French 368 - Crisis of Narrative

From Surrealism through existentialism and absurdism, from the New Novel through OuLiPo, the twentieth-century French novel experienced a series of decisive mutations, each the subject of fervent theoretical and cultural debate. Yet what was it that made the novel so unsettled in the twentieth century? Why was it so liable to upheaval? We will study the crisis of the twentieth-century French novel as a symptom of the broader crisis of narrative in that century, one which emerged from the experience of historical trauma and the subsequent suspicion of prevailing political and cultural narratives. Taking a broad view of the century, our course will track the Surrealist rejection of habitual accounts of the real, the existentialist refusal of narrative and historical teleology, the New Novel’s denial of the representational conventions of nineteenth-century literary realism, and the postmodernist reappraisal of the validity of grand narratives. Authors may include André Breton, Jean-Paul Sartre, Raymond Queneau, Samuel Beckett, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute, Roland Barthes, and Jean-François Lyotard. Conducted in French.

Prerequisite: FREN-207, FREN-208, or the equivalent. Fall semester: Professor Dominick

How to handle overenrollment: null

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Speaking, reading, writing, and listening comprehension in languages other than English, textual analysis, formal and informal presentations, written work, independent research.