Courses
All courses carry 3 credits unless otherwise specified.
French and Francophone Studies
500U Student Teaching Practicum (6 to 12 credits)
501 Colette, Duras, Sarraute
By any measure, Colette, Marguerite Duras and Nathalie Sarraute are three of the most influential French women writers of the 20th century. Each writer created her own recognizably unique writing voice quite unlike that of any other writer of her time, male or female. While each had her own imperative that made writing a necessity, all three women enriched French literature of the twentieth century with their unmistakably original writing styles. In this course, we will examine selected texts of these three writers in order to gain better insights into each writer’s uniqueness of voice, purpose, and place within French twentieth-century literature. We will also discuss the extent to which the writing voices of these literary women have contributed to the transformation not only of literature but of the image and the role of French women (as daughters, adolescents, mothers, artists, writers, thinkers, self-supporting, independent and active members of French society) from the turn of the century, with Colette, up to the last years of the twentieth century, with Duras and Sarraute.
522 Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal
The purpose of this course is to acquaint the participants with some of Montaigne's, Descartes's, and Pascal's writings in the context of the emergence of modern subjectivity. We will consider a set of problems relative to the constitution of the self, especially in terms of historical, rhetorical, and epistemological paradigms. Particular attention will be given to Montaigne's Essays as well as the problem of Descartes's and Pascal's self-appropriation of Montaigne's text.
525 Late Medieval and Renaissance Storytellers
The purpose of this seminar is to acquaint the participants with some works of late-medieval and Renaissance storytellers (French "conteurs"). We will read a variety of texts in the storytelling tradition, from Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles to Béroalde de Verville's Le Moyen de parvenir. We will place emphasis on genre definition, narratology, aesthetics and cultural history. Among the problems we will discuss together are the following: the relationship between ideology (courtly love, feudalism, humanism, evangelism, etc.) and literature; rhetoric and truth; historicity and exemplarity; imitation, intertextuality and "vraisemblance"; authority, authorship and gendered discourse, self-referentiality and identity.
541 Rousseau and the Enlightenment
At first sight, the work of J.-J. Rousseau appears to be marked by generic diversity and myriad self-contradictions, seemingly reflecting the multifaceted intellectual career of the man who composed it: the adventurer, dreamer, bel esprit, cultural theorist and critic, philosopher, antiphilosopher, literary artist, anti-artist, moralist, immoralist, feminist, anti-feminist, musician, political theorist, misanthrope, pessimist, idealist, and so on. But does this diversity render all questions of a unified vision impertinent? Broadly speaking, the weaving together in one corpus of political theory and instances of "pure" literary invention, of metaphysical speculations on the origins and destiny of human society and institutions, and complex and usually moving accounts of his own personal, unique, if problematic, involvement in that destiny: these factors act in concert to give Rousseau's work its enduring challenging and stimulating quality. It is hardly surprising then that his work continues to engage the attention of some of the most prominent minds—structuralists (e.g. Levi-Strauss), philosophers (Gouhier, Derrida), literary theorists (De Man, Starobinski), and feminist critics (Kofman, Irigaray), to name only a few—in the human and social sciences today. More interestingly for our purposes, the work combines a theory and radical critique of language and representation in general with an unrelenting "existentialist" reflection on issues of political and social ethics. How do these two movements interact? Adopting a primarily "literary" approach to this corpus, we shall attempt—through readings selected from both theoretical and fictional works—to arrive at an understanding of how the two challenge and/or complement each other. We shall also attempt to trace the extent of their involvement with the French Enlightenment movement in its ideological struggle with the Ancien Regime, and identify ways in which they bear on theoretical issues in our contemporary literary culture.
552 Introduction to French and Francophone Video Games
The main objective of this course is to allow you to discover some recent French and French-speaking video games. Event 0 and Life is Strange are two adventure games (cinematic) with puzzles to solve, while Valiant Hearts is more of an action-platformer that requires combat and strategy. Our class discussions and your assignments will focus on your progression through these games, which have varying degrees of immersion, as well as their cultural specificities. This course will also look closely at the figure of the hero in these video games, as well as the treatment of violence and the epic nature of some form of heroization and the transmission of its values.
561 Literary Childhoods
This seminar will explore the literary works that have shaped our understanding of childhood in French culture. We will study the cultural and historical contexts in which literatures on and for children were created, as well as how they reflected and shaped the values and attitude of French society towards childhood. Our study will include works such as the following: Saint Exupéry, Le Petit Prince; Perrault’s Contes de ma mère l’Oye; Vallès, L’Enfant; Goscinny, Le Petit Nicolas; Cocteau, Les Enfants terribles; Christiane Rochefort, Les Petits enfants du siècle; Mourlevat, L’Enfant océan. We will analyze how these texts were influenced by their time and how they themselves influenced children’s literature and the idea of childhood in France. We will examine recurring themes such as innocence, self-discovery, imagination, and the relationship between the child and the adult world. We will also explore the various techniques used by the authors to convey their messages and how these techniques have evolved over time. Students will develop an understanding of the intersections between childhood, language, and identity in French literature. Selected critical texts drawing on a variety of theoretical perspectives will allow students to analyze the way in which French literary childhood reflects and shapes broader discourses related to education, socialization, the concept of the self, and that of family, as well as to critically examine the ways in which these discourses perpetuate or challenge prevalent structures. Taught in French, though students outside of French and Francophone Studies may write their papers in English.
564 Literature of Africa and the Caribbean
Cultural colonization and decolonization, the Négritude movement, contemporary writing in francophone West Africa, Haiti, and the French West Indies.
568 Surrealism
An exploration of Surrealism as the major revolutionary movement in 20th-century art and literature. The course will trace the historical sweep of the surrealist movement, from its 19th-century precursors to the contemporary influence of surrealist techniques and perspectives, emphasizing central surrealist issues (liberty, the creative imagination, dreams and the unconscious, the “marvelous,” the erotic, anti-art and anti-rationality, the question of political commitment) as understood through the study of major works in prose, poetry, and the visual arts.
572 Basic Methods of Teaching Foreign Languages
This course will explore the teaching of foreign/second languages from theoretical, historical, and practical perspectives. Students will engage in a range of activities designed to reinforce their understanding of the material and guide its application to their developing language teaching practices. The course is intended for both experienced and inexperienced language teachers.
579 The Teacher in the Middle and High School Classroom (2 credits)
French 579 is a two-credit support seminar that was created for student teachers of French who are simultaneously completing their full-time student teaching practicum (FrenchEd 500U) in a public middle or high school in Massachusetts. The purpose of this seminar is to provide a supportive place where initial licensure candidates reflect upon and articulate their developing identity as teachers, and explore and reflect upon the complexities of teaching within their particular classrooms and communities, as well as within the broader social context of education. The seminar informs teaching candidates of the responsibilities and requirements of the student teaching practicum; provides a space of confidentiality in which candidates reflect on and discuss issues specifically related to their student teaching experiences; supports them in developing their required student teaching portfolios (on Tk20), and guides them in locating a suitable teaching position upon completion of the program.
584 French Canadian Literature
The purpose of this course is to acquaint the participants with some novelistic, poetic, and dramatic texts from Quebec with emphasis on the problematic of identity (national, cultural, and sexual). We will study the development of national literature in Quebec and its relation to ideological and political identity from the colonial era, "la Conquête" (1760), to the contemporary period. We shall mainly study the works of Quebec's novelists, poets, and playwrights in conjunction with the works of essayists and filmmakers.
592S Microteaching: Pre-Practicum (2 credits)
The purpose of this two-credit Pre-Practicum Seminar is to prepare second-year teacher licensure students for the upcoming full-time student teaching experience, both pedagogically and psychologically. The seminar is designed for those licensure students who are currently interning with the individual who will become their supervising practitioner in the spring semester. Students attend weekly cohort meetings to discuss and reflect on their experiences and observations in the public schools; discuss ideas presented in pertinent articles and films; teach mini-lessons; refine their personal philosophy of education, and begin to work on the assessments required for initial teacher licensure by the French and Francophone Studies Program and by the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
598 Practicum (1 to 3 credits)
624 Renaissance Prose
The purpose of this course is to acquaint the participants with some works of late-medieval and Renaissance storytellers (French "conteurs"). We will read a variety of texts in the storytelling tradition, from Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles to Beroalde de Verville's Le Moyen de parvenir. We will place emphasis on genre definition, narratology, aesthetics, and cultural history. Among the problems we will discuss together are the following: the relationship between ideology (courtly love, feudalism, humanism, evangelism, "Querelle des femmes", etc.) and literature; rhetoric and truth, historicity, and exemplarity; imitation; intertextuality; "vraisemblance"; authority, authorship, and gendered discourse; exemplarity, self-referentiality, and identity.
627 Renaissance Poetry
The purpose of this course is to examine, through a series of close textual analyses, the attempts made by poets around 1550 to find modalities for self-expression in their quest for a new poetic language. Emphasis will be placed on the problematic nature of self-identity as a key to expressivity in the cultural and historical contexts when national literatures aim at reflecting and influencing major ideological and political changes (humanism, Evangelism and the Reformation, patriotism and the rise of the absolute monarchy). We will also consider the role of gender in the shaping of poetic identities. Among the poets to be considered are Clément Marot, Marguerite de Navarre, Maurice Scève, Pernette du Guillet, Louise Labé, Joachim du Bellay, Pierre de Ronsard, and Agrippa d'Aubigné.
631 17th-Century Comic Vision
A cross-generic study of the representation of the writer at work and the interrelationship between literature and society in Molière's time. Emphasis on works by Molière, La Fontaine, Bussy-Rabutin, Mme de Sévigné.
632 17th-Century Tragic Vision
644 18th-Century Literature
Variable topics, including chief writers and thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment; the satirical novel and the sentimental novel, and readings in the French theater from LeSage to Beaumarchais.
655 19th-Century Novel
Study of major trends in the 19th-century French novel. Specific topics will vary and may focus on a specific movement, author, or theme. Current topic: The Realist Movement. Still perceived as a "minor" genre at the end of the eighteenth century, the novel quickly emerged as the modern literary form of choice in the years following the French Revolution. In this course, we will trace the evolution of the novel with respect to the broad contexts of nineteenth-century French history and culture. We will focus in particular on the rise of French realism and its relation to the development of modernity in France, examining the treatment of such key themes as education and initiation, revolution, money and the commercialization of culture, criminality, urban spaces, the changing roles of class and gender in French society, and the emerging contours of modern identity—along with its distinctively modern pathologies (alienation, boredom, addiction). We will also look at critical debates from the period on the nature of literary realism, as well as take up the question of realist representation in the visual arts, examining relevant work by artists, caricaturists, and photographers. Taught in French, though students outside of French Studies may write their papers in English.
657 19th-Century Poetry
Study of major trends in 19th-century French poetry. Specific topics will vary and may focus on a specific movement, author, or theme. Current topic: The Invention of the Modern. "Il faut être absolument moderne," writes Rimbaud in Une saison en enfer. Against the rise of the novel, which quickly established itself in the years following the French Revolution as the preeminent literary form of the "modern," French poetry had to reinvent itself to maintain its relevance in a France undergoing rapid political, social, and economic change. In this seminar, we will trace the evolution of French poetry in the nineteenth century with respect to the broader contexts of French history and culture. We will examine in particular the major poetic movements of the century (romanticism, the "Parnassian" group and the concept of "l'art pour l'art," symbolism) and their links with several key themes of modernity: revolution, nature, changing notions of the good and the beautiful, money and the commodification of culture, urban spaces (the street, the crowd, the arcade, the barricade, urbanism, and architecture), the exotic, love and desire, and the appearance of the "modern" identity, together with its distinctly modern pathologies (alienation, boredom, nostalgia, addiction).
665 20th-Century Novel
Characterized by experimentation and by the crisis of representation, the French novel underwent numerous transformations in form, content, and boundaries throughout the 20th century. In this course, we will place these transformations in context as we discuss movements such as modernism, existentialism, the nouveau roman, and postmodernism. Current Topic: French Women Writers. In the 21st century, we think of literature produced by women, in French or in any language, as nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, even asking the question "Why do women write?" would today be considered by most of us to be as strange as it would have been to ask "Why don’t (more) women write?" in George Sand’s 19th century. Of course, French women have been writing since at least the 12th century when Marie de France wrote her Lais. Yet, when we examine a comprehensive list of French women writers, there is no denying that most of the authors’ names belong to women writers of the 20th century. So what happened in the 20th century? As we read the works of some of France’s best-known authors, who happen to be women, we will discuss, among other things, the socio-economic conditions that made it possible, and sometimes necessary, for women to write in the 20th century. Which key historical events took place in 20th century France that made writing by women possible, necessary, vital, transformative? Why did women decide to pick up the pen to write when they did, and how has this deliberate act transformed the intellectual, social, political, cultural and literary landscape of France over the course of the 20th century? As we read and discuss the novels, short stories, plays or autofictions of, for example, Colette, de Beauvoir, Nemirovsky, Sarraute, Duras, Delbo, Ernaux, Gavalda, Saumont and others, we will think about the wide-ranging impact that these unique female voices have had on literature in France since the Belle Époque.
670 Expository Prose
The purpose of the course is to improve the ability to write effective French prose, in particular for the purposes of literary and cultural analysis. Coursework includes discussions of short literary works in French, regular compositions on these works (including rewrites), stylistic exercises, vocabulary-building exercises, and short translations.
672 Teaching Assistant Workshop (2 credits)
A weekly workshop/class for all graduate students teaching French language classes for the first time. The course will introduce current methods and ideas of language teaching and testing and will focus on the courses they are actually teaching. There are no exams or papers but there will be biweekly presentations.
679 Teaching French and Francophone Culture to Middle and High School Students
This course is designed to prepare French teacher education candidates to teach French and francophone literature and culture at the secondary level. We will examine different approaches to integrating cultural content and language learning, how to select appropriate cultural materials for different levels of student proficiency, how to make use of technology to enhance cultural learning, and other relevant topics. Designed primarily to provide French M.A.T. students with the opportunity to gain practical experience in teaching French cultural material, the course is also open to all interested graduate students (and advanced undergraduates with instructor permission).
681 Issues in Contemporary French Culture
683 Textual and Literary Analysis
Combines theory and practice. Explores the potential for textual analysis based on literary texts from several different periods and genres, and in relation to a number of contemporary theoretical perspectives: feminism; Marxism, postcolonial studies; psychoanalysis; reader-response and reception theory; structuralist poetics, and semiotics. Of particular interest to graduate students in the humanities and social sciences.
685 Jules Verne and French Steampunk
This course, open to all students with an advanced level of French, will focus on a few contemporary steampunk stories inspired by Jules Verne's novels 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island and will concentrate on the main characteristics of French steampunk fiction in the 20th and 21st centuries through the study of an anthology of short stories, two comic books, and two video games. The representation of the Nautilus, the submarine imagined by Jules Verne, will be a common thread in all these stories to question the ideas of progress and civilization before addressing, still from a fictional perspective, the way the relationship between Jules Verne and the United States is perceived.
687 Introduction to French and Francophone Science Fiction and Fantasy
Based on novels and short stories, in this course, we will explore the theme of otherness, its variants, and its specificities in French and francophone science fiction and fantasy literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. Whether it is the literary treatment of science or of magic that is often at the frontiers of the human in its relationship to the other, this literature in French often conceptualizes an original vision of the future or the past, whose cultural stakes we will try to understand.
698 Practicum (1 to 3 credits)
699 Master’s Thesis (6 credits)
728 La Pléiade & l'École de Lyon
The purpose of this seminar is to examine the evolution of two of the main "poetic schools" active through the mid-sixteenth century in France: l'École de Lyon and La Pléiade. We will explore the poetics of these groups through the works of their "leaders": main representatives such as Joachim du Bellay and Ronsard for La Pléiade, and Maurice Scève and Louise Labé for l'École de Lyon, but also through the poetry of various of their satellites and lesser-known figures. We will examine the fluctuations in the evolution of the expression of self-identity in the cultural and historical contexts when national literatures aim at reflecting and influencing major ideological and political changes.
798P Research Portfolio Practicum
801 Contemporary Critical Theory
Italian Studies
500U Student Teaching Practicum (6 to 12 credits)
507 Dante and the Duecento
In this course, students will become familiar with the major currents of thirteenth-century Italian poetry and will explore Dante's Divine Comedy as an encyclopedic compendium of medieval thought as well as a very personal vision of the individual's place in the universe, a journey that is as meaningful now as it was 700 years ago.
514 The Early Renaissance
This course presents a detailed look at the birth of Humanism, beginning with Petrarca, Boccaccio, Salutati, Valla, Poliziano and Alberti. We then follow selected humanistic themes into the High Renaissance, giving special attention to Ficino, Pico, Pulci, Michelangelo and the courtly scrittori and scrittrici.
520 Expressions of the Modern
This course addresses the notion of Modernity in Europe through the wide range of its expressions in different fields such as philosophy, literature, figurative arts, music, etc. Italian Modernism is presented against the backdrop of the broader European modernist movement, emphasizing its constant exchange with other national cultures, and its own relationship to the Italian cultural heritage during the first half of the 20th century.
522 Literatures of Fascist Italy
The course presents an overview of the many aspects of Italian culture during and around the years of the fascist regime: from the hi-brow poetry of Eugenio Montale and Umberto Saba to the low-brow bestsellers of the time such as Mussolini’s biographies, fascist and colonial propaganda novels, women’s literature, as well as fascist cinema and architecture. Strong emphasis will be placed on the social and historic context, thus providing an accurate account of the many aspects of fascism in Italy.
528 Boccaccio's Decameron
An Italian masterpiece and one of the most important collections of short fiction in the history of World Literature, the Decameron is also the story of ten college-aged Florentines who isolate themselves in the countryside in an attempt to escape from the plague. Sound familiar? The community they form and the tales they tell each other are as pertinent to our lives today as they were in the years of the Black Death.
531 Fellini: Film as a Veritable Lie
The works of Italy's most influential filmmaker in the most crucial years of Italy's recent history (1953-1973) are examined to understand the persuasive power of the mise en scène that, while presenting itself as totally false, induces a powerful sense of experiential truth in the audience. By understanding how Fellini persuades us with his stories, we understand how we are made of stories ourselves.
532 Pasolini, the Polymath
The course examines the complex and multifarious production (poetry, fiction, film) of Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975), a very controversial author who exposed the contradictions of the modern and post-modern condition and impugned Italian culture as a tool of social emancipation.
570 Mapping Reality: Italo Calvino's Narrative and Theory
The course addresses the relationship between literature, theory, and thinking in the creative and theoretical works of Italo Calvino, possibly the most influential 20th-century Italian author in the US and around the world. In particular, we will focus on Calvino's use of literature as a practical gnoseological tool to map and navigate reality and the multifaceted manifestations of the modern human experience. Students are encouraged to apply Calvino's methodological approach to other authors' work and to test it on their own personal experience.
572 Basic Methods of Teaching
This course will explore the teaching of foreign/second languages from theoretical, historical and practical perspectives. Students will engage in a range of activities designed to reinforce their understanding of the material and guide its application to their developing language teaching practices. The course is intended for both experienced and inexperienced language teachers.
580 Contemporary Italian Literature: Voices of the New Millenium
This course explores several significant literary works, figures, and movements of the 21st century in Italy thus far. These include the genre-bending cultural phenomenon of Roberto Saviano and Gomorra; the international juggernaut of Elena Ferrante; and the addition of "new" voices of first and second-generation writers who interrogate "Italianness" and identity in the Italy of today. These contemporary texts shed light on modern Italian history and contain themes that are both uniquely Italian and also universal. This course will also include television and cinematic adaptations of many of the literary texts and will analyze the role of mass media in contemporary literature and culture.
598 Practicum (2 credits)
The purpose of this two-credit Pre-Practicum Seminar is to prepare second-year teacher licensure students for the upcoming full-time student teaching experience, both pedagogically and psychologically. The seminar is designed for those licensure students who are currently interning with the individual who will become their supervising practitioner in the spring semester. Students attend weekly cohort meetings to discuss and reflect on their experiences and observations in the public schools; discuss ideas presented in pertinent articles and films; teach mini-lessons; refine their personal philosophy of education, and begin to work on the assessments required for initial teacher licensure by the Italian Studies Program and by the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
608 Dante’s Comedy
In this course, students will become familiar with the major currents of 13th-century Italian poetry and will explore Dante's Divine Comedy as an encyclopedic compendium of medieval thought as well as a very personal vision of the individual's place in the universe, a journey that is as meaningful now as it was 700 years ago.
698 Practicum (2 credits)
Italian 698 is a two-credit support seminar that was created for student teachers of Italian who are simultaneously completing their full-time student teaching practicum (Italian 500U) in a public middle or high school in Massachusetts. The purpose of this seminar is to provide a supportive place where initial licensure candidates reflect upon and articulate their developing identity as teachers, and explore and reflect upon the complexities of teaching within their particular classrooms and communities, as well as within the broader social context of education. The seminar informs teaching candidates of the responsibilities and requirements of the student teaching practicum; provides a space of confidentiality in which candidates reflect on and discuss issues specifically related to their student teaching experiences; supports them in developing their required student teaching portfolios (on Tk20), and guides them in locating a suitable teaching position upon completion of the program.