Summer ‘06
Topics in French Culture: the Essay in Three Easy Centuries
Prof. Annie Smart
Smart@slu.edu : 977-2449
FR-A593/493 (3cr.hr.)
MTWR 10-1
6/5-6/30
Description: How de we understand the past? As Alphonse Dupront warns us in Qu’estce que les Lumières, we can never presume to understand completely a past moment : “ce
qu’ont vécu dans leur vérité d’existence les home d’une époque, gardons-nous de penser
que nous le saurons jamais exactment.” Part of the fun of exploring history is trying to
unlock its secrets. The essay provides an important point of departure for this
exploration, since the essay presents both events and a reflection of those events, and
offers us insight into a time period’s mentalité.
This course has two aims: first, to examine an important, but sadly neglected
genre—the essay. Second, to expand our knowledge of the world of the essay, or, the
time periods in which the essays were produced. The course thus emphasizes a culturalhistorical approach.
We will study the essay in three centuries: the 16th, the 18th, and the 19th. In
addition to the assigned readings, students are expected to compile a mini-portfolio for
each century. The portfolio reflects an increased understand of the time period.
Teachers may find the portfolio useful in presenting French civilization in their
own classes!
Evaluation: participation, homework, oral presentations, portfolio work
Texts: Montaigne, Essais
Mme de Lambert, De l’amitié
Voltaire, Essai sur les mœurs
Rousseau, Rêveries du promeneur solitaire
Stendhal, De l’amour
Sand, Souvenirs de 1848
Fall ‘06
French Cinema : From 1895-1968
Dr. Pautrot
pautropj@slu.edu : 977-2456
FR 561-461
MW 2:10-4:10
Objectives. To develop a knowledge of French Cinema, from the beginnings to the late
1960s. Influences of philosophical, political and artistic movements will be identified.
Influential directors and important writings in French film criticism will be studied.
Specific vocabulary and skills for the analysis of films will also be acquired.
Texts: Singerman, Alan. Apprentissage du cinema français. Newburyport : Focus 2004.
(to be accompanied by handouts and reserve readings)
Evaluation:
A researched paper, oral presentations, 1 short paper (graduate). Take-home midterm and final exam (undergraduate) and weekly WebCT forum discussions on the films
viewed.
Violence and Trauma in the Francophone Postcolonial World
Dr. Perraudin
perraup@slu.edu : 977-3662
FRA 593/493
W 4:30-7:00
Description. We will explore the ways in which violence and trauma are depicted in
Francophone postcolonial literature and films We will try to understand the sociopolitical conditions that produced the violence in individual cultures and countries. We
will also analyze the ways in which films and novels made about that violence arouse
horror, disgust, discomfort, and denial in us, as spectators/viewers.
We will examine how life narratives and testimonies alter the traditional relationship
between the perpetrators and the victims and scrutinize our own role as bystanders and
spectators, and our relationship to the survivors.
Films: Camp de Thiaroye (Ousmane Sembène), Lumumba: La mort du prophète ( Raoul
Peck)
Texts: Un Jour, ma mémoire (Rakotoson), La Seine était rouge (Leïla Sebbar), L'Ombre
d'Imana (Véronique Tadjo), L'amour, la fantasia (Djebar).