FREN599A

FREN599A

All candidates for the M.A. degree with thesis are required to deposit in the Department a thesis of approximately 80 pages, including bibliography and notes. It must be presented in accordance with the university guidelines for the format and presentation of graduate theses.

Candidates will defend their thesis during a one-hour and a half oral examination.

Candidates must register in French 599 in the year in which they intend to submit the thesis.

For information about your thesis preparation and submission, click here.

FREN499

Honours Essay

Required of all Honours candidates, the Honours Essay represents an extended personal research project (in finished form usually about 35-40 pages typewritten) carried out under the supervision of two members of the Department’s Graduate Faculty: a supervisor who will meet regularly with the student and a second reader. Preliminary research on the topic chosen is expected to be completed by mid-term, at which time the candidate is required to submit for approval a detailed outline of the projected work. The finished essay is due on the last day of lectures of the term.

The Honours Essay is seen less as an original contribution to knowledge than as a means for providing the student with an opportunity to become familiar with the methodological problems of research as well as with the techniques and problems of scholarly writing.

Students who are planning to do an Honours Essay must submit a proposal to the Student Program Coordinator using this online form. The proposal must include a one-page abstract, a bibliography, and the names of the two professors who are willing to supervise the work.

The proposal should be submitted by November 1, if the student intends to register in this course in January (FREN499-201).
The proposal should be submitted by March 1, if the student intends to register in this course the following September (FREN499-101)

 

ITAL102

Beginners’ Italian II

Building on Italian 101, the Italian 102 course helps students develop in listening, reading, writing and speaking, and gain a beginner level of proficiency in communicating in situations, such as discuss people and events in their life, in the present and from the past, make plans for their immediate future, and interact in Italian to ask for directions, order in a restaurant, express likes and dislikes or address different people using either the formal or the informal register.

Learners will read short articles or stories and work towards developing correct pronunciation of the language; listen and comprehend class instructions as well as simple dialogues, short videos and songs; write short compositions or dialogues to describe people and places. In this course particular attention will be devoted to the enhancement of the comprehension and writing skills, and the use of authentic and motivating material to help students develop an awareness of some cultural topics, such as sports and Italian life, traditional festivities, art, Italian cities and travelling throughout Italy.

The course adopts a highly interactive approach and students participate in a variety of engaging and fun activities, individually, in pairs and in small groups. Willingness to interact in Italian and all efforts are essential to better learning and are also part of the course participation grade.

Language of instruction: Italian

Recommended prerequisite: ITAL 101

Notes: Credits will be granted for only one of ITAL 102 or ITAL 103

Grading Breakdown

20% Preparation
25% Participation
15% Quizzes (3)
15% Oral Assignments
25% Final Written Exam

2% Extra credits*

Readings

Required texts: M. Birello, S. Bonafaccia, A. Petri, A. Vilagrasa, Al Dente 1, Edizione Premium (A1 level, in the Common European Framework of Reference), ISBN: 9788417710835

Determine your entry level
Find out which course level to start at given your previous experience with Italian.

SPAN430E

[Cross-listed with SPAN 530B-921]

Novelas de la guerra civil española

Este curso ofrece un recorrido de la narrativa inspirada por la guerra civil española, dentro y también fuera de España. Investigaremos el impacto cultural de la guerra, y las distintas estrategias escogidas para representar la violencia y el disenso. Analizaremos las perspectivas de españoles dentro y fuera (o sea, exiliados) de España, y asimismo las ofrecidas por extranjeros involucrados en este conflicto con fuertes dimensiones internacionales.

Textos
Sender, Réquiem por un campesino español
Cela, San Camilo, 1936
Malraux, Days of Hope
Orwell, Homage to Catalonia
Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Méndez, Los girasoles ciegos

Prerequisite: One of SPAN 220, SPAN 221 and SPAN 302

Language of instruction: Spanish and English

Course registration

FREN514A

France in Ruins: Wounded Spaces From 1945 to the Present

Ruins have been at the center of the French imaginary since the sixteenth century. They represented in turn the decay of the pagan world, its architectural genius, the height of the sublime, and a refuge for earthly pleasures or the inquisitive mind. The twentieth century, with its landscapes of broken metropolises and scorched earth, changed the literary reading of this spatial motif in radical ways, making it more malleable and more ambiguous. It has been evolving from 1945 to the present, taking unique shapes in the literature we will be studying this semester, starting with the rotting landscapes of Julien Gracq and Pierre Michon, and moving towards the industrial territories of François Bon and Élisabeth Filhol.

This seminar will allow the students to become familiar with a poetic approach to literary texts, while also remaining open to the theoretical perspectives that they will be bringing forward through class discussions and oral presentations. Our seminar will also include a substantial component dedicated to the visual history of ruins in European architecture, painting, photography, and film.

Required readings:

Julien Gracq, Un balcon en forêt

Pierre Michon, La Grande Beune

Patrick Modiano,  Pedigree

François Bon, Paysage fer

Philippe Vasset, Un livre blanc

Élisabeth Filhol, La Centrale

Céline Minard, Le Dernier monde

Theory readings will include works by Bertrand Westphal, Michel Collot, Marielle Macé, and others.

Language of instruction: French

Professor: Vincent Gélinas-Lemaire

Course Registration

FREN512B

[Cross-listed with SPAN 501]

Cultural Mobilities in Theory and Practice

Cultural mobility can be defined as mobilities relayed in and of 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, merchants, explorers, tourists, colonizers, political pilgrims, migrants, and refugees—within Italian, French, and Chinese contexts. 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

Language of instruction : English

FREN420R

Le récit de voyage (19e-20e siècle)

(Cross-listed with FREN 329-930)
Ce cours est offert à Lyon, France (May 16 – June 25, 2016)

Le récit de voyage, par son double statut à la fois littéraire et documentaire, est on objet propice à des usages et à des lectures multiples. Son étude exige la prise en compte de la dimension esthétique que suppose toute pratique d’écriture, de la dimension informative liée à la relation d’une expérience concrète, mais également de la dimension réflexive qui nait de la rencontre avec l’altérité. En dépit des difficultés soulignées par de nombreux critiques à définir avec précision les limites d’un genre foncièrement protéiforme et investi de diverses fonctions selon les époques, les travaux abondants qui lui ont été consacrés ces dernières années ont bien fait voir toute la richesse que cet objet était susceptible d’offrir à l’historien, au géographe, au sociologue, à l’anthropologue et au critique littéraire. L’intérêt qu’on porte encore de nos jours au récit de voyage se mesure d’ailleurs à son développement éditorial spectaculaire, aux festivals qu’on lui consacre un peu partout sur la planète ainsi qu’à la facilité avec laquelle il s’est emparé des nouveaux supports de diffusion comme le bloque. Il n’est aujourd’hui pas un voyage qui ne s’accompagne d’une éventuelle mise en récit.

À partir d’une analyse de quelques oeuvres représentatives, nous retracerons les grandes étapes qui ont marqué la pratique du récit de voyage en France du XIXe siècle à nos jours. Nous en interrogerons les formes, les thématiques et les enjeux, et nous tenterons d’évaluer nos pratiques contemporaines en les comparant à celles qui ont motivé l’entrée du genre dans la sphère de la littérature. Le début du XIXe siècle marque en effet le moment où le récit de voyage devient le lieu d’un travail esthétique et se constitue en pratique littéraire. Sous l’impulsion des voyageurs romantiques, attirés par les fantasmes d’un exotisme qu’ils contribuaient eux-mêmes à produire, et des éditeurs qui y verront un genre susceptible de répondre à la fascination d’un public avide de découvrir des cultures et des territoires inconnus, le genre a fini par acquérir ses lettres de noblesse. Si les visées expansionnistes des empires européens ne sont évidemment par étrangères à son essor, les mouvements de décolonisation de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle sont à l’origine d’une relecture critique qui a contribué à faire du récit de voyage un lieux privilégiés pour l’étude du rapport à l’altérité et de sa représentation. La nécessité de revisiter les échanges, les rapports de force et les phénomènes d’hybridation culturelle qui ont accompagné l’histoire et la littérature européennes des deux derniers siècles fait du récit de voyage un terrain d’exploration dont l’actualité et l’importance ne sont plus à démontrer.

Parallèlement à l’étude des oeuvres au programme, les étudiants seront invités à produire leur propre texte relatant leur expérience de voyage en France au cours d’ateliers d’écriture qui seront des sortes de compléments à la matière vue en classe. Ces ateliers donneront l’occasion de perfectionner ses stratégies d’écriture, et de réfléchir sur la manière d’organiser un récit de manière originale et vivante. Des exercices pratiques et des périodes de discussions permettront à chacun de faire le lien entre la dimension théorique du cours et la pratique contemporaine du récit de voyage.

Texts:
Eugène Fromentin, Une année dans le sahel. Flammarion, 2011.
François Maspero, Les passagers du Roissy-Express. Point (Seuil), 2004.
Nicolas Bouvier, L’Usage du monde. Payot, 2001.
François-René de Châteaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem (extrait)
Stendahl, Mémoires d’un touriste (extrait)
Alphonse de Lamartine, Voyage en Orient (extrait)
Gérard de Nerval, Voyage en Orient (extrait)
Théophile Gauthier, Constantinople (extrait)

Course registration

Prerequisite: One of FREN 320, FREN 321, FREN 328, FREN 329, FREN 330

Language of instruction: French

FREN420S

[A Student Directed Seminar]

Questions contemporaines sur l’identité / Current Issues on Identity

Enseigné en français et en anglais, ce cours se penchera sur l’influence des problèmes d’identité dans notre monde contemporain dans un séminaire étudiant coordonné par Maximilien Azorin et sponsorisé par le professeur Ralph Sarkonak.

In an increasingly globalized world, our shared identities – ethnic, political, religious, social – are not innate, immutable, invulnerable to outside influences.  What becomes of our identity, for example, if we emigrate from the land in which it has been rooted?  Or if others who share our identity, or even we ourselves, are caught up in identity-based conflict?  What leads certain individuals to feel stripped of any meaningful identity at all and to fill the void with some form of radical ideology or even fanaticism? This Student Directed Seminar (SDS) will address some of these questions, which have a serious impact on how individuals behave today, and which are widely debated in political and academic circles.

A second major focus of this seminar will be language, which is inseparable from identity. A language cannot be understood without its associated identities, and identities cannot be fully expressed without their mother tongue. So not only will the relationship of language to identity be discussed and debated, but the seminar itself – background reading, discussion, presentations, written assignments and the feedback that they inspire – will be conducted bilingually, in French and in English.

Working bilingually, we will explore the political and social impact of bilingualism and multilingualism on, for example, post-colonial societies where native languages have displaced the once dominant language of a colonial power, or on the European Union with its twenty-four official languages. It is our hope that, by learning together in a bilingual environment where they are asked to formulate their own ideas and opinions and to understand one another in two languages, the seminar’s participants – anglophones and francophones, students of French and students of Political Science – will enjoy a unique experience and will gain insight into the phenomenon of human identity and into the forces that produce it, transform it or threaten it.

Textes:
Michèle Maillet, L’étoile noire (Oh! Editions)
Articles de sciences politiques en français et en anglais.

Prerequisites:
At least a good 300-level student’s command of French, interest in political science and francophone literature, and the curiosity to learn in a fully bilingual environment.

Langues d’enseignement: français et anglais.

Course Registration

FREN220

Course type: Hybrid

A hybrid course may involve a combination of synchronous activities (done in “real time”) and asynchronous activities (done in one’s own time). The course will be delivered online.

L’individu face aux normes sociales

This year’s FREN 220 focuses on pariahs and outcasts, loners and wanderers, individuals who pit themselves against social norms or who question them in order to imagine a better society. The protagonist of Marie de France’s Lai de Lanval must hide the existence of his otherworldly lover, and is subsequently shunned by the court. Christine de Pizan’s poetry sings of despair and resilience in the face of insurmountable loss. Joachim Du Bellay writes about nostalgia and yearns for a place to belong to. Rabelais and Montaigne dream of an educational system that could teach freedom and self-discovery. Phèdre, the eponymous heroin of Racine’s tragedy, rages against the norms that pit passion against duty.

FREN 220 offers a survey of medieval and early modern French literature, from 12th century courtly aesthetics to 17th century classicism, while offering an introduction to several fundamental genres: narrative fiction, poetry, non-fiction and theatre. By focusing on a variety of exercises, including close reading and essay writing, this course (conjointly with FREN 221) offers the perfect introduction to literary studies and textual analysis.

Required readings:

  • Marie de France, Le Lai de Lanval, Paris, Le Livre de Poche, 1995, ISBN 978-2-253-13813-6
  • Anthologie de la poésie française de Villon à Verlaine, Paris, Le Livre de Poche, 1998, ISBN 978-2-253-14501-1
  • Jean Racine, Phèdre, Paris, Le Livre de Poche, 2016, ISBN 978-2-253-18315-0

Prerequisite: FREN 123 or assignment based on placement test.

Language of Instruction: French

Note: To be taken by all students intending to proceed to the Minor, Major or Honours program in French.

Course Registration

FREN215

Oral French Practice

NOTICE: FREN 224 is replacing FREN 215 – register in FREN 224 instead!

Course Registration