FREN 397 - Séminaire avancé

FDR: HL
Credits: 3
Planned Offering: Fall, Winter

Prerequisites: Senior status and three courses at the 300 level or permission of the instructor.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 with permission and when the topics are different.

Topic for Winter 2011:

Fren 397: Littérature maghrébine (3). Prerequisites: Three 300-level French courses. This course features a selection of contemporary novels in French written by North Africans including Driss Chraibi, Rachid Mimouni, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Assia Djebar, Albert Memmi, Malika Mokkadem, and Yasmina Khadra. Students read about contemporary North African society and watch several feature films made by North African filmmakers. Class discussion focuses on the complex problems of post-colonial North Africa and how these novelists frame the problems of corruption, violence, immigration, exile, and freedom. Students write about the novels and give oral presentations in class. The class is conducted in French and the papers are written in French. Considerable attention is given to developing writing skills and analytical skills. (HL) Lambeth.

Topic for Fall 2010:

FREN 397: Séminaire avancé: femmes écrivains francophones (3). Prerequisite: Senior standing and three courses at the 300 level or permission of the instructor. A thorough introduction to women writers from Francophone sub-Saharan Africa. While providing an overview of the trajectory of women’s writing from its beginnings in the 1960s, the course focuses more heavily on the literary endeavors of women from the late ‘70s to the end of the 20th century. Through representative works from this period, we examine how women address such issues as patriarchy, tradition, modernity, the self in society, etc. (HL) Kamara