A survey of Francophone travel writing from the 16th to the 21st centuries. Students are exposed to a literary form that achieved popularity and cultural prestige early on, was then significantly challenged and diversified, and is presently enjoying a resurgence. The class considers fictional and nonfictional accounts reflecting different geographies of travel and migration. While early voyagers tended to assert the relative superiority of French culture, subsequent generations of travelers abandoned discovery for self-discovery and critiqued colonialism instead of indigenous cultures.

How much control does or should a writer have over his or her public image? Should artists be held responsible for the political or social consequences of their work? How do such questions as censorship and plagiarism play out when racial, religious, or gender difference is at stake? This course examines literary texts, films, and essays by some of the more controversial names in contemporary Francophone literature, to be studied alongside interviews, social media, and critical and popular reviews.

Food and its absence are persistent themes in Caribbean literature. Cooking and culinary practices serve as a means of preserving cultural identities, yet can also reinforce colonial visions of the Caribbean as an exoticized space. Hunger figures as an indictment of that colonial history and of contemporary global inequities. Through studies of folktales, short stories, poetry and novels, this course offers an introduction to the literature and major theoretical movements of Guadeloupe, Martinique and Haiti, with a focus on how cultural memory is inscribed in metaphors of consumption.

Offered as FRN 299, ITL 299, POR 299 and SPN 299. The course explores the issues in world language instruction and research that are essential to the teaching of Romance languages. Special focus is on understanding local, national and international multilingual communities as well as theories, methods, bilingualism and heritage language studies. Discussions include the history of Romance languages, how to teach grammar and vocabulary, the role of instructors and feedback techniques.

In recent decades, as the effects of climate change have become increasingly apparent, landscapes have come to be understood as those places not only that humans inhabit, but also that inhabit humans. This course examines literary and filmic texts that portray, interrogate and imagine the reciprocal relationship between humans and landscapes in contemporary French-speaking locales. Specifically, students consider how this exchange occurs over time by examining depictions of landscapes past, present and future. Course taught in French. (E)

From the colonial conquest in the early 19th century through independence in 1962, Algeria has evoked passions on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea, passions frequently resulting in violence that has not entirely subsided. Through a variety of perspectives and readings, this class explores a post-Algerian French society that appears to be permanently marked by its Algerian experience. To what extent has the experience in and of Algeria transformed contemporary French culture? In what ways can one speak of the Algerian experience in revolutionary terms? Prerequisite: FRN 230, or equivalent.

A study of contemporary French social, economic, political and cultural issues through daily readings of French magazines and newspapers online such as Le Monde, Le Figaro and Libération. Course taught in French.

France is home to the largest overseas Chinese community in Western Europe. This course looks at how Francophone women writers and artists of Chinese origin critique and celebrate French culture in their work. Focusing on contemporary fiction, film and graphic art, students consider the role of canonical French literature during the Cultural Revolution, portrayals of Sinophone cultures in France and the relationship between language and stereotype.

To what degree is being French synonymous with membership in a particular socio economic, cultural or ethnic category? Can marginalized populations (immigrants, peasants, workers, youth, etc.) acquire the necessary tools for social inclusion? What determines the meaning of French identity and who is excluded from the realm of Frenchness? By whom and for what reasons? The course explores the tensions that arise in the development and transmission of French cultural attitudes, tastes and values. Class readings include children’s literature, fiction and memoir.