FR 1025 - THE IDEA OF FRANCE

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
In this course, students will examine the question of how France, the French nation, and Frenchness (francité) have been imagined. What is the “idea of France” throughout different historical periods? How do modern notions of what France is imagined to be relate to pre-modern notions? What have different time periods (such as the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, colonization) contributed to the concept of France? What role does language play in Frenchness? How do concepts of race, gender, and ethnicity factor in to all these questions? This course will investigate what France was/is thought to be, how it is constructed through words, images, and acts. To treat this topic, we will take an interdisciplinary cultural studies approach. This means we will examine many types of “texts”, including literature, philosophy, manifestos, historical documents, film, video, music, webpages, architecture, newspaper and magazine articles, essays, works of art, maps, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. We will investigate the concept of “citizenship” in challenging texts and relate it to current events and the news. This course is also about you sharing your knowledge and passion for things French with the general public, through research in the French Nationality Room archives and the organization of an event during the Week of Francophonie. You will also write formally and informally in French in several genres (academic paper, op-ed piece, rationale, podcast script). This course will be taught in French.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Lecture
Grade Component: LG/SNC Elective Basis
Course Requirements: PREQ: FR 0256 OR two of the following: FR 0220, FR 0221, FR 0227, FR 0255.
Course Attributes: DSAS Geographic Region General Ed. Requirement, SCI Polymathic Contexts: Global&Cross Cul GE. Req., Writing Intensive Course (WRIT)

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