French & Francophone Studies

Understanding Modern France 

This core content module will introduce students to key aspects of France's history, society, politics and culture through the study of a range of important texts and media. It will focus on key historical events, the values and ideas that inform French and francophone society today, giving an historical overview of their development from Louise XIV to Emmanuel Macron. It will thus enable students to learn the interpretative methodologies specific to a range of cultural forms. It will provide them with a sound understanding of disciplinary studies, both within the language(s)/culture(s) they have chosen to study and, more broadly, within the discipline of Languages and Cultures today. It aims to facilitate the students' transition to University study, to complement the core language modules (which also cover some aspects of culture) studied at Level 1, in addition to serving as the solid foundation for more advanced study and specialisation at Level 2 and onwards. There will be opportunities for synoptic assessment in connection with the relevant language module.

Understanding Modern France This core content module will introduce students to key aspects of France's history, society, politics and culture through the study of a range of important texts and media. It will focus on key historical events, the values and ideas that inform French and francophone society today, giving an historical overview of their development from Louise XIV to Emmanuel Macron. It will thus enable students to learn the interpretative methodologies specific to a range of cultural forms. It will provide them with a sound understanding of disciplinary studies, both within the language(s)/culture(s) they have chosen to study and, more broadly, within the discipline of Languages and Cultures today. It aims to facilitate the students' transition to University study, to complement the core language modules (which also cover some aspects of culture) studied at Level 1, in addition to serving as the solid foundation for more advanced study and specialisation at Level 2 and onwards. There will be opportunities for synoptic assessment in connection with the relevant language module.

Core (if you are studying one or two languages and cultures)
Optional (if you are studying three languages and cultures)

Intersections: Text, Image, Thought in the French-speaking world

This module will focus on two important French texts per semester (with 'text' taken in its largest sense of book, film, art work, piece of music, cultural product, etc.). Each text will form the basis for a close reading, followed by analyses using French cultural, historical, literary and critical theory approaches as well as adaptations into other media (such as film, art and music) where appropriate. The module will be taught and assessed in English, but the materials will be made available in both French and English, with French students required to use and cite the French materials. The aim of the module is to introduce students to significant French texts and to illustrate and explore a range of possible critical approaches to them, including cross-media or intermedial reinterpretations.

An Introduction to the Social and Political History of Iberia & Latin America 

This module examines the historical trajectory of Spain, its emergence as a state in the Iberian Peninsula, its imperial expansion overseas into Latin America, the eventual independence of the colonies and their development and consolidation into the various modern-day states we know today. The module will explore the social, political, linguistic and cultural characteristics of these states and its peoples and highlight the importance of understanding their complex history in the formation of their identities, their languages and their cultural and political values. The module has a particular emphasis on the importance of myths and how, regardless of their historical veracity, they can condition behaviours, mould identities and shape future history.

Resist! The Art of Protest in Berlin and Amsterdam

Berlin and Amsterdam: two capitals at the forefront of protest and alternative lifestyles from the early 20th century right up to the present. Where did their radical traditions spring from? What do these protests say about how the cities and nations see themselves? How does creative resistance fuel gentrification and urban tourism? 

This module explores the culture of resistance and protest from the first women's march for the vote and posters and activism against war and fascism, to the creative resistance of the Amsterdam PROVO movement in the 1960s to Black Lives Matter/Kick out Zwarte Piet. 

We will cover concepts such as populism, activism, colonial resistance, feminism, BLM, climate activism. How do these movement use art and image to press their causes?  

Comparative Visual Cultures

Visual literacy is a key skill and visual culture remains one of the most accessible and important modes through which we represent, understand and critique our world. This module provides an introduction to some of the major trends within visual cultures in European languages, and the development of visual media. Students will work on a selection of visual texts across national frameworks and historical periods to examine their conditions of production, distribution and reception and to explore how meaning is constructed and critiqued in visual culture. In seminars we will engage with detailed analysis of core texts and with critical materials. Students will be encouraged to consider country-specific, transnational and comparative trends through a critical lens. 

Understanding Spanish and Latin American Culture

Why has the gypsy culture of Andalucía been so crucial to ideas about Spanish identity and how and why has this changed? How did gender politics and the role of women change after the Franco dictatorship in Spain? How and why was modernity experienced as a crisis in Latin America? How does class struggle shape Latin America? What does Revolution really mean in the context of Latin America? These are just some of the questions that will be explored in this module. This course examines the literature and culture of modern Spain and modern Spanish-speaking Latin America. In each semester, three cultural products from one of these two areas are studied, and may include poetry, theatre, narrative fiction or film. We will build up a picture of the cultural history of Spain and Latin America, as well as looking at key themes to emerge from selected literary, dramatic and/or cinematic outputs. By focussing on different genres in each semester, students will be able to explore different types of cultural product and to develop analytical skills gradually by moving from shorter pieces to a larger body of writing. Students taking post-A Level or equivalent will study primary texts in their original Spanish version. Beginners will study primary texts in English translation. This module is strongly recommended as a foundational core course for further study in Spanish and Latin American Studies.

The Soviet Union 1917-1991

Overview of the formation, development and collapse of the USSR, beginning from c.1900. Covers historiographic problems in analysing primary materials, ideological problems in dealing with the revolutionary movement and subsequent developments, debates over the nature and trajectory of the USSR and its place in the wider world.

Minorités et Identités dans la France et le monde francophone du XXème siècle

This interdisciplinary course analyses the ways identities are formed, at both the individual and collective levels, in France and in the francophone world. The 20th century is often seen as the period that saw the peak of the idea of the nation state whose strength lies in a strong and unified collective identity. This course will examine the construction of this identitarian approach, and the discursive mechanisms used to underscore concepts of national specificity in France, and cognate processes in the francophone world. We examine such processes with reference to a range of 'minorities' including those defined by gender, race or sexuality, via readings taken from the fields of literature, film, history and modern thought. The first semester focusses on France, while in the second semester we extend our readings of these questions of identity and minority to the so-called 'francophone world'. The course is taught in French.

Understanding Gender and Society in France and the Francophone World

We are aware today more than ever that our gender identity affects how we are able to live our lives. This module gives you the opportunity to understand the complexity of the gendering of society through the example of contemporary France, and a range of other francophone countries of your choice. In the module we question why gender inequalities still exist in the 2020s in the family, in education, the workplace, leisure, politics and even as regards our citizenship. How does the country we live in affect gender relations? What is specific about France, or other francophone regions or nation-states? What can governments do to improve the situation? How do other types of inequalities, such as race and class, intersect with gender? What theories can we apply to understand these issues? How does the questioning of the gender binary and heteronormativity impact on these understandings?

Realities and Falsehoods: The French Occupation in Literature & Film

The course aims to enable students to critically interrogate how historical 'truths' were perpetuated and distorted to serve ideological purposes through censored and clandestine cultural production during the Nazi Occupation of France. Students will critically examine and evaluate the historical reliability of a range of texts written both by the general public and by cultural and political figures over the period. These contemporary testimonies found in diaries, letters, newspapers and newsreels of the time are then set against cultural production distributed both openly (under censorship) and clandestinely in order to assess how these 'realities' were processed and the purposes to which they were set during the conflict. In particular, students will pay close attention to any conspicuous divergence into propaganda and myth. Students will be introduced to specialist critical material in the field of life writing, film and literature and historiography as well as to a range of novels and films produced during the Occupation.

Language and Society in Luxembourg and the French Borderlands

This module introduces key issues in the field of sociolinguistics, which studies how language constructs rather than simply mirrors social reality and, more specifically, the ways in which people position themselves and others in relation to language use. With a sharp focus on the French borderlands, students will obtain an overview of the status and function of the French language in relation to its speakers and to speakers of other languages. We will begin by discussing how language works and the ways in which linguists and laypersons sometimes disagree about language issues. We will then relate aspects of these theoretical discussions to issues concerning linguistic minorities in the officially monolingual country of France, in addition to the bordering multilingual countries of Luxembourg, Belgium and Switzerland. We will explore the ways in which language becomes the target of struggles and debates that are embedded in broader socio-political issues. Students will have the opportunity to conduct their own small-scale analyses based on case studies. Crucially, this module underlines the necessity of questioning the presupposed homogeneity conveyed by the use of labels such as the 'French language' and 'French-speaking countries', which potentially mask the social and linguistic complexity inherent to the social world.

Literature and Politics of the ‘Post(-)Colonial

This module tackles one of the most problematic aspects of studying 'post-colonial' literature, culture or society: what the term 'post(-)colonial' actually means. We will use a selection of texts from various genres and various parts of France's former empire to examine the nature of the post(-)colonial, with a focus upon postcolonial theory and its relationship with issues such as identity, nationalism, race and voice. The module begins with a focus on the mid-twentieth century and debates about the impacts of French imperialism, and moves forward through time to contemporary discussions of the 'decolonial' and a particular focus on engaging with some ways in which scholars have attempted to theorise migration through the use of 'figures'. Module Aims:  By the end of the module the students should  have a critical awareness of the wide-ranging impacts of colonialism and how these have been treated in various periods in different types of text;  be able to take an informed position on how different kinds of text are interpreted, and on the wider popular debate on post-imperial history; a sound and critical understanding of the main issues in postcolonial and decolonial theory today, along with the appropriate critical vocabulary.

Littérature et environnement en France aux 18e-19e siècles

This module is taught in French. The module explores the discourses and representations of the environment in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French literature. It charts the evolving relationships between the human, non-human, geological and climatic worlds in the period as they are (re)configured in contemporary French works. At the same time, the module opens up a critical/creative space to explore how these texts are read and experienced in the twenty-first century. Methodologically, the course broaches such approaches as deep ecology, environmental history, disaster studies, pastoralism, animal studies, ecofeminism, (post)colonial ecocriticism and the intersections between them. The structure of the course is broadly thematic, starting from pairs of texts across centuries to set up dialogues between them and their twenty-first-century readers.

French and Francophone Visual Cultures

This module is taught in French. The module examines the ways in which film and other visual cultures, function as an aesthetic, cultural, commercial and socio-political discourse which both represents and acts upon key questions in the world around us. We will address the ways in which film and other visual cultures engage the spectator, through narrative form, through a close analysis of 6-8 French and francophone films or other visual media, released since 2000 that combine critical and commercial success. Common threads of analysis sustained across these works include precarity, resistance, trauma and transformation and we look at the power of identification, empathy, humour and suspense in communicating complex messages through film and other visual cultures.

Languages & Cultures Project

Guided by individual supervision and support seminars, you will plan and execute an extended piece of independent research on a topic that complements but does not duplicate work you have done (or will do) in SLC taught modules. Alternatively, you may translate a substantial text into English accompanied by a full commentary to contextualize it. Your project must relate to at least one of the countries or cultures whose languages you are studying. As well as writing an extended piece of work, all students present their work at the end of the year.

Social Approaches to Multilingualism

This module provides students with an overview of key topics in multilingualism, with an emphasis on the ways in which issues of language are linked to broader socio-political practices and debates. It allows students to gain insights into how theories of nationalism and globalisation may be applied to the analysis of texts and images in multilingual settings - with a particular focus on those in which Romance and/or Germanic languages play a central role - and it shows how debates about language are bound up with struggles over social equality and reactions to social transformations.

Comparative Critique of Consumer Culture

Critiques of consumer cultures are as old as capitalism itself. This module takes the long view, starting in the eighteenth century and tracing our conflicted identities as modern consumers into the present day. Especially applying German cultural theory to European cultural history, we shall ask what is meant by economic and social liberalism, and whether even culture owes a debt to consumer society. Consumerism can entail complicity in exploitative modes of production (causing poverty and displacement, and profiting from serfdom and slavery). It has been both celebrated and satirised for enabling hedonism and individual bad taste (or kitsch). And consumption has been nationalist, yet also cosmopolitan; today, it threatens our shared environment. Theory, the visual arts, and literature have all been critical of capitalism - but ironically, they can themselves be packaged as consumer goods. Examining a wide range of primary texts (including film and caricature) and critical reflections, you will translate and write a commentary on a historical source, and submit an essay on a topic of your choice.