French and Philosophy - BA (Hons)

UCL (University College London)

This module belongs to French. This course aims to contextualise and introduce key concepts in French postwar (literary) theory by focusing on two of the key figures involved: Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes. Post-war (literary) theory is characterized by an explosion in the understanding of the ways literature, culture and thought can be approached and conceptualized. The experience of literature is connected by these thinkers and writers to experiences of philosophy, linguistics, sociology, history, sexuality, as well as to the other arts.

This module belongs to French. In this module, we will work on Renaissance discourses of love: we will read the love poetry of Pierre de Ronsard (Les Amours, 1552-84) and Louise Lab?Sonnets, 1555), as well as Marguerite de Navarre?s collection of short stories, the Heptam?n (1559). (We will start with Ronsard, followed by Lab?and then Navarre.) This will be an opportunity to explore key aspects of the period: love, of course, its different conceptions, themes and rituals; but also sex; eroticism; the representation of women and the body; poetry and the visual arts; imitation; petrarchism; neoplatonism.

This module belongs to French. The aim of this module is to give a sense of the complexity and richness of seventeenth-century French literature. Often referred to as ?le Grand Si?e?, the seventeenth century saw the birth of the Acad?e Fran?se and the codification of a number of literary genres. Although some literary productions, such as plays or other specific works written in verses, were meant to adhere to strict rules, their authors often found a way to invite their audience/readers to ponder or even question contemporary assumptions regarding the nature, legitimacy and use of political power or the role of women in French society. Each of the set texts will be studied with references to the socio-political context of the time, and more particularly to the emergent absolute monarchy, best symbolised by the ?sun king?, Louis XIV.

The socially critical and intellectually progressivist literature called Enlightenment writing, and published under, and against, theAncienR?me, is much discussed for its role in fostering the collective atmosphere of the French Revolution of 1789, as well as the modern democratic and imperialist institutions that emerged after the Revolution.? For today?s specialists, the writings studied in this course had little or no impact on the ensuing social institutions, but certainly helped to give birth to the egalitarian sensibilities, values and attitudes fundamental to modern democracies.? This course studies tensions and clashes within the anti-authoritarian or non-authoritarian modes of writing, the hybrid, transgressive uses of genre, aesthetic preoccupations, philosophical and political principles and social critique contained in 5 controversial works, as well as the reverberation of events.?

This module belongs to French. Concentrating on the novel, this module examines a series of major issues in relation to nineteenth-century literature: its relations to revolution in the aesthetic, political and social spheres; its awareness of the world beyond the frontiers of Metropolitan France; its focus on the seemingly real and the everyday; its formal experimentation; its preoccupation with the new category of experience called ?modernit? We will read three of the most popular novels of the first decades of the century, by Cottin, Chateaubriand, and Duras, then consider the cultural and political battles around three longer novels by Hugo, Flaubert, and Zola while asking what makes these texts so influential to the present day. Suggested secondary readings about the slave trade and the early French colonies; adultery and marriage; prostitution and sexuality; and fashion and modern life will help situate these works as we consider what representations of the world they offered to their readers. Our set texts will be novels, but the theatre, poetry, memoirs, letter writing, painting, architecture, photography, and the newspaper press will make appearances in lectures and seminar discussions.

This module belongs to French. This module will examine four French texts from the twentieth century ? a novel, a piece of ?life-writing? and two influential theoretical texts. The focus of the module will be on how these texts engage with modern forms of alienation. In so doing, it will explore the implications of their innovation at the level of form for the representation of the self.

This module belongs to French. This module discusses the question of citizenship in multicultural France. It tackles the issues of immigration, nationality and citizenship in France, and looks at the French philosophy of integration through the study of the French republican tradition. Other topics on the module include the relationship between la?t?the French politicised conception of secularism, and religion. The option concentrates on the legal, philosophical and political components of French citizenship and overall attempts to answer the following question: how to be French?

This module belongs to French. This course aims to introduce a selection of texts from twentieth-century francophone literature, examining the formal and aesthetic preoccupations of francophone writings politically contesting Frenchness. This course also explores the engagement of francophone writers with a range of topics such as alienation, identity, tradition, modernity, colonialism, ethnicity, sexuality, language, bilingualism and biculturalism.

This module belongs to French. This second-year module requires students to respond in French to a variety of texts and other stimuli in linguistic situations such as dialogue, group presentation, synopsis, judgment etc. A variety of topics (all linked to French or francophone culture and actualit? will be covered. The aim of this second-year module is to develop further the grammatical, comprehension and writing skills acquired in first year. Work on French texts will focus on grammatical and syntactical skills, comprehension and interpretation. Students will also work on translation. The module is taught in French. Satisfactory attendance and completion of the coursework are normally prerequisites for examination entry.

This module belongs to French. This second-year module requires students to respond in French to a variety of texts and other stimuli in linguistic situations such as dialogue, group presentation, synopsis, judgment etc. A variety of topics (all linked to French or francophone culture and actualit? will be covered.

As a follow-up to the first-year module FREN0069 (?French Literature in Translation?) this module aims to introduce second-year students who are taking French for Beginners 2 to aspects of French and Francophone literature by considering various genres of writing, different periods and themes. This module will allow students to develop the analytical skills they will need in subsequent years to study literary texts in greater depth and get them to reflect critically on the question of reading French texts in translation. The teaching will be organised around two five-week blocks (20 hours in total) which will focus on specific texts representative of literary periods, movements or genres.

The module is the follow up to French for Beginners 1 (FREN0079) and aims to take students to level B1/B2 in French language. The module will be taught over terms 1 & 2 and will combine classroom teaching with online activities and guided learning exercises. You will acquire intermediate vocabulary and grammatical structures that will enable you to communicate within the context of social, cultural and historical topics and themes relevant to your undergraduate studies. Teaching will be conducted through seminars (5 hours per week in terms 1 and 2), and through online activities via the Moodle page, in terms 1-3. Students will be required to complete formative and summative exercises, and the course tutors will provide feedback on progress at all stages of the module.

This module belongs to French. Between 1870 and 1970 the social, cultural, and political landscape of France was radically transformed. In 1870, few people mourned the end of the Second Empire under Napoleon III; in 1970, many mourned the death of Charles de Gaulle, founder of the current Fifth Republic and former leader of the Free French. In 1870, France was consolidating a sprawling Empire; by 1970, very little of France?s overseas possessions remained, and its place in the world was fundamentally altered. Across this period, a number of ideological, political, and social tensions ? plus the experience of warfare ? often pitted the French against one another, creating a recurring sense of conflict and crisis. This course will consider such a perspective by examining key events, tensions and flashpoints, from the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, the anticlericalism of the Third Republic, and the Front populaire, to the First World War, the Occupation, the thorny question of decolonisation, and the unrest of May 1968. It prioritises engagement with various primary sources, whilst highlighting related historiographical developments.

Your third year is spent abroad. This will not only bring the language and culture you are studying to life, but also strengthen your resourcefulness and self-reliance. You will normally spend this year studying at a university in your chosen country (or countries if you are studying two languages), but alternatives, such as work placements, may be possible.

This is a French module. This module is concerned with the translation from French into English of literary texts, both in poetry and in prose. The aim is to provide students with the techniques required for this challenging form of translation and to give them the opportunity, on a weekly basis, to apply those techniques to a range of literary texts. To this end, students will make translations of prose passages and of short lyric and prose poems; they will also write extended ?translation commentaries? that focus on those aspects that were most problematic and/or interesting for the translator.

This is a French module. In the examination, which reflects the module content, students will be required to give a summary of a text in French (which they will receive a few days before the examination) and answer questions showing an analytical response to this text. They are also required to give a presentation on and discuss a topic of their own choice (the topic must not overlap with material on which students have been or will be examined in other parts of their module).

A final year module for Single Honours students in French essay writing.

This is a French module. The module involves the translation of non-literary text from French into English. Broad areas that will be covered: Journalistic (e.g. features, reportage (incl. headlines), faits divers, small-ads, horoscopes, sports reporting etc.); Technical (?New Scientist? type popular science, manuals and various ?modes d?emploi?, catalogues and specifications); and Consumer-oriented (this overlaps with all of the above: e.g. promotion masquerading as travel-writing, the performance specs of cars, electrical goods, advertisements of all kinds etc. etc.)

This is a French module. The module involves the translation of non-literary text from French into English. Broad areas that will be covered: Journalistic (e.g. features, reportage (incl. headlines), faits divers, small-ads, horoscopes, sports reporting etc.); Technical (?New Scientist? type popular science, manuals and various ?modes d?emploi?, catalogues and specifications); and Consumer-oriented (this overlaps with all of the above: e.g. promotion masquerading as travel-writing, the performance specs of cars, electrical goods, advertisements of all kinds etc. etc.)

This is a French module. This module will focus in depth on the first volume of the novel which perhaps more than any other work dominated French literature in the twentieth century, Proust?s A la recherche du temps perdu, before studying texts by a number of other important writers who wrote in Proust?s wake. Domination inevitably implies a power struggle; at the heart of the questions the module will explore is the relationship between literature and power. By means of close textual analysis, we shall examine how the prescribed texts all thematise domination in some form, notably with regard to social and sexual relations. Sometimes they universalise it, suggesting that intersubjective relations are necessarily hierarchical; sometimes they explore the possibility of subverting it, beckoning towards a mode of relation that need not involve the submission of one element to another, positing the existence of a non-subordinating dominance, a dominance that does not dominate.

This is a French module. This module sets out to re-examine those premises, in particular, by looking at the material conditions for the definition of ?realism? in the nineteenth century. Through readings of contemporary press criticism of the novel and painting, we will try to reposition the concept of realism. Through discussions of nineteenth-century theories of vision we will elaborate a different framework for thinking about the realist gaze. Student presentations will develop new ways of thinking about nineteenth-century observation and the visual and literary realms it engaged.

This is a French module. This module will examine the development of representations and debates around AIDS in France from the early 1980s to the close of the twentieth century. The module will take a broadly cultural studies approach and, through the analysis of political and sociological texts, will examine the role of French medical research in the isolation and naming of the virus/disease and the development of French government policy toward the disease in terms of prevention campaigns and political rhetoric. We shall also study, in depth, a range of ?literary? and filmic texts which address the issue of AIDS and debates around AIDS. The module will address a range of themes related to these interlinking areas: government policy versus non-government sponsored AIDS activism in France; the setting up and development of self-help organisations; issues related to gender and (gay) sexuality; the individual and different notions of community; the politics of representing and ?reading? AIDS. Although the focus will be on AIDS in France, comparison will be made with other countries and cultures in order to highlight some of the ideological and political inflections specific to AIDS in modern France.

This is a French module. In this module, we shall examine the representation of women in Orientalist paintings by G?me and Delacroix, in the ?erotic? post cards compiled by Malek Alloula in LeHarem colonial, in literary texts by Andr?ide, Albert Camus and Assia Djebar, in the filmic narrative of Pontecorvo, as well as in the theoretical and critical works ofFrantz Fanon, Pierre Bourdieu and Tahar Ben Jelloun. By focusing on these visual and textual narratives the aim of this option is to probe and problematise the intersections of gender, race and sexuality.

This is a French module. We will examine in this module three criminal cases from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the series of texts that each of them generated in the period: (i) the ?affaire Martin Guerre? (1560), a famous case of imposture and stolen identity in sixteenth-century southwestern France; (ii) the trial of Louis Gaufridy, a priest burnt at the stake in 1611 for having allegedly caused the demonic possession of two young nuns; (iii) the brutal assassination of a young and rich aristocrat, the Marquise de Ganges, by her brothers-in-law (1667). We will read and discuss a wide range of (short) accounts of these three faits divers: manuscript court records, popular pamphlets, collections of histories tragiques (Rosset) and causes c?bres (Gayot de Pitaval), and a short novel (Sade). This will allow us to explore the many forms taken in the early modern period by a thriving litt?ture du crime, at the intersection of law and literature. We will also look, beyond the early modern period, at modern reconstructions of these stories offered by historians and filmmakers ? e.g. the 1982 film Le Retour de Martin Guerre, and Natalie Zemon Davis?s historical study of the case (The Return of Martin Guerre, 1984).

This is a French module. This module aims to examine the most important facets of France?s experience of the First World War, exploring this key moment in French history from a predominantly socio-cultural perspective, whilst also integrating political, economic, and military developments. It engages with a series of interconnected themes and concepts throughout, including: national identity and solidarity, the boundary between military and civilian spheres, contemporary representations and understandings of the war, inter-French conflict, mobilisation, violence, and trauma. By the end of the course, students will demonstrate an in-depth, nuanced understanding of France?s four years of conflict, their impact on French society and culture, and their place in modern French history. They will also be able to explain and analyse key historiographical developments and controversies regarding this period, and will have honed their analytical skills via engagement with a variety of published and unpublished primary sources, including newsreels, posters, poems, drawings, diary entries, and songs. Finally, they will be able to articulate, verbally and in writing, convincing historical arguments regarding the period, based on both primary and secondary sources.

This final-year module is compulsory for single-subject, Modern Languages and Modern Language Plus students and optional for ESPS and History with a European Language students. Three skills are focused on: r?m?n French of a passage of discursive French; translation from English into French (literary); translation from French into English (non-literary). The module is taught in French.

French existentialism was an attitude that defined an era. For the first time in history, an obscure philosophical movement based on the ethics of personal choice led to a revolution in youth culture starting in the caf?and nightclubs of Paris and spreading throughout the world. This course will examine not only the exciting literary and philosophical works that founded the movement, but also the cultural revolution it inspired. We will study works by Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Boris Vian, and films by Jean Cocteau, Jean-Luc Godard, and Agn?Varda.

This module is designed forab students who have taken FREN0069: French Literature in Translation in their first year and FREN0070: French Literature for Beginners 2 in their second year. It will cover different aspects of French and Francophone literature, deepening knowledge and understanding of various genres and modes of writing (narrative, poetry, theatre, novels, life writing/autofiction among others), different periods and themes. It will build on the analytical skills acquired in year one and year two to study literary texts and to reflect critically on the question of reading in translation. Students will be expected to engage with the original text in French so that they evaluate the translations and also advance their reading skills in French.