French 282 - TOPC 19TH & 20TH C LIT: MORAL

Topics course.: This course is about dilemmas, i.e. moments in life when one has to choose between two valid but mutually exclusive options, and how major writers of the 19th and 20th centuries have used moral conflicts in their works to embody and confront what they saw as the most pressing social, political, or personal issues of their times. A novel (Les Misérables), an autofiction (L’Immoraliste), a theater play (Les Justes), and a film (Hiroshima mon amour) provide us with four venues for examining and debating which values are at stake, what questions they bring up and what answers, if any, they provide. Readings by Hugo, Gide, Camus and Duras. Prerequisite: one course above 230.