FREN513B

Studies in French-Canadian Literature

Arts narratifs autochtones au Québec

Cibles/Targets - Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau, 2024.

Dans ce cours, nous nous pencherons sur les arts narratifs autochtones au Québec de 1970 à aujourd’hui. À travers un corpus de textes littéraires et d’œuvres cinématographiques produits en français et en langues autochtones, nous réfléchirons à la résurgence autochtone en tant que concept, thématique et stratégie narrative qui dépasse les cadres coloniaux. Nous examinerons les différentes modalités de la résurgence telles qu’elles se manifestent dans divers genres littéraires — notamment le récit de vie, l’autofiction, le théâtre, la nouvelle et la poésie — ainsi que dans des formes cinématographiques, dont les archives visuelles, le film documentaire et les nouveaux médias. Nous situerons les œuvres à l’étude dans leur cadre sociopolitique, en portant une attention particulière au contexte qui précède et suit la publication du rapport final de la Commission de vérité et réconciliation au Canada, ainsi qu’à ses répercussions dans le milieu québécois. Nos discussions seront ancrées dans des méthodologies de recherche autochtones et nous accorderont une attention particulière aux questions de la positionnalité et des stratégies d’engagement éthique avec les textes.

Language of instruction: French

Instructor: Dr. Isabella Huberman

Research Intensive Seminar in Romance Studies

Introduction to Cultural Mobility Studies

Crosslisted with RMST495

Cultural mobility can be defined as mobilities relayed in and about cultural products, events, and phenomena. The concept can be viewed as part of a recent, influential critical movement to foreground mobility in social sciences and in the humanities and arts. According to Tim Cresswell (On the Move, 2006: 2-3), mobility is the effect of movement, meaning, and power. John Urry underscores the necessity to analyze assemblages or interconnections of five interdependent mobilities in social life: the corporeal travel of people; the physical movement of objects; imaginative travel through perusing the media; virtual travel through, for instance, Zoom meetings; and communicative travel using, for example, social media (Mobilities, 2006: 47-8). The mobilities paradigm has been used to explain significant socio-cultural phenomena, ranging from social inequality to global climate change, all of which are related to physical movements in crucial ways.

This course introduces the research field of cultural mobilities in relation to case studies focused on several mobile subjects—namely, explorers, tourists, colonizers, migrants, and refugees. The course is divided into two units. In the first unit, students learn critical frames and tools from social scientific and humanistic inquiries into mobilities. In the second unit, students are encouraged to use these theoretical insights to approach major intercultural events (e.g., the Age of Discovery, the Grand Tour, and migrations) as they are articulated in narratives of diverse types (e.g., novels, journalism, diaries, and films). In particular, we consider authorial intent, knowledge creation, cultural technologies, affects, meaning-meaning, and power dynamics that these narratives help articulate. Through this exercise, toward the end of the semester, we assess how we may contribute to further theorizing cultural mobility analysis.

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Language of instruction: English

Instructor: Dr. Gaoheng Zhang

Students with the necessary language proficiency can also fulfill the RMST495 (in English) requirement by taking SPAN495 (in Spanish) or FREN495 (in French).

Elective course requirements can also be fulfilled by language, literature, and culture classes taught in the target language (French, Italian, Spanish or other approved Romance languages) when students meet the necessary proficiency requirements in that language. Please contact FHIS Student Programs Coordinator (fhis.undergrad@ubc.ca) for further inquiry.

Topics in Peninsular Literatures and Cultures

Escritoras, artistas y directoras de cine españolas del siglo XVIII-XXI

El curso es sobre todo una introducción a las relaciones entre cultura y mujer en España desde el siglo XVIII hasta nuestros días, enmarcando el asunto en la evolución de la situación de la mujer en España y Occidente desde la los primeros tiempos y la Edad Media. El énfasis se pondrá en las aportaciones de las artistas, escritoras y directoras de cine, sin perder nunca de vista el contexto histórico, político, social, económico y cultural español y europeo en el que se insertan.

Algunas de las preguntas que se plantearán en el curso son las siguientes: ¿Qué implica ser una escritora, artista o directora de cine en el contexto social y político en el que produce su obra? ¿Cómo se enfrenta la artista a ello y cómo se posiciona en referencia a entidades como la nación y cuestiones como el nacionalismo? ¿Qué problemática específica se le plantea al sujeto femenino en situaciones de colonialismo? ¿En qué manera las mujeres transforman la literatura y el arte de la tradición? ¿Cómo se construye y reinventa el sujeto femenino? ¿Cómo se plantea la cuestión de la identidad sexual y el cuerpo?

Language of instruction: Spanish

Instructor: Dr. María Soledad Fernández Utrera

Prerequisites: This course is recommended for students who have completed SPAN_V 221, SPAN_V 302, SPAN_V 303 or successful completion of language placement test.

Myths, Legends and Tales in Romance Literatures and Cultures

Myths, Mirrors, and Metamorphoses: Narcissus and Echo in Medieval and early modern Romance Literatures and Cultures

Most people today have heard of narcissism. Yet, how many of us really know the original story of Narcissus and Echo, or its various adaptations by Medieval and early modern authors? In this course, we will explore the most influential version of the myth (from Book III of Ovid’s Metamorphoses), along with reworkings and reinterpretations by writers from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century in France, Italy, and the Hispanic world. As we shall see, this remarkable tale invites us to examine timeless themes, including questions related to desire and death, love and passion, reality and illusion, identity and difference, knowledge of self and other, mimesis and representation, as well as androgyny and gender fluidity. We will study examples from different Medieval genres and traditions, including troubadour love lyric (written in Occitan by Bernard de Ventadour), an allegorical dream vision in Le Roman de la Rose (written in Old French verse by Guillaume de Lorris), as well as an anonymous Tuscan prose narrative from Il Novellino, before turning to more didactic texts such as the anonymous Ovide moralisé, Boccaccio’s Genealogia deorum gentilium, and Christine de Pizan’s Epistre d’Othéa. We will then examine depictions of Narcissus in Neoplatonic philosophy (Plotinus, Marsilio Ficino) and in the visual arts (via Alberti’s treatise on painting), along with relevant iconography in emblem books (Andréa Alciato, Barthélemy Aneau, etc.), where Narcissus is portrayed as an exemplum of excessive self-love or self-regard (philautia). We will then focus on a selection of Renaissance poems by Petrarch, Scève, Ronsard, and Desportes, among others. In addition to investigating mirror-motifs and representations of proud youths (male or female) who fall in love with their reflections, we will also look at Echo poems by Joachim Du Bellay, Gaspara Stampa, and the Dames des Roches. Finally, we will examine several plays that reimagine the Ovidian myth in distinctive ways: Isabella Andreini’s Italian pastoral play, La Mirtilla (1588); Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s Arcadian drama, Eco y Narciso (first performed in Spain in 1661), and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s El Divino Narciso (written in Mexico around 1688).

This course will be taught in English; readings will be available in English translation, as well as the original language of composition.

Language of instruction: English

Instructor: Dr. Nancy Frelick

Prerequisites: None

Italian Mafia Movies

The image of the Godfather as embodied by actors Marlon Brando and Al Pacino from the 1972 American movie is iconic in contemporary popular culture. An enduring association of the mafia with Italy permeates Western culture. Both Italians and non-Italians have impassioned responses to this prevailing cultural stereotype. Individual opinions and feelings also exist on different Italian-origin organized crime: the Cosa Nostra, Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta, Banda della Magliana, and others. The mafia is an integral part of Italian culture.

Cinema has fundamentally shaped our knowledge and emotions about the Italy-mafia association. As a cinematic genre, the mafia movie was developed in both American and Italian film industries, and it addresses both the perceived glamor of mafioso bosses and the unsung heroism of anti-mafia activists. Screen culture about the Italian (anti-)mafia is complex and nuanced and open to diverse interpretations.

The guiding question of the course is not whether these filmic representations accurately depict the mafia and their contestations. Rather, we unravel the representational complexities, intentions, and agendas of the movies and of the mafia movie genre. To this end, we will conduct film analysis to understand how a movie works technically and aesthetically. We will also learn to contextualize such a film analysis within the socio-historical and cultural coordinates of the productions or narratives of the films.

The course helps students gradually build up an interpretive capacity for approaching Italian mafia movies. Lectures on contexts, in-class discussions and activities specific to individual movies, improvised oral presentations that relate critical insights to personal stories, and film reviews or essays that formally argue in defense of a standpoint will be pursued progressively. Whether you know much or little about the Italian mafia and its cinematic representations, you will gain sophistication about its wide circulation in popular culture through this course.

A majority of the films studied in this course contain (brief) scenes of violence, nudity, strong language, and adult themes. Viewer discretion is advised.

Language of instruction: English

Instructor: Dr. Gaoheng Zhang

Prerequisites: None