Graduate Seminars 2006-2007 Fall 2006 FR 226A Modern Literary Theory (Dr. Skenazi) FR 229F The Artist's Novel (Dr. Jullien) Recommended seminar: Art History 265: Architecture & Printing (Dr. Wittman) Art History 291B: Gender and Genre: The Nude in French Art: 1600-1900 (Dr. Solomon-Godeau) Winter 2007: FR 227C Medieval Theater (Dr. Enders) FR 228B Classical Comedy (Dr. Tobin) FR 228F« Les Lumières »: Fiction and Philosophy (Dr. Maurseth) Spring 2007: FR 231E Poetics and Politics of Place (Dr. Prieto) FR 231C The Voyage Out (Dr. Maleuvre). FR 233C Literary Theory and Literacy (Dr. Schultz)		Dr. Cynthia Skenazi French 226A: "Modern Literary Theory" What is literature? What is literary theory? How can we illuminate the creation of meaning in literary texts? To what extent is the interpretation of individual texts enriched by literary theory and cultural analysis? What is a viable interpretation of a literary text? We will examine these issues from different perspectives such as structuralism, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, gender theories, reception theories as well as new historicism. We will do contrapuntal readings of continental philosophy and of the canonical texts that have defined the field of literary and cultural theory, with such authors as Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, Deleuze, de Certeau, Irigaray, Greenblatt, Iser and Ricoeur. Taught in French. This seminar is part of the 226AA-ZZ series. " Literary and Critical Theory."
		Dr. Dominique Jullien French 229F: "The Artist's Novel in the Nineteenth Century" Many nineteenth-century narratives portray fictional artists. These artists tend to be misunderstood and unappreciated by society: the artist stories are most often tragic tales of madmen, outcasts, or simply “Bohemians”. On the other hand, the artist is often described as a hero, a saint or a martyr, torn between contradictory choices, between artistic imperatives and the laws of the market economy, between Romanticism and realism, between love and creation, between life and art. In addition, the writers, by projecting their own ideas, dreams and dilemmas, onto fictional artist characters who work in a different artistic medium, make the esthetic, critical and philosophical debates of their time come alive. Thus artist novels provide a unique perspective both on the key ideas of modern and contemporary art theory stemming from Romanticism, and onto the overlapping fields of literature and art history. Taught in French. This seminar is part of the 229AA-ZZ series. "Modern and Contemporary Studies."
		Dr. Richard Wittman Art History 265: "Architecture and Printing, c.1530-1850" The expansion of printing, from Renaissance publications to the 19th-century penny press, has long been recognized as foundational to the modern world. Drawing on critical theory, historical scholarship, and primary sources, this seminar explores how printed texts and images, as well as the larger social transformations wrought by printing, have affected architectural thought and practice. The primary focus will be on Italian and French contexts, especially the introduction of printed treatises during the Italian Renaisance and the rapid expansion of public debate on architecture that occurred with the transformation of the French public sphere between c.1680 and 1830. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. This seminar is part of the series: Topics in Architectural History
		Dr. Abigail Solomon-Godeau Art History 291B: "Gender and Genre: The Nude in French Art: 1600-1900" In this seminar, we will be considering the nature and terms of the nude (male and female) during three hundred years of French art, theory, pedagogy and criticism. The seminar will focus on three aspects of the nude in France: academic theories, Salon criticism, and official dictates about its “proper” representation; the significance of the historical shift from male to female nudes at the beginning of the 19 th -century, the “banalization” of the female nude in 19 th -century mass culture, and last, the psychoanalytic, social and cultural implications of this most durable form of representation and its relations to [changing] concepts of gender and sexuality. Click here for longer description. This seminar is part of the series: Topics in Topics in Gender and Representation
		Dr. Jody Enders French 227C: "Medieval Theater and Theatricality: Medieval Performance Theory" Recent work in history, performance studies, and French studies has stressed the importance of Jacques Le Goff's foundational insight that medieval society “plays itself out” in accordance with a panoply of rituals that “scripted” the literary genre of drama as well as social life in general. Designed for graduate students in French, Dramatic Art, Medieval Studies, English, and Comparative Literature, this seminar explores the key theoretical documents of medieval performance with a special focus on the interplay of medieval literary theory with both dramatic literature and a wide array of ritual and performance practices. Each week, we read a play or group of plays in the context of a particular kind of medieval theatricality such as the following: religious and mystical performance, legal trial and punishment, classroom ritual and testing, political performance, sports and tournament, and the three highly influential arts developed in the Middle Ages of poetry, preaching, and letter-writing. Taught in English. This seminar is part of the 227AA-ZZ series. " Medieval and Renaissance Studies"
		Dr. Ronald Tobin French 228B: "Classical Comedy: Molière" The most famous writer in Europe in his time, Molière was one of the first to attempt to attain the status of an independent author. We will explore the creativity of Molière who rivaled Shakespeare in the variety of genres that he practiced from the farce through darker plays to the comédie-ballet that he invented. Comedy as anthropology, as sociology, as political commentary, and as theatrical representation will be studied, aided by the showing of film versions of the plays. Thanks to recent research, we will be able to focus more precisely on the eternal question: Molière bourgeois et libertin ou Molière royaliste? Seminar conducted in French. This seminar is part of the 228AA-ZZ series. " Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Studies."
		Dr. Anne Beate Maurseth French 228F: « Les Lumières »: Fiction and Philosophy. This seminar will address what Enlightenment is in relation to the social institutions and the philosophical and religious traditions of the 18th century. We will discuss such questions as the reinvention of nature, reason, passion, sentiment and morality in philosophical essays and new literary forms, including utopia. Taught in French. This seminar is part of the 228AA-ZZ series. " Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Studies."
		Dr. Eric Luis Prieto French 231E: “The Poetics and Politics of Place: L'entre-deux" What is the entre-deux ? In its most literal sense, this is a spatial term with geographical implications. It denotes an in-between space or middle ground between two established places. This course will study the works of writers who have focused obsessively on the representation of such intermediate spaces, seeking to explore and explain their heretofore misunderstood or underappreciated or undiscovered qualities, an operation that makes possible the categorical shift from (mere) space to (fully fledged) place. This operation requires an expansion of the representational capacities of language, overcoming the limitations of previous modalities of representation. In this sense, the entre-deux is also a cognitive space, a concept and/or technique of mediation with important implications for the ways in which we understand the world around us, and important applications in debates about the relationship between mind and body, colonizer and colonized, the modern and the postmodern, the urban and the suburban, high art and low art. Taught in French. This seminar is part of the 231AA-ZZ series. " Cultural Studies and Intellectual History"
		Dr. Didier Maleuvre French 231C: "Literature and Travel: The Voyage Out" This seminar will deal with seafaring tales, novels, and writings with a view to appreciating how ocean journeys dramatize profound concerns about life, fate, knowledge, creation, self-invention, the limits of human freedom. Readings include Melville, Conrad, Woolf, Maupassant among others. Cross-listed with Comparative Literature 200. Taught in English. This seminar is part of the 231AA-ZZ series. " Cultural Studies and Intellectual History"
		Dr. Jean Marie Schultz French 233C: Literary Theory and Literacy This seminar will address the ways in which literary theory has influenced general notions of what it means to be literate, particularly within an applied linguistic context. We will be looking at various intersections between literary and applied linguistic theories and the ways in which applied linguistics has adapted various aspects of literary theory in order to increase our understanding of what it means to be literate. We will pay particular attention to notions of literacy in a foreign language, notions which are constantly evolving with the development of technology. How do different approaches to texts influence current definitions of literacy? Is literacy exclusive to print texts? Does modern literacy also require multimodal forms of critical reading ability? Taught in English. This seminar is part of the 233AA-ZZ series: "Applied Linguistics, Instructional Theory, Professional Training"
	Updated CN 8/14/2007