French 293 - Making Impressions: A Hands-On Approach to Early Modern French Print Culture

Be it the pressing of inked blocks on a page or the imprints on a body or mind through encounters with objects and ideas, “impression” designates the effects of a contact. The word’s multiple meanings also characterize the spirit of this course, which invites students to discover and work with early modern French sources (16th-18th centuries) in an experiential and collaborative setting. 

Drawing on the French holdings in Archives and Special Collections at Amherst College and in the Five Colleges, this course exposes students to the particularities and challenges of French texts from the early modern period (e.g. typography, orthography, language, historical and cultural contexts, interrogating presentist assumptions). Moreover, as we physically hold and behold objects from centuries ago, we ask what stories these objects tell through their materiality; the traces of their uses and users; their language, form, and content; and even their presence in the college’s catalogue. In addition to appreciating our role as custodians of the past by caring for and about these objects, our engagement with these works also builds bridges between past and present to ask if and why they merit our sustained interest. As we sample the collection’s holdings—from works of poetry and theater to political pamphlets and treatises on anatomy— we will address topics such as the circulation of knowledge, the history of print culture, the evolution of the French language, literature’s relation to other disciplines, and the connections between print culture and spheres of power. Through these explorations, we will develop strategies for undertaking individual and collaborative research in literature. We will also experiment with different modalities of creating and sharing knowledge, such as critical editions, exhibitions, research papers, performances, and public scholarship.

All primary sources will be in Middle and Classical French, and most sessions will be conducted in French. Secondary readings will be in English or Modern French.

Students who complete this course will be eligible to apply for positions in Prof. Nader-Esfahani’s Early Modern French Lab. 

Prerequisites: FREN-207 or FREN-208, or equivalent. This course will fulfill the “pre-1800” prerequisite toward the French major.

Fall semester: Professor Nader-Esfahani.

How to handle overenrollment: Priority will be given according to class year in the following order: sophomores, juniors, 1st-years, seniors. Greater consideration given to declared majors. Among non-majors, priority given to students with a demonstrated record of course work in dept.

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: experiential learning; working with special collections (during and outside of class time); working in languages other than English; reading primary and secondary sources; performing visual and textual analyses; engaging in collaborative work; regular workshoping of projects; field trips.