French 393 - SEM: FRENCH INTELLECTUALS

We will study the figure of the intellectual from the 17th to the 20th century as well as some of the debates, polemics, intellectual activism in each period concerning subjects such as political power, intolerance, racism, fanaticism, feminism, and the death penalty. We will discuss how these debates have transformed French society, intellectual life, and political thought; and we will examine the emergence of the public intellectual ("l'intellectuel engage") and the antecedents of this recent concept by reading relevant scholarship and analyzing controversal ideas expressed through satire, philosophical texts, and intellectual battles by authors such as La Bruyere, Moliere, Voltaire, Hugo, Zola, Sartre, Beauvoir, Bourdieu, and Halimi.

Instructor Permission. Not open to first-years, sophomores