FREN 397 - Séminaire avancé

Credits: 3 Prerequisite: Three courses in French at the 200 level. The in-depth study of a topic in French literature and/or civilization. Recent offerings include: La Littérature francophone du Maghreb; La littérature Beure; La France sous l’occupation; Les femmes et l’écriture au XVIIe siècle; Les écrivains du XXe siècle et la diversité culturelle; L’affaire Dreyfus. Students are encouraged to use this course for the development of a personal project. May be repeated for degree credit when the topics are different.

Winter 2021, FREN 397A-01: Séminaire Avancé : Les géographies de l’imaginaire: la cartographie et le voyage entre le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance (3). Prerequisites: Three courses in French at the 200 level. This seminar is a sustained and in-depth exploration of medieval and Renaissance cartography and travel. We will explore what it means to draw maps in the Middle Ages and how cartographic contours are shaped more by imagination and ideology than direct observation. We will read a variety of primary sources written in French including books of marvelous beasts and monsters, early travel accounts of Europeans in the Far East, and literary texts that explore lands reachable only through imagination. A primary outcome of this course is to investigate how the medieval cartographic imagination set the stage for colonial expansion, exploitation and inequality along racial lines, and the European justification for global hegemony. Supplementary texts, in the form of critical literary essays, are also on the reading list. (HL) McCormick. FDR: HL