French & Francophone Studies

Introduction to French History and Culture
The lectures on this module will introduce you to the historical events, values and ideas that have informed French society and other Francophone cultures since the eighteenth century through a range of different texts and media.

Understanding Modern France (I & II) 
The lectures on this module introduce you to the broad sweep of French history from Louis XIV to Emmanuel Macron. The lectures in English engage critically with the key ideas and expressions of the major movements in French and Francophone culture. A second seminar hour in French enhances the lectures by close readings of diverse French texts and media illustrating significant historical and cultural shifts. You will learn the interpretative methodologies specific to different forms of analysis, giving you a solid grounding for specialisation in Year 2 and onwards.

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

French Critical Contexts 

Each semester this module takes two major French ‘texts’ (novel, film, painting, etc.) as its central focus of study and sets them in specific ‘critical contexts’, giving students a clear set of critical tools with which to carry out their analyses. The principal text is then also considered in a different media – e.g., a book adapted into a film – to see what this tells us about its construction and value systems. Recent ‘texts’ include: Mme de Lafayette’s La Princesse de Montpensier; a section of Hugo’s Les Misérables; Sarah Kofman’s Rue Ordener, Rue Labat; the film Monsieur Klein; the bande dessinée Le Tour de Gaule d’Astérix; and Hocine Zaourar’s news photo La Madone de Bentalha.

The texts are available in French and English. Post-A-Level students are expected to use the French-language materials. The module is strongly recommended for Beginners’ French students.

Introduction to European Film

This module has a strong French component, drawing on French cinema classics, from the 1950s auteur tradition to more recent popular and avant-garde productions

La Francophonie: Langue, Colonie et Civilisation 

Taking as its focus the current institution of francophonie, this course seeks to subvert the standard textbook presentation of francophonie as an addition to French Studies courses through an exploration of the politics and polemics which have followed the idea of francophonie since its inception. Perceptions of the role of the French language is central: while francophonie is presented as an element of globalisation, the fact of using French remains tied to unresolved questions of power, identity and politics. Building upon critical awareness and knowledge of sub-Saharan African perspectives developed in the first semester, students will examine the very different debates over francophonie in North Africa in the second semester.

France in the Fifties 

The course examines the 1950s as a `watershed ́ period ́ in French cultural history. It was an era characterised by exciting innovations in film and literature and thought; a `nouvelle vague ́ of cultural practice challenging and usurping sclerotic formulae of the past and setting the parameters for the anti-establishment discourses characteristic of the 1960s and 1970s. This course is structured around materials representing a range of themes, discourses and expressions characteristic of innovatory cultural practice of the 1950s. Students will engage in detailed analysis of cinema, literature and philosophy texts as well as materials associated with the mass media of press, radio and television. The module aims to enable students to make an informed evaluation of the importance of the 1950s as a seminal decade of cultural and social change in France by way of a detailed examination of the cultural production of the era.

Translation in Theoretical Context

This module considers the practice and analysis of translation of specialised documentation (commercial and technical translation), creative writing (literary translation) and the translation of hybrid text genres such as websites or advertisements, from French into English. This module will give students a solid grasp of the technical and cultural issues surrounding the practice of translating French texts into English and provide students with a solid foundation in translation theory. This module is taught and assessed in English.

Writing the French Revolution

This module introduces students to the major events of the French Revolution (1789-1799) as perceived and recorded by a diverse range of writers, artists and thinkers at the time. It examines how the Revolution was experienced first-hand and how it is subsequently represented by successive generations of French writers, artists and thinkers, often in contrasting fashion, as a cipher for ongoing ideological and cultural conflicts.

Littérature moderne: thèmes et idées I

A partir de la fin des années 1970, la littérature française semble renoncer à s'occuper du réel. On lui reproche alors son nombrilisme (la catégorie d'autofiction date de ces années-là), ou encore son formalisme, à la suite des expérimentations du nouveau roman. Ces années sont aussi marquées, politiquement, par la décrédibilisation du communismeet la fin des utopies de gauche héritées de mai 68, autant d'idées qui avaient été portées par une génération d'écrivains qui vont s'éteindre dans les années 80 (Sartre, Aragon, par exemple). L'idée que la littérature peut dire (et changer) le monde semble démodée. La
littérature semblait s'être repliée sur le domaine de la vie privée et du divertissement.On assiste pourtant, ces dernières années, au retour d'une littérature ambitieuse, se donnant à nouveau pour ambition d'envisager la complexité des rapports sociaux replacés dans leur contexte politique et culturel. Les livres que nous étudierons sont les témoignages d'un "nouveau réalisme" qui prend à bras le corps les questions qui occupent le débat public en France. Ils sont traversés par des interrogations communes: qu'est-ce qui nous lie culturellement? comment vivre sur les décombres d'utopies perdues? qu'est-ce qui détermine l'identité française, si elle existe? Comment peut-elle se transformer? la littérature peut être l'une des meilleures façon de le comprendre.
Exemples d’auteurs étudiés: Virginie Despentes, Michel Houellebecq, Annie Ernaux, Edouard Louis.

Realities and Falsehoods: The French Occupation in Literature and Film I

The first of these two linked modules 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. 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.
The second module builds on the first, enabling students to critically interrogate how the truths and myths of the French experience of Nazi Occupation were perpetuated or disavowed to serve ideological purposes in cultural production under the Fourth and Fifth Republics. Students will seek to identify how the myths they identified in Occupation discourse in the first semester are challenged or perpetuated by post-war historians and by writers and filmmakers. Students will be introduced to specialist critical material in historiography as well as to a range of novels and films produced between 1946 and the present day.

Film Studies

Examining a selection of films (normally 4 per semester) from 1995 to the present day, this module addresses the status of cinema in France today. Through a range of critical frameworks - the construction of the director as 'auteur', the use and subversion of film genre conventions and the capacity of film to both represent socio-economic realities and articulate resistance to them.
There is no need for previous experience of film studies, yet these films will be studied with particular emphasis on the contribution of film language to the construction of meaning, and students will be introduced to key thematic areas, such as the filmic manipulation of time and space, the representation of social relationships, the construction of identity and the use of image, sound and music.
Students will be introduced to key writers and ideas in film and cultural theory and to recent work in genre studies and socio-political cinema. A set of four films related to these areas will be analysed in close detail on each semester. Films studied may include: La Haine (1995), Drole de Félix (2000), Caché (Haneke, 2005) De Rouille et d'os (Audiard, 2012) and Bande de filles (Sciamma, 2015).

The module is taught and assessed in French.

Gender, Society and Economy in France 

These two linked modules aim to give students a broad introduction to the way in which gender structures the social and economic lives of individuals in France from both a theoretical and empirical standpoint, focusing on the family, social policy, employment and employment policy and leisure.
Furthermore, students will have the opportunity to undertake more specialised work in areas of particular interest to them. The course consists of a series of lecture-type sessions in which the principal concepts, theories and background information for topics is presented. In preparation for these sessions, students are guided to background reading which allows them to work in small discussion groups during these classes.
In addition, there will be a number of workshop sessions. This course is taught and assessed in French.

Literature and Politics of the ‘Post(-)Colonial 

This course has two components. The first semester tackles probably the most problematic aspect 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. And the second semester looks at a particular case study which considers the intricate history of Haiti and France from the colonial period up until the present day. The focus of the semester will be to analyse the historical development of the Haitian nation via the prism of Western imperialism and especially French colonial and post-colonial history. Through the analysis of historical works but also of works of political science and works of fiction, this part of the module will review the tragic history of Haiti and the ways in which this tragedy is closely intertwined with French imperialism and the development of global capitalism.

The course is taught and assessed in French.

Contemporary Visual Arts in France