Race in France: Literature, Film, Theory

Catalog description

Course conducted in English. In recent years, France’s complex relationship with race has been the object of intense debates. Traditionally, France has relied on a universalist ideal of color-blindness that does not recognize the existence of race and rejects its use in public discourse and political action. Today, however, a growing number of activists and intellectuals contend that the traditional republican ban on race has not only failed to prevent racism but makes it impossible to fully measure racist discriminations. This course investigates how French and francophone writers, intellectuals, artists and filmmakers, have engaged with these questions. While exploring the historical and political context of these debates, we will ask ourselves how artistic and literary practices can challenge established concepts of identity. In addition to introducing you to important intellectual and artistic debates in contemporary France, this course will also offer you the opportunity to rethink some of the categories that structure U.S. debates on these questions by confronting them to a different cultural context.