Intermediate French II: Existentialism and Nature

Catalog description

Prerequisite: Intermediate French I (FREN 3501) or three to four years of high-school French and appropriate score on French placement test Building on the foundations learned in Intermediate French I (FREN 3501), this course will include a systematic review of French grammar and vocabulary, with a focus on writing papers according to French expectations alongside reinforcing linguistic correctness in spontaneous oral communication, in order to develop real fluency. This yearlong course will be divided into two separate themes. In fall, the focus will be on the literary and cultural revolutions brought on by World War II in France, from Sartre’s existentialist novel, La Nausée, to Camus’ absurd novel, L’Etranger; alongside Beauvoir’s revolutionary book, Le Deuxième Sexe, and Beckett’s play, En attendant Godot; to new experimentations in the genre of the novel, including Butor’s La Modification and Duras’ Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein. We will also study this time frame as one of the darkest periods of recent French history, learning about the collaboration of the French state in the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps and the violence of colonization that led to the Algerian war. In spring, the focus will be on the history and contemporary ramifications of the notion of nature and the environment in France. We will read and discuss extensively the current debates in France around the question of climate change and protecting biodiversity, exploring exciting initiatives happening all over the country. These discussions will be anchored in an exploration of the cultural origins of the French relationship with the natural world, from the notion of “terroir” of aristocratic origins, to Romantic admiration for natural landscapes, to colonialist constructions of the “exotic,” and philosophical reflections on the human/ animal divide, to name a few topics of potential…