French Graduate Courses

This course will provide an introduction to the various subfields of French linguistics for graduate students with little or no prior linguistic background. It is cross-listed and meets jointly with the undergraduate course FREN 443. Topics will include major aspects of phonetics/phonology (the sounds/sound system), morphology (word formation), syntax (sentence structure), pragmatics (language use) and sociolinguistic variation (social, stylistic, geographical), as well as language attitudes and policies in France and other Francophone regions. Students will be introduced to theoretical approaches to the study of French linguistics, we and will work on linguistic analyses of first- and second-language data, as we consider implications for the learning and teaching of French. The course is taught in French.

This course provides an overview of current and historical approaches to foreign language teaching in general, with special reference to the instruction of French in a university setting. Past and current trends and methodologies of language instruction are examined in order to acquaint students with various classroom approaches. Research findings in second language acquisition (SLA) are explored and their implications discussed, so as to show how these findings lead to more effective classroom practices.

This course is an introduction to the skills required of students doing graduate degrees in French and Francophone Studies; areas covered include: 1) Bibliography and research methods, including database management software; 2) Preparation and presentation of a research-based conference paper; 3) Technology training, including web design, on-line portfolio, and digital humanities; 4) Professional ethics and awareness of the academic market and possible careers for people with graduate degrees in the humanities; 5) Introduction to literary theory and criticism.

The seventeenth century in France has especially visual connotations: from the court of Louis XIV and the visual props of power to the flourishing of the visual arts. This seminar uses the French notion of spectacle as a prism for engaging with this period, which Bertrand Russell termed the first truly modern century. We will see how subversive apparently innocuous works can be. We will analyze the memoirs of the abbé de Choisy in which he details his escapades cross-dressed as a woman and the implicit challenges this poses to early modern values. We will look at the fairy tales of Mme d’Aulnoy which present a fantastical landscape in which women not only have a voice but also do things that are not permitted in the world of the first readers, such as rule. We will read plays by Corneille, Racine, and Molière, with the majority of texts being from the MA and PhD reading lists. The core of the seminar will be a close and detailed study of Mme de Lafayette’s masterpiece La Princesse de Clèves, the novel that set the scene for the unhappy ending in French literature. Our literary readings will be supplemented with art and music from the period as well as film (Vatel, Le Roi danse) and TV (Versailles)..