OR FREN 1214 OR DWTEST=5

1 Course Unit

FREN 1227 French History and Culture 1789-1945

This civilization course presents the creation of modern France from 1789 to 1945 through the omnipresence of the myth of Perseus and Medusa in the historical narrative. The objective of the course is to introduce students to a period in France's history that begins with the French Revolution and ends with Maréchal Pétain's National Revolution. It also helps them discover the intricacies of the slow construction of modern France. In this course, students are led to reflect on contemporary French culture and society that are the result and the remnants of the Revolution, and to make connections with American history. This course is taught in French.

Spring

1 Course Unit

FREN 1228 Contemporary France

In this course we will be exploring the transformations of French society since the Second World War and into the Millennium. From the legacy of decolonization to the multicultural fervor of the 1998 Soccer World Cup, from the May 1968 civil protests to the Republican marches of 2015, we'll be delving into the major historical and cultural movements that have marked the contemporary period. How did France recover from German occupation and cope with further wars in its colonial territories? How did unprecedented rates of urbanization and immigration change the face of the country over the ensuing decades? Who have been the major players on the historical stage? And what are the political, cultural, and socioeconomic challenges facing France at the outset of the 21st century? These are some of the questions that will guide our investigation into the past 70 years of French history, a period as turbulent as it is rich in cultural production, and as complex as it is fascinating. Throughout the semester we will be especially attentive to images, in every sense of the word: the images of national identity that France projects to the world and to itself, but also pictorial representations of the country, its people and its territory. These images, and the stories they tell, will help us envision the kaleidoscopic portrait of a nation. The course will be conducted entirely in French.

Fall

1 Course Unit

FREN 1230 Masterpieces of French Cinema

This course will introduce students to key films of the French film canon, selected over a period ranging from the origins of French cinema to the present. Students will also be introduced to the key critical concepts (such as the notion of the "auteur" film genre) informing the discussion of films in France. The films will be studied in both a historical and theoretical context, related to their period styles (e.g. "le realisme poetique," "la Nouvelle Vague," etc.), their "auteurs," the nature of the French star system, the role of the other arts, as well to the critical debates they have sparked among critics and historians. Students will acquire the analytical tools in French to discuss films as artistic and as cultural texts. Please note: This course follows a Lecture/Recitation format. The Lecture (FREN 1230-401/CIMS 1230-401) is taught in English. For French credit: please register for both FREN 1230-401 (lecture) and FREN 1230-402 (recitation); the FREN 1230-402 recitation is conducted in French. For Cinema Studies credit: please register for CIMS 1230-401 (lecture) and CIMS 1230-403 (recitation); both are taught in English. Prerequisite: Two 200-level courses taken at Penn or equivalent.

Fall

Also Offered As: CIMS 1230

1 Course Unit

FREN 1231 Perspectives in French Literature: Love and Passion

This basic course in literature provides an overview of French literature and acquaints students with major literary trends through the study of representative works from each period. Students are expected to take an active part in class discussion in French. French 1231 has as its theme the presentation of love and passion in French literature.

Fall

Also Offered As: COML 1231

1 Course Unit

FREN 1232 Perspectives in French Literature: The Individual and Society

This basic course in literature provides an overview of French literature and acquaints students with major literary trends through the study of representative works from each period. Special emphasis is placed on close reading of texts in order to familiarize students with major authors and their characteristics and with methods of interpretation. Students are expected to take an active part in class discussion in French. French 1232 has as its theme the Individual and Society.

Spring

Also Offered As: COML 1232

1 Course Unit

FREN 1233 Francophone Literature and Film

This course is designed to give students a basic historical and theoretical groundwork in Francophone and postcolonial studies, and to help them develop their skills in literary and filmic analysis. It will provide an introductory survey of the richly diverse literature and film of the French-speaking world, from the 1950s through to the 21st century. Beginning with the gradual breakup of the French colonial empire, we will investigate the construction of individual and collective Francophone identities in such regions as the Caribbean, Africa, and the Maghreb, while exploring an equally wide range of literary and cinematic genres. Other histories and regions such as Quebec and Lebanon will also be discussed. Throughout the course we will remain especially attentive to questions of space--public and private spheres, urban and rural topographies, borders and migrations, as well as the complex dynamics between the Francophone regions and France itself--and to the ways in which these tensions are mapped onto the textual and visual surfaces of the works studied.

Spring

1 Course Unit

FREN 2130 French for Business I

This content-based language course, taught in French, introduces economic, business and professional terminology through the study of the following topics: financial institutions (banking, stock market and insurance); business practices (business letters and resumes); trade and advertising; the internal structure and legal forms of French companies. The course also emphasizes verbal communication through three components: 1) In-class activities such as problem-solving tasks, discussions and debates. 2) The study of authentic materials such as newspapers and magazines' articles, video clips, and radio shows. 3) A series of students' presentations. Finally, in order to use and practice the new economic and business terminology studied in this course, and to also further explore the structure, the management, and the operations of the French companies, students will work in pairs on a research project about a major French company of their choice. One of the other goals of this course is to also prepare the students to take one of the exams offered by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry: the Diplome de Francais Professionnel, Affaires, C1. This exam will be held on campus in April.

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: FREN 1000

1 Course Unit

FREN 2170 French Phonetics

Fall or Spring

Prerequisite: FREN 1000

1 Course Unit

FREN 2180 From West Africa to West Philadelphia: Creating Community in the Francophone Diaspora

This course explores the immigrant experience with a focus on migration from Francophone West Africa to this country, particularly the impact it has on children and young people. Through a close partnership with young Francophone immigrants at the Lea School, we will focus on the challenges they face adapting to a new cultural and linguistic environment. We will review the Francophone context in order to understand the place of the French language in Africa; look at the immigrant and refugee experience through a variety of texts in French; examine the issues of mono-, bi- and multilingualism both on an individual and a societal basis; look at the competing meanings the French language holds for Black Americans; and study the role of foreign languages in American schools. Students will participate in the weekly Francophone Community Partnership, an after-school program with K - 8 children at the Lea School which seeks to enhance the children’s self-esteem and pride in their linguistic and cultural heritage.

Spring

1 Course Unit

FREN 2230 Advanced Intensive French Composition and Conversation

Summer in Tours course: Intensive language course complemented by various workshops to consolidate and deepen written and oral skills,do more targeted phonetic correction work (on expressive intonation, fluency and fluency) in a language lab or in class, discover different aspects of life in France, and to be open to the plurality of cultures. At the end of the program, students will be able to take the DELF.

Summer Term

2 Course Units

FREN 2231 Advanced French Language and Culture

This is an advanced level language course, comprising a language course and various modules (reinforcement and phonetics) and workshops (cultural, action-oriented, etc.) . In the language course, students will practice language structures, comprehension of different written and oral documents, oral and written production, phonetics, as well as lexicon and cultural and societal knowledge through a range of activities designed around a variety of learning materials (audio/video and written documents). The various modules and workshops are designed to: consolidate and deepen written and oral skills, work on more targeted phonetic correction (on expressive intonation, fluency and ease) in a language laboratory or in class, discover different aspects of life in France, open up to the plurality of cultures. Prior to starting, students will take a placement test and be assigned the appropriate advanced course by the Institut de Touraine. At the end of the program, students will be able to take the DELF exam if they want.

Summer Term

Prerequisite: FREN 0400 AND FREN 0340

1 Course Unit

FREN 2250 Paris during the German Occupation and its Places of [Non-]Memory

In this course, we will explore the dark years that characterized the Occupation of France by Nazi Germany and the Collaboration between the two countries supported by the Vichy Regime.A course to explore a past that none of us has directly lived. And not just any past. A repressed, masked, disguised past. A past inhabited by shadows. A past that is whispered. A holed memory. The myth of Marianne Resistance fascinates only for a while before the reality of the camps and the Collaboration looms up with a grimace and provokes fright in us.How to talk about what happened? With what words to recount the story of the disappeared? This was the challenge for the post-Auschwitz society. This is the challenge of this course. Paris will be our anchor point. Capital witness, capital executioner, capital victim. Its streets and walls will whisper to us the stories that were confined between two brackets at the Liberation. It is these stories that we will try to catch on the fly to give them back shape and voice while we bend to the difficult exercise of remembrance. It goes without saying that the objective will not be to judge but to try to understand a past, a past that does not pass ... Assignments include weekly creative writings, translation of survivors' testimonies into English, research in the Archives de Paris and the French press of the time as well as digital mapping and the creation of a digital timeline (no previous skills in digital tools needed). The course is conducted entirely in French. Open to students with a solid advanced level.

Fall

1 Course Unit

FREN 2251 Paris during the German Occupation and its Places of [Non-]Memory

This Penn Global seminar will aim to understand the dark historical period of WWII France through the study of the visible and invisible traces left on French memory and the Parisian landscape. The class will start by studying the conventional history of Vichy France, then turn to the writers who testified of that time, some as victims, others as witnesses or coming from the post-memory generation. Each of them has, in his or her own way, tried to find the words to fill the places of non-memory. The course will be open to French speakers and non-French speakers alike and will feature two recitation sections: one in French and one in translation. The travel component will feature visits to key sites of the German occupation and trace the lives of the key Parisian residents whose first-person accounts make up the bulk of the course readings.

Not Offered Every Year

Mutually Exclusive: FREN 2250

1 Course Unit

FREN 2280 Contemporary France

Fall

1 Course Unit

FREN 2461 Women’s Writing in French: 19th-21st Centuries

This course will focus on both canonical and lesser-studied French women’s writing (prose, theater and poetry) from the mid-nineteenth to the twenty-first century. In addition, when relevant, you will also view theatrical or cinematic adaptations. Questions to be addressed include but are not limited to gender-based oppression, gender ambiguity, the importance of social class, the portrayal of love, bodily autonomy and memory. Brief, in-class lectures will provide details on the author and literary movement or trend to which she belongs, but the primary objective of our discussions will be the exchange of ideas and interpretations of each work. All readings discussions, lectures and other assessments will be entirely in French.

Spring

Prerequisite: FREN 1212

1 Course Unit

FREN 2500 The Novel and Marriage

The content of the course will vary from semester to semester. All works read in English. Please check the department's website for a description. https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 2500, ENGL 0575, ENGL 2799, HIST 0722

1 Course Unit

FREN 3010 French Identity in the Twentieth Century

Topics vary. Please see the department's website for a description of the current offerings: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 3010, GSWS 3010

1 Course Unit

FREN 3020 Literary Translation: Theory and Practice

In this course, we will be guided by the principle that translation is a practice that requires both carefulness and care, by the belief that it is an art form unto its own, and by the understanding that it is a practice steeped in ideological and political power. We will study several trends, theories and philosophical approaches in the field, and we will also attend to more technical concerns, such as copyright, machine translation, etc. We will compare different translations of same works (such as the ones of Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin White Masks) to think through the complex relationship between author, translator and their publishing contexts. We will welcome several accomplished translators who will share their process and explain the importance of building a translation community. Students will also work on their own translations (into English), which we will workshop together.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 3020

Mutually Exclusive: FREN 5250

1 Course Unit

FREN 3030 Humor and Comedy in French and Francophone Culture

This course will trace the prominent role played by humor and comedy in French and Francophone literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the contemporary era in a variety of genres and media, including theater, novels, cartoons, comics, films, and stand-up comedy. Through our exploration of this broad sampling, we will learn how humorous and comedic works reflect their historical circumstances, and we will also arrive at a deeper theoretical understanding of different kinds of humor and comedy and how they function. In particular, we will try to answer the following questions: - Do humor and comedy inherently depend upon a sense of superiority? In other words, if we laugh, is it always at someone else’s expense? - Do comedy and humor simply reinforce established social hierarchies based on race, gender, and class, or can it provide a way to challenge them? - What makes French and Francophone humor culturally specific? For example, how is a French comedy different from an American one, and how can we trace the evolution of comedic tropes from the earliest known French comedic works to contemporary ones? - Why do scatology and body humor play such a prominent role in French comedic works? - What are some of the different modes of satire, and are they meant to change society or keep it static? - What can comedic works tell us about French republican universalism and its potential shortcomings? All primary readings, discussions, and assignments will be in French. Some secondary readings will be in English.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3080 Topics in French Culture

Please see the department's website for the course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3100 Literary History

Please see the department's website for the course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3110 French Thought After 1968

In American academia, French thought after May '68 is often referred to as "French Theory," a heterogeneous corpus of philosophical and critical texts compacted into a set of poststructuralist premises, first introduced by and grew within humanities departments, then identified as a luxury by-product of the "literary" people. This course proposes to unpack the notion of "French Theory" and re-anchor it into its original social/historical background. We will read some of the most influential texts of its key figures, study how a post May 68 revolutionary energy is transformed into various innovative but also destabilizing ways of rethinking power relations, gender, language and subjectivity, and finally, consider in what capacities and limits these diverse critical approaches go beyond the simple label of "post-structuralism" and relate to our own epoch and personal experiences. The readings and discussions will be divided into four axes: 1. Philosophy of Desire (Lacan, Deleuze/Guattari); 2. Sexual Revolt and Body Politics (Foucault, Hocquenghem, Barthes); 3. Deconstruction and Its Impact on Feminism (Derrida, Cixous, Irigaray); 4. Consumer Society and Society of the Spectacle (Lipovetsky, Baudrillard, Debord). Several documentaries and feature films will be shown outside class time. Taught in English. Reading knowledge of French is welcome but not required.

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: COML 3110

1 Course Unit

FREN 3130 French for Business II

The course, conducted entirely in French, emphasizes verbal communication in business professional situations through three components. First, a series of student's presentations, in-class activities (using newspapers' articles, technical readings, radio shows and films), and debates on the following topics (list not exhaustive) related to France's economy and society: The role of the State in France's economy; the French fiscal system; Labor (impact of the 35-hour work week, "conges," women in the workplace, etc.); Regions of France (production); major French industries/companies/brands; France's major imports/exports; "Green business"; Business of pop culture. Second, as effective communication is based not only on linguistic proficiency but also on cultural proficiency, cultural differences mostly between Americans and French will be explored. Finally, throughout the semester, students will work in groups on the creation of their own business, association, or other organization and will be invited to present their project to the class at the end of the semester. On completion of the course, students will also have the opportunity to take the Diplome de Francais Professionnel-DFP Affaires (C1) administered by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Spring

Prerequisite: FREN 2130

1 Course Unit

FREN 3220 France and the European Union

This course aims to provide an understanding of the European Union as a complex entity: its history, institutions, challenges and future. After reviewing the history of European integration and learning about the Community's institutions, common programs and market, we will consider a wide variety of themes important to Europe: economics, education, immigration, the environment, social issues, national and European identities, the debate over a Federal Europe vs. a Europe of nations, European social/cultural models vs. American liberalism, relations between the EU and the rest of the world. Considering the acute and ongoing challenges facing the European community, we will focus on current events and discuss issues that are critical to the EU in general and to France in particular. Students will be responsible for pursuing substantive research on these and other topics and participating actively in debates. This class will be conducted entirely in French and is designed to improve cross-cultural understanding and communicative skills in the presentational, interpretive and interpersonal modes.

Fall

1 Course Unit

FREN 3250 Advanced French: Translation

This course provides an introduction to the theory and practice of translation and is designed to help foster a critical understanding of differences between French and English syntactical and lexical patterns. It will introduce students to theoretical concepts and problems of translation, with the ultimate goal being to improve their ability to communicate in more authentic-sounding French. Students will have the opportunity to practice translation individually and to work with their peers on a variety of projects (advertising, journalistic and literary texts, movie and broadcast news subtitling) and to engage in critique and discussion of others' translations. This course will help students refine their language skills and navigate more proficiently between these cultures and language systems. (Designed for students who already have a solid foundation in French and English grammar)

Spring

1 Course Unit

FREN 3290 Le français dans le monde/French in the World

Where and how is French spoken in the world? Which variety (or varieties) of French represents "good" or standard language use? What does it mean to have an accent or to experience linguistic insecurity? To what extent have political forces and movements historically affected the evolution of French? How do language attitudes differ among French- and English-speaking regions of the world and what is the status of French in an era of globalization? In what ways does language shape our identities? Le Francais dans le monde/French in the World examines these questions by providing a survey of the sociolinguistics of the French language in the contemporary world. We will explore how societal changes influence the manner and the contexts in which the French language is spoken. Case studies focus on various parts of the Francophone world, including Europe (Belgium, Switzerland), New World (Quebec, Caribbean, Louisiana), Africa (North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa), etc. Readings and class discussions are in French.

Spring

1 Course Unit

FREN 3300 Medieval Literature

An introductory course to the literature of the French Middle Ages. French literature began in the 11th and 12th centuries. This course examines the extraordinary period during which the French literary tradition was first established by looking at a number of key generative themes: Identity, Heroism, Love, Gender. All readings and discussions in French.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3600 The Enlightenment

Topics vary. For current course description, please see the department's webpage: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: HIST 0723

1 Course Unit

FREN 3700 French Literature of the 19th Century

Topics vary. For current course description, please see the department's webpage: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3710 Poe's French Legacies

Edgar Allan Poe was considered a vulgar hack by many of his fellow Americans, but in 19th-century France, he was touted as a misunderstood poetic genius, the original poete maudit. Through the translations of Charles Baudelaire, who found in Poe a kindred spirit in the "gout de l'infini," French intellectuals came to know the American writer as a fount of aesthetic wisdom, diabolical sensibility, and mystic mastery. In this course, we will study Baudelaire's poetry as well as the many literary and artistic movements in France that were directly inspired by Poe's uncanny mix of the macabre and the methodical: Symbolist poetry (Valery, Mallarme), the Scientific Fantastic (Maupassant, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam), fin-de-siecle Decadence (Huysmanns, Odilon Redon), Science Fiction (Verne), the detective novel (Gaboriau), and 20th-century Surrealism (Breton, Max Ernst).

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3720 Crime and Punishment: Hugo’s Les Misérables in Context

Long before the revolutionary ardor of Marius and the innocent longing of Cosette graced Broadway stages and Hollywood screens, the characters of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables (1862) tugged at the heartstrings of readers all over the world. Through this blockbuster novel, Hugo combined his Romantic aesthetics with political critique by exposing the ways in which French society oppressed its downtrodden members, the “misérables” of the title; he also called for a recognition that a noble spirit could inhabit unlikely figures like the prostitute and the ex-convict. In this class, we will read Les Misérables in its entirety, along with a few related texts on crime and punishment. We will ask questions such as these: how can literature contribute to debates about penal reform and the death penalty? What is divine justice? How does crime connect (or not) to political, collective forms of violence? How can we map the urban topographies of hygiene and violence in post-Revolutionary Paris? How does Hugo’s novel relate to the sordid faits divers, gazette entries, and criminal memoirs whose lurid illustrations and sensationalism fascinated the nation’s “respectable” citizens? Students will also be given the opportunity for guided original research on criminality and the popular press of 19th-century France, using online resources and the holdings of Penn's Rare Books and Manuscript library. [All readings, course discussion, and assignments in French]

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

FREN 3730 Paris: lire la ville, écrire la ville

Paris, the "City of Light" and "capital of the nineteenth century," exists as much as an imaginary space as a real one. How have urbanism, modernity, and war contributed to literary representations of France's capital city? How did 19th-century Hausmannization lead to the emergence of 20th-century Surrealist and Situationist practices? In what ways can studying the city through fictional perambulations allow for a "writing" and re-writing of urban space? In this seminar (taught entirely in French), students will engage in the practices of literary and cultural analysis through the theoretical prisms of thinkers like Barthes, De Certeau, Lefebvre, and Serres. Primary readings will include Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), Emile Zola's Au Bonheur des dames (1863), Charles Baudelaire's Le Spleen de Paris (1831), Louis Aragon's Le Paysan de Paris (1926), André Breton's Nadja (1928), Perec's Tentative d'épuisement d'un lieu Parisien (1975), and Patrick Modiano's Dora Bruder (1997).

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3800 Literature of the Twentieth Century

This course, the theme of which changes from semester to semester, provides an introduction to important trends in twentieth-century literature. Please check the department's website for the course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3810 Animal Words, Animal Worlds: Introduction to Zoopoetics

We are surrounded by other living creatures, both in our daily lives and on the page, and yet that otherness has endless potential for surprise and wonder. The intensity of our encounters with animals generates a corresponding intensity in the language that tries to capture them. Even if language is unique to humans - a claim that is often disputed - what are we to make of animals' vital, vibrant place in the words we use and the texts we read? How do nonhuman forms of life help give shape to different forms, styles, even species of artistic expression? And what are the practical and ethical implications of focusing on animals' place in literature at a time when they are vanishing from the world around us at an ever-increasing rate? This course sets out on the trail of the animals that populate modern and contemporary French and Francophone writing. Taking as our starting point la zoopoetique, a term coined by French thinkers at the turn of this century to designate literature's many ways of relating to nonhuman life, we will discover a range of recent works whose diversity rivals that of the various species inhabiting them. From Henri Michaux's teeming assortment of nocturnal beasts to Marie Darrieussecq's (pig)tale of metamorphosis, and from Jean Echenoz's vivid portrayal of WWI trenches to Scholastique Mukasonga's rural Rwanda, each of these texts forms an ecosystem in which language itself behaves differently according to the life it encounters and embodies. We will adopt an interdisciplinary approach to these animal words and worlds, for zoopoetics is not confined to literary studies: it is inseparable from a host, not just of forms of life, but also of questions stemming from the fields of anthropology, ethology, history, natural science, and philosophy. As we investigate how our own reading practices are informed by human-animal relations going back to the earliest days of hunting and tracking, the trail through these texts will lead us to interrogate our very understanding of what it is to be human. The pre-requisite for this course is 3 French courses at the 200 level; any exceptions must be approved by the instructor.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3820 Horror Cinema

The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the history and main themes of the supernatural/horror film from a comparative perspective. Films considered will include: the German expressionists masterworks of the silent era, the Universal classics of the 30's and the low-budget horror films produced by Val Lewton in the 40's for RKO in the US, the 1950's color films of sex and violence by Hammer studios in England, Italian Gothic horror or giallo (Mario Brava) and French lyrical macabre (Georges Franju) in the 60's, and on to contemporary gore. In an effort to better understand how the horror film makes us confront our worst fears and our most secret desires alike, we will look at the genre's main iconic figures (Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, etc.) as well as issues of ethics, gender, sexuality, violence, spectatorship through a variety of critical lenses (psychoanalysis, socio-historial and cultural context, aesthetics...).

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 3820

1 Course Unit

FREN 3830 French & Italian Modern Horror

This course will consider the horror genre within the specific context of two national cinemas: France and Italy. For France, the focus will be almost exclusively on the contemporary period which has been witnessing an unprecedented revival in horror. For Italy, there will be a marked emphasis on the 1960s-1970s, i.e. the Golden Age of Gothic horror and the giallo craze initiated by the likes of Mario Bava and Dario Argento. Various subgenres will be examined: supernatural horror, ghost story, slasher, zombie film, body horror, cannibalism, etc. Issues of ethics, gender, sexuality, violence, spectatorship will be examined through a variety of critical lenses (psychoanalysis, socio-historical and cultural context, aesthetics, politics, gender, etc.).

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 3830, COML 3830, ITAL 3830

1 Course Unit

FREN 3840 The French Novel of the Twentieth Century

Topics vary. Please check the department's website for the course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3850 Modern French Theater

A study of major movements and major dramatists from Giraudoux and Sartre to the theater of the absurd and its aftermath.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3860 Paris in Film

Latter-day examples like Christophe Honore's Dans Paris, Cedric Klapisch's Paris or the international omnibus Paris, je t'aime (with each director paying homage to a distinctive "arrondissement" of the capital), not to mention American blockbusters like The Da Vinci Code and Inception or Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, are there to remind us that there is something special -- indeed, a special kind of magic -- about Paris in and on film. Despite the extreme polarization between Paris and provincial France in both cultural and socio-economic terms, cultural historians have argued that Paris is a symbol of France (as a centralized nation), more than Rome is of Italy and much more than Madrid is of Spain or Berlin of Germany, for example. The prevalence of the City of Lights on our screens, Gallic and otherwise, should therefore come as no surprise, be it as a mere backdrop or as a character in its own right. But how exactly are the French capital and its variegated people captured on celluloid? Can we find significant differences between French and non-French approaches, or between films shot on location that have the ring of "authenticity" and studio-bound productions using reconstructed sets? Do these representations vary through time and perhaps reflect specific historical periods or zeitgeists? Do they conform to genre-based formulas and perpetuate age-old stereotypes, or do they provide new, original insights while revisiting cinematic conventions? Do some (sub)urban areas and/or segments of the Parisian population (in terms of gender, race, or class, for example) receive special attention or treatment? These are some of the many questions that we will seek to address...with a view to offering the next best thing to catching the next non-stop flight to Paris! For French credit: Please register for both FREN 3860-401 (lecture) and FREN 3860-402 (recitation). The FREN 3860-402 recitation is conducted in French. For Cinema and Media Studies credit: Please register for CIMS 3860-401 (lecture) and CIMS 3860-403 (recitation). Both lecture and recitation are taught in English.

Spring

Also Offered As: CIMS 3860

1 Course Unit

FREN 3890 France and Its Others

A historical appreciation of the impact of the exploration, colonization, and immigration of other peoples on French national consciousness, from the 16th century to the present. Emphasis is on the role of the Other in fostering critiques of French culture and society. Readings include travel literature, anthropological treatises, novels, and historical documents. Oral presentations and several short papers are included in the course.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3900 Francophone Postcolonial Cultures

A brief introduction about the stages of French colonialism and its continuing political and cultural consequences, and then reading in various major works -- novels, plays, poems -- in French by authors from Quebec, the Caribbean, Africa (including the Maghreb), etc. Of interest to majors in International Relations, Anthropology and African Studies, as well as majors in French. Taught in French.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3905 French Caribbean Thought & Literature

This course will examine how the French Antilles, with their discrete set of sociohistorical coordinates came to constitute an ideal laboratory for the elaboration of the concept of "Tout-Monde" — a way of thinking of the world as a productive, though necessarily chaotic, maelstrom of cultural changes and exchanges. How did this cluster of small islands birth a term that offers a radically different understanding of globalization? We will first survey early ethnographies and imagery documenting the multiple immigration waves of Guadeloupe and Martinique to understand how diverse ethnicities coalesced under the banner of the République française universelle. We will then explore how this sociohistorical landscape shaped and was in turn shaped by poetry, fiction, and political and theoretical texts. We will examine images, political speeches, ethnographic texts, essays, poetry, films, and novels to open up discussions on notions of Negritude/Antillanite/Creolite/Litterature Monde, the particular and the universal; on the relationship between politics, identity politics and literary form; and on the role of the engaged author in producing and transmitting a multicultural Antillean ethos.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

FREN 3910 Global France

Please check the department's website for the course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 3920 Queering North African Subjectivities

This seminar will explore the ways in which literary and visual representations of sexual difference and gender roles disrupt the cultural imagination of everyday life in North Africa and its Diasporas. Special attention will be given to representations of Arab women and queer subjectivities as sites of resistance against dominant masculinity. We will analyze the ways in which representations of gender have allowed for a redeployment of power, a reconfiguration of politics of resistance, and the redrawing of longstanding images of Islam in France. Finally, we will question how creations that straddle competing cultural traditions, memories and material conditions can queer citizenship. Course taught in English.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

FREN 3999 Independent Study

See instructor for permission.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

FREN 4000 Honors Thesis

Honors thesis in French Studies. This course is open to undergraduate

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

FREN 5000 Proseminar

This course will provide a forum for collective preparation for the Master's exam.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 5110 Topics in Cinema Studies

Please see the department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 5110

1 Course Unit

FREN 5120 Film Noir

Topics vary. Please see the department's website for the current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 5120, COML 5120

1 Course Unit

FREN 5250 Literary Translation: Theory and Practice

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5251, FIGS 5250

Mutually Exclusive: FREN 3020

1 Course Unit

FREN 5410 Transalpine Tensions: Franco-Italian Rivalries in the Renaissance

In the Middle Ages and Early Modern period, France and the Italian States were bound together by linguistic, economic, political, and religious ties, and intellectual developments never flowed unilaterally from one country to the other. On the contrary, they were transnational phenomena, and French and Italian thinkers and writers conceived of themselves and their work both in relation to and in opposition to one another. This course will consider the most fundamental aspects of Franco-Italian cultural exchange in the medieval and early modern period, with an emphasis on humanism, philosophical and religious debates, political struggles, and the rise of vernacular languages in literary and learned discourse. Authors to be studied include Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ficino, Pico della Mirandola Castiglione, Bembo, Rabelais, Marguerite de Navarre, Du Bellay, Machiavelli, and Montaigne. In addition to learning the material covered in the course, students will gain expertise in producing professional presentations and research papers, and will also have the opportunity to consult original material from the Kislak Center. This course is open to undergraduates with permission of the instructors. It counts toward the undergraduate minor in Global Medieval Studies and the graduate certificate in Global and Medieval Renaissance Studies.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5411, ITAL 5410

1 Course Unit

FREN 5460 Women's Writing in French, 1160–1823

In this course, we will examine a representative sample of premodern women’s writing in French, beginning in the Middle Ages and concluding in the Revolutionary Era. The authors studied come from differing walks of life, social classes, and religious and political identifications, and they express themselves in a wide variety of genres, including short stories, fairy tales, lyric poetry, letters, plays, and novels. Despite their many differences, these authors are united by a common tendency to question a centuries-old tradition of misogynistic discourse, patriarchal social order, and gender normativity. Authors to be studied include: - Marie de France (ca. 1160), a brilliant storyteller and poet attached to the court of Henry II of England whose fabulous tales, arguably an early form of speculative fiction, imagine alternatives to the rigidity of arranged marriages and the heterosexual couple. - Christine de Pizan (1364–ca. 1430), a court writer for Charles VI of France and several other powerful patrons who is often considered France’s first professional female writer. Her Livre de la Cité des Dames (Book of the City of Ladies) systematically refutes the misogynistic pronouncements of learned male authors and holds up devotion and religious life as alternatives to accepting the assigned role of wife and mother. - Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549), the sister of Francis I of France and a prolific author of devotional poetry, plays, and the Heptaméron, a collection of tales modeled on Boccaccio’s Decameron and known for its often shocking subject matter. Throughout her oeuvre, she calls into question the social perception of women rooted in misogynistic discourse, as well as the tendency to blame sexual violence on women, while at the same time revealing the potential danger of masculinity for men and women alike and envisioning Pauline Christianity as a means of radical equality. - Pernette du Guillet (1520–1545), Louise Labé (c. 1524–1566), and Anne de Marquets (1533–1588), three poets who respond to and write against the male-centered tradition of Petrarchan love poetry. Guillet and Labé stand out for their frank and often sensual depictions of female desire and sexuality in spite of taboos against their public expression, while Marquets, a Dominican nun at the convent of Poissy, combines Petrarchan, devotional, and mystic tropes to envision religious life as an alternative to the heteronormativity of lay French society and the Protestant Reformation. - Madame de Lafayette (1634–1693) and Madame de Sévigné (1626–1696), whose writings are of monumental importance in the history of literature in French as well as invaluable testimonies to the role played by women in the intellectual developments of the early modern period, including salons, Jansenism, and free-thinking (libertinism). - Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve (1685–1755), author of the first known version of La belle et la bête (Beauty and the Beast), who, along with other female authors of fairy tales, used the conventions of the genre to challenge social conventions and criticize the treatment of women. - Claire de Duras (1777–1828), whose novel Ourika, much like Villeneuve’s La belle et la bête, shows how feminist concerns might intersect with colonialism and race; a bestseller in its day, it is one of the first works in French to feature a complex and articulate black narrator and what many scholars consider to be a modern outlook on race and identity. To provide historical and theoretical context, these readings will be supplemented with relevant primary and secondary sources, as well as with modern and contemporary adaptations, such as illustrations and films. The course is open to graduate students and to advanced undergraduates with permission of the instructor. Discussions will be in English. Readings will be made available both in the original French and in English translation, and final papers may be written in English or in French.

Also Offered As: COML 5460, GSWS 5460

1 Course Unit

FREN 5490 Black France: History/Representation

Please check the department's website for the course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: AFRC 5490

1 Course Unit

FREN 5500 Etudes sur le XVII siecle

The specific topics of the seminar vary from semester to semester, depending on the instructor and his/her choice. Among the topics previously covered, and likely to be offered again, are the following: The Theatre of Jean Racine, Fiction of Mme de Lafayette, The Moralists (La Bruyere, La Rochefoucauld, Perrault ), Realistic Novels (Sorel's Francion, Scarron's Le Roman Comique, Furetiere's Le Roman Bourgeois). Students give oral and written reports, and write a term paper.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5500, GSWS 5500

1 Course Unit

FREN 5600 Eighteenth-Century Novel

Please check the department's website for the course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: COML 5600

1 Course Unit

FREN 5710 Literature and Multilingualism

Since several years, the societal and cultural reality of multilingualism has become an important research field in linguistics and literary studies, as in cultural studies more generally. This graduate course will investigate how multilingual poetics challenge and resist paradigms and ideologies of innate monolingualism, linguistic mastery, absolute translatability and monocultural nationalism. To begin with, the course will introduce central aspects of scholarship on literature and multilingualism, covering concepts such as heteroglossia, code switching, translingualism and macaronic language, and debates such as those on world literature, global English, foreignization, (un)translatability and non-translation, including their political and ethical importance. After a brief historical overview, glancing at western literary multilingualism in the Middle Ages, Romanticism and the avantgarde, the course will mainly focus on literature of the late 20th and 21st centuries taken from Germanic and Romance linguistic contexts. Using an exemplary selection, the course will cover prose, poetry and drama, and include excerpts of texts by authors such as Andrea Camilleri, Gino Chiellino, Fikry El Azzouzi, Ernst Jandl, Jackie Kay, Çağlar Köseoğlu, Monique Mojica, Melinda Nadj Abonji, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Olivier Rolin, Yoko Tawada, Nicoline van Harskamp, and others. Reading these texts, we will try to determine how multilingualism manifests itself (linguistically, discursively, rhetorically, thematically, contextually etc.) and how the texts engage with linguistic, cultural and social pluralities. The course will conclude with a focus on the translator as a central character in fictional prose and movies. Classes will take place in an interactive format that stimulates discussion and exchange. Students will get the respective excerpts – both in the original version and in English translation – one week at a time so that they can prepare themselves each week for the discussion. Theoretical and contextual information will be provided via Power Point presentations.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5710, DTCH 5710, GRMN 5710, ITAL 5710

1 Course Unit

FREN 5800 Studies in 20th-Century French Literature

Topics vary. For current course description, please see the department's webpage: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 5820 Fantastic Literature 19th/20th Centuries

This course will explore fantasy and the fantastic in short tales of 19th- and 20th-century French literature. A variety of approaches -- thematic, psychoanalytic, cultural, narratological -- will be used in an attempt to test their viability and define the subversive force of a literary mode that contributes to shedding light on the dark side of the human psyche by interrogating the "real," making visible the unseen and articulating the unsaid. Such broad categories as distortions of space and time, reason and madness, order and disorder, sexual transgressions, self and other will be considered. Readings will include "recits fantastiques" by Merimee, Gautier, Nerval, Maupassant, Breton, Pieyre de Mandiargues, Jean Ray and others.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: CIMS 5821, COML 5840

1 Course Unit

FREN 5900 Introduction to Francophone Studies

An introduction to major literary movements and authors from five areas of Francophonie: the Maghreb, West Africa, Central Africa, the Caribbean and Quebec.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: AFRC 5900, COML 5900

1 Course Unit

FREN 5910 Francophone Postcolonial Studies

Please see the department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: AFRC 5910, COML 5910

1 Course Unit

FREN 5920 Life, Death, and Revolution in Haiti

In the last few decades, Haiti has been known on the global stage for its repeated calamities: earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts followed by floods and vice versa, dictatorships, cholera, civil unrest, etc. These media representations, which foreground trauma and failure, tend to overshadow a momentous revolutionary past as well as a long tradition of thriving avant-garde literary and artistic movements. These negative representations are part and parcel of a centuries-long practice of epistemic violence against Haiti that began well before it declared its independence from France in 1804, at the end of a bloody revolution. In this course, we will seek a more nuanced understanding of Haiti by exploring the concepts of life, death, and revolution in a selection of literary texts, essays, articles, documents, and films. Our interdisciplinary approach will allow us to discuss voodoo, the figure of the zombi, gender, the environment, modernity, and the relationship between politics and poetics. This course is taught in French and is open to advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5920

1 Course Unit

FREN 5950 Travel Literature

Within the context of the ill-defined, heterogeneous genre of the travelogue and of today's age of globalization, CNN and the Internet, this seminar will examine the poetics of travel writing based largely albeit not exclusively on travel notebooks, or journaux/carnets de voyage, spanning the 20th century from beginning to end. One of the principal specificities of the texts studied is that they all evince to a lesser or greater degree a paradoxical resistance both to the very idea of travel(ing) as such and to the mimetic rhetoric of traditional travel narratives. We will therefore look at how modern or postmodern texts question, revisit, subvert or reject such key notions of travel literature as exoticism, nostalgia, exile, nomadism, otherness or foreignness vs. selfhood, ethnology and autobiography, etc. Authors considered will include Segalen, Morand, Michaux, Leiris, Levi-Strauss, Butor, Le Clezio, Baudrillard, Bouvier, Jouanard, Leuwers.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 5950

1 Course Unit

FREN 5970 Topics in Francophone Black Studies

This seminar engages a variety of topics in the lived experience of Black people in France, as well as other countries and spaces where it has exerted or continues to exert influence, often (but not always) through colonial and neocolonial practices (the Caribbean, Africa, America, etc.). Topics vary from year to year and might include questions of identity formation and Afropeanism; various and nuanced definitions of diaspora and belonging; explorations of how Blackness intersects with gender, sexuality, class, origin, ability and other identity markers; reflections on the complex relationship between colorblind French Republicanism and French Blackness; and/or study of transatlantic exchanges between Black French and African-Americans and the emergence of panafricanism. These lines of investigations will be followed via analyses of cultural products such as film, art, music, media, texts as physical objects, literature and theory. Taught in English.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 5990 Teaching and Learning

The course focuses on diverse areas of Foreign Language and Second Language Acquisition research and theories and how they apply to foreign language teaching. Students will familiarize themselves with the major foreign language methodologies and approaches, as well as the ACTFL standards and proficiency guidelines for foreign language learning. Similarly, students will analyze the resources and tools for planning instruction in a second language based on Backward Design and the Universal Design for Learning. Furthermore, students will research and discuss the most effective ways to promote diversity, inclusivity, and equity; enhance learning experiences and outcomes through technology; foster engagement and active learning; and build a sense of community in the foreign language classroom

Fall

Also Offered As: GRMN 5990, ITAL 5990

1 Course Unit

FREN 6010 Language Teaching and Learning

Please check the department's website for the course description. https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: ROML 6010

1 Course Unit

FREN 6020 Theory and Criticism

Please see the department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 6030 Poetics of Narrative

Please see the department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 6030

1 Course Unit

FREN 6050 Modern Literary Theory and Criticism

This course will provide an overview of major European thinkers in critical theory of the 20th and 21st centuries. We will pay particular attention to critical currents that originated in Eastern European avant-garde and early socialist contexts and their legacies and successors. Topics covered will include: Russian Formalism and its successors in Structuralism and Deconstruction (Shklovsky, Levi-Strauss, Jakobson, Derrida); Bakhtin and his circle, dialogism and its later western reception; debates over aesthetics and politics of the 1930s (Lukacs, Brecht, Adorno, Benjamin, Radek, Clement Greenberg); the October group; Marxism, new Left criticism, and later lefts (Althusser, Williams, Eagleton, Jameson, Zizek).

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: COML 6050, ENGL 6050, ENGL 7905, GRMN 6050, ITAL 6050, REES 6435

1 Course Unit

FREN 6090 Global France

The purpose of this course is to examine the various modalities of interaction between anthropology and literature in modern French culture. Our guiding thesis is that the turn toward other cultures has functioned as a revitalizing element in the production of cultural artifacts while providing an alternative vantage point from which to examine the development of French culture and society in the contemporary period. The extraordinary innovations of "ethnosurrealism" in the twenties and thirties by such key figures of the avant-garde as Breton, Artaud, Bataille, Caillois, and Leiris, have become acknowledged models for the postwar critical thought of Barthes, Derrida, and Foucault, as well as inspiring a renewal of "anthropology as cultural critique in the United States." Besides the authors just indicated, key texts by Durkheim, Mauss and Levi-Strauss will be considered both on their own terms and in relation to their obvious influence. The institutional fate of these intellectual crossovers and their correlative disciplinary conflicts will provide the overarching historical frame for the course, from the turn of the century to the most recent debates.

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 6090

1 Course Unit

FREN 6200 Paris and Philadelphia: Landscapes and Literature of the 19th Century

This course explores the literal and literary landscapes of 19th-century Paris and Philadelphia, paying particular attention to the ways in which the built environment is shaped by and shapes shifting ideologies in the modern age. Although today the luxury and excesses of the "City of Light" may seem worlds apart from the Quaker simplicity of the "City of Brotherly Love," Paris and Philadelphia saw themselves as partners and mutual referents during the 1800s in many areas, from urban planning to politics, prisons to paleontology. This interdisciplinary seminar will include readings from the realms of literature, historical geography, architectural history, and cultural studies as well as site visits to Philadelphia landmarks, with a view to uncovering overlaps and resonances among different ways of reading the City. We will facilitate in-depth research by students on topics relating to both French and American architectural history, literature, and cultural thought.

Fall

Also Offered As: COML 6200

1 Course Unit

FREN 6300 Introduction to Medieval French Literature

Topics vary. Previous topics include The Grail and the Rose, Literary Genres and Transformations, and Readings in Old French Texts. Please see the department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 6300

1 Course Unit

FREN 6380 Topics: Medieval Culture

Topics will vary. Please see department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 6381 Troubadours at the Center

‘Troubadour’ is a term whose meaning has evolved from the eleventh century to our day. In the Middle Ages, a troubadour was a singer-songwriter (male or female) who composed in a language called Occitan, the language spoken in northern Italy, across southern France, and into today’s Catalonia. Medieval works in this language include epic poetry, didactic texts, lengthy romances, and love poetry. Renowned and imitated throughout medieval Europe – by authors from today’s Italy, Austria, Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal – the Occitan literary heritage cannot be ignored. Though sometimes presented as a dead language, Occitan is very much alive, and one purpose of this course is to introduce students to it and to its broad importance in European literary history. This course will present the literary and cultural history of the Occitan region, writ large, from the Middle Ages to the modern day. By the end of the course, students will be able to read Occitan with the aid of a dictionary; they will understand the culture of the French Midi as distinct from that of France; they will know something of the distinctive cultural elements of Occitania. They will also have a profound knowledge of at least one Occitan author, medieval, modern, or contemporary. The course will be taught in English. In addition to learning the material covered in the course, students will gain expertise in producing professional presentations and research papers.

Also Offered As: COML 6381, GRMN 6381, ITAL 6381

1 Course Unit

FREN 6400 Studies in the Renaissance

Topics vary. Previous topics have included Rabelais and M. de Navarre, Montaigne, and Renaissance and Counter-Renaissance. Please see the department's website for the current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 6400, GSWS 6400

1 Course Unit

FREN 6500 Studies in the 17th Century

Topics of discussion will vary from semester to semester. One possible topic is "The Royal Machine: Louis XIV and the Versailles Era." We will examine certain key texts of what is known as the Golden Age of French literature in tandem with a number of recent theoretical texts that could be described as historical. Our goal will be to explore the basis of "the new historicism," a term that is designed to cover a variety of critical systems that try to account for the historical specificity and referentiality of literary texts. Please see department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 6600 Studies in the Eighteenth Century

Topics of discussion will vary from semester to semester. One possible topic is "Masterpieces of the Enlightenment." We will read the most influential texts of the Enlightenment, texts that shaped the social and political consciousness characteristic of the Enlightenment--for example, the meditations on freedom of religious expression that Voltaire contributed to "affaires" such as the "affaire Calas." We will also discuss different monuments of the spirit of the age--its corruption (Les Liaisons dangereuses), its libertine excesses and philosophy (La Philosophie dans le boudoir). We will define the specificity of 18th-century prose (fiction), guided by a central question: What was the Enlightenment? Please see department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 6600

1 Course Unit

FREN 6700 19th-Century Studies

Topics will vary. Please see department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 6750 Topics in 19th Century Literature

Topics will vary. Please see department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: COML 6750

1 Course Unit

FREN 6800 Studies in the 20th Century

Topics will vary. Please see the French department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: ENGL 6800

1 Course Unit

FREN 6810 Studies in Modern French Poetry

How does one approach the modern poetic text which ever since the Mallarmean "crise de vers" appears to have cut loose from all referential anchoring and traditional markers (prosody, versification, etc.)? This course will present an array of possible methodological answers to this question, focusing on poetic forms and manifestations of brevity and fragmentation. In addition to being submitted to precise formal and textual inquiries, each text or work will be the point of departure for the analysis of a specific theoretical issue and/or an original practice - e.g., genetic criticism, translation theory, the poetic "diary", aphoristic modes of writing, quoting and rewriting practices, etc. Texts by key modern poets (Ponge, Chazal, Du Bouchet, Jourdan, Jabes, Michaux).

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 6840 The French Novel of the 20th Century

Topics vary. Please check the French department's website for the course description. https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

Also Offered As: ENGL 6840

1 Course Unit

FREN 6860 Major Authors 20th/21st Century

Topics vary. For current course description, please see French Department's webpage: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 6900 Francophone Studies

Topics will vary. Please see department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 6910 Transatlantic Black Feminisms in Francophone Literatures

This course explores the evolution of representations of the Black femme body in French and francophone imaginaries, tracing a chronological arc that begins with early colonial imagery and ends with the rise of a 2018 movement spearheaded by a collective of Black comediennes, denouncing exclusionary practices in the French entertainment industry. We will first focus on the male gaze — European, Caribbean and African — and the way it constructed the Black femme body, to better understand how Black female authors undermine, resist, parody, or continue to bear the weight of these early images when they take control of their own representation. While our primary readings will be authored by French-writing women, including Mayotte Capecia (Martinique), Marie Vieux-Chauvet (Haiti), Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe), Mariama Bâ (Senegal) and Marie Ndiaye (France), our theoretical foundation will include anglophone thinkers, such as bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Saidiya Hartman, and others. Readings and discussions will be in English.

Also Offered As: AFRC 6910, COML 6910, GSWS 6910

1 Course Unit

FREN 6920 Caribbean Studies

Topics vary. For current course description, please see French Department's webpage: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 6960 Postcolonial Theory Francophone

Topics vary. For current course description, please see French Department's webpage: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Fall or Spring

Also Offered As: COML 6960

1 Course Unit

FREN 7010 Topics in Cultural Studies

Topics will vary. Please see French department's website for current course description: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/pc

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 7770 Francophone, Italian and Germanic Proseminar

This proseminar will introduce first-year FIGS graduate students to doctoral studies in the humanities. It is organized into four parts. Part I, “Scholarly Habits and Resources,” introduces students to a variety of resources at Penn, discusses the scholarly habits that graduate students should develop, and covers strategies for promoting mental and physical well-being as a graduate student. Part II, “Intervening in the Field,” introduces students to the processes of conference participation and article publication. Part III, “The Dissertation,” covers the ins-and-outs of writing the dissertation. Part IV, “Awards, Networking, and Jobs,” addresses the importance of awards and networking as well as the academic and non-academic job markets. While DEI issues are constantly addresses throughout the course, also in the form of assignments, there are also bridge sessions to other courses, especially on pedagogy and recent research trends. In addition to weekly discussions and activities, this course will include a number of guest speakers who will share their expertise and give guidance on the how-tos of the field. Students will be given pre- as well as post-class activities to reflect on each week’s topic and begin to prepare a dossier for later use in their graduate studies. Much of the information in this proseminar becomes particularly relevant during the final years of coursework and your dissertation writing years, but it is important to be introduced to these topics and to begin to think about them now. This course is designed for PhD students in Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies. Many of the topics apply to all three fields; however, students will also have the opportunity to work on areas that are specific to their language for certain topics. They will also be able to add to the course materials for future graduate students in FIGS.

Fall

Also Offered As: GRMN 7770, ITAL 7770

1 Course Unit

FREN 8500 Field Statement

PhD Exam Preparation

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 8510 Dissertation Proposal

The student will work with his or her advisor to prepare a proposal of at least 10-15 pages. The proposal should set forth the following as clearly as possible: 1) the dissertation topic and its presumed value within the field of study, 2) the critical instrument(s) chosen to approach the topic, 3) existing scholarship on the topic as well as scholarship relevant to it, and 4) some indication of how the dissertation arguments will be structured, along with a tentative table of contents.

Not Offered Every Year

1 Course Unit

FREN 9999 Independent Study

Designed to allow students to pursue a particular research topic under the close supervision of an instructor.

Fall or Spring

1 Course Unit

French (FREN)

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