- The Making of Modern France: From the Ancien Régime to the French Revolution

Catalog description

A consideration of major social, artistic, and intellectual developments from the creation of the Académie Française [French Academy] to the French Revolution, with emphasis given to a wide range of topics including the discovery of "new" worlds and peoples, scientific innovation, political and religious conflict, art and architecture, aesthetic ideals, and the Enlightenment. Students will study plays, essays, letters, and political and religious tracts by writers and artists grappling with a world in flux, giving rise to democratic forms of thought, and ushering in the French Revolution. Students will read works by such authors as Molière, La Fontaine, Descartes, Pascal, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau.