FREN 285 - Spring Term Topics in French Civilization

Credits: 4
Planned Offering: Spring

Prerequisite: FREN 261. A study of significant aspects of culture and civilization through direct experience abroad in France and/or Francophone countries. May be repeated for degree credit if the topics are different.

Spring 2013 topic:

FREN 285: Rereading/Rewriting Paris (4). This course spends four weeks in Paris analyzing the city as a dense and multilayered “text.” Through daily readings, site visits, and film screenings, we examine how contemporary Paris manifests its complex history from Roman colonization to the present. Topics studied include memory, space, the flâneur, power, violence, universalism, and tourism. Interdisciplinary course readings draw from the fields of history (Nora, Stora, Shattuck), literature (Proust, Baudelaire, Perec, Rabelais), and cultural theory (Lefebvre, Certeau, Benjamin, Foucault, Freud). (HU) Chenoweth, Horowitz.