Courses

FRE 100 African Perspectives on Justice, Human Rights, and Renewal

This team-taught course introduces students to some of the experiences, cultural beliefs, values, and voices shaping contemporary Africa. Students focus on the impact of climatic, cultural, and geopolitical diversity; the politics of ethnicity, religion, age, race, and gender and their influence on daily life; and the forces behind contemporary policy and practice in Africa. The course forges students’ critical capacity to resist simplistic popular understandings of what is taking place on the continent and works to refocus their attention on distinctively “African perspectives.” Students design a research project to augment their knowledge about a specific issue within a particular region. The course is primarily for first- and second-year students with little critical knowledge of Africa and serves as the introduction to the General Education concentration Considering Africa (C022).

FRE 101 Elementary French I

An introduction to the French language. In the first semester, emphasis is placed on oral proficiency with conversational practice in various aspects of contemporary French and Francophone culture, and on the acquisition of vocabulary, basic grammar, and reading and writing skills. This course is not open to students with two or more years of French in secondary school.

FRE 102 Elementary French II

A direct continuation of FRE 101 and also intended for students with no more than two years of French in high school. In this second semester introductory French course, students concentrate on further developing vocabulary, grammar, writing skills, and comprehension of French and Francophone culture with short readings and films. Prerequisite(s): FRE 101.

FRE 151 Gender, Race, and Social Class in French and Francophone Film

This course explores representations of gender, race, and class including the intersectionality and historical evolution of these categories of difference. Students acquire analytical tools to better appreciate and contextualize French and Francophone films and look critically at their various aesthetic frameworks. How do classic French cinema, surrealism, avant-garde cinema, the New Wave, and postcolonial cinema question social norms and values? How do French and Francophone films represent personal memory, national history, gender relations, and colonial and postcolonial gazes? How do filmmakers address social change and capture shifting identities within French and Francophone history and cultures? Course and reading materials are in English; films are in the original with English subtitles.

FRE 201 Intermediate French

The course focuses on proficiency in speaking, with intensive review of grammar. Students read and analyze selected texts. Class discussions in French explore both literary and cultural topics. Prerequisite(s): FRE 102.

FRE 205 Oral French

The course is designed to develop oral fluency and aural acuity, with attention to vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, syntax, and pronunciation. The course is constructed around an unfolding suite of humorous adventures in dialogue form that explore North Africa’s cultural legacy in the French and Francophone world. Students explore topics of contemporary interest such as orientalism, colonialism, women’s rights, Islam and France, and North African culture, through weekly performances, improvisation, debate, and one-on-one evaluations. Recommended background: FRE 201.

FRE 207 Introduction to Contemporary France

This course develops facility in speaking, reading, and writing French by focusing on French society and culture. Students explore contemporary France through content-based cultural materials such as magazine and newspaper articles, published interviews, video, film, music, and appropriate works of current literature. Students prepare oral reports and written essays. Recommended background: FRE 201.

FRE 208 Introduction to the Francophone World

This course focuses on the Francophone world while developing greater facility in speaking, reading, and writing in French. The Francophone world is first presented through the history of colonization, the slave trade, and the decolonization movements in several areas such as the Caribbean, Senegal, and Algeria. The diversity of Francophone cultures and voices is explored through a variety of cultural material including newspaper and magazine articles, and the work of directors and authors such as Ernest Pépin, Gisèle Pineau (Guadeloupe), Patrick Chamoiseau (Martinique), Assia Djebar, Leïla Sebbar, Lyes Salem (Algeria), Ken Bugul, Ousmane Sembène, and Djibril Diop Mambety (Senegal). Class presentations and discussions are conducted entirely in French. Recommended background: FRE 201.

FRE 235 Advanced French Language and Introduction to Film Analysis

The course is designed to develop facility in conversing and writing in idiomatic French with ease and fluency. Students review linguistic structures and develop new analytical skills to develop their critical thinking in French with attention to written expression. In addition to reading short essays by French and Francophone theorists, students acquire specific conceptual vocabulary to analyze films and explore questions of language, power, and privilege; constructions of gender, national, and racial identities; and their intersectionalities.

FRE 240F Borders and Disorders

A study of the various experiences of immigration that the Francophone world has made possible and, in certain cases, forced upon people for political and economic reasons. In an era of globalization, students examine how increasingly migrants must negotiate their sense of self through multiple heritages and places, and how Francophone novels and films imagine new forms of belonging that embrace the complex and fluid status of the migrant experience. How does one define “home” within one’s host country without denying one’s past and cultural origins? The course envisions the Francophone world as a theater of multiple encounters that lead to the creation of new hybrid identities that transform both the immigrant and the host country. Authors and filmmakers include Bouchareb, Bouraoui, Condé, De Duve, Flem, Gomis, Guibert, Nacro, Sebbar, Sembène, and Zang. Prerequisite(s): FRE 207, 208 or 235.

FRE 240I French in Maine

An appreciation and analysis of what it means to speak French and to be “French” in the local and regional context. Students examine questions of language, ethnic identity, and cultural expression through novels, short stories, autobiographies, film, and written and oral histories. Visits to local cultural sites enhance students’ understanding of the Franco-American community and its heritage as well as other French speakers. Prerequisite(s): FRE 207, 208, or 235.

FRE 250 Power and Resistance through Writing

A study of French and Francophone cultural production, mainly literary, across time and various genres. The course does not attempt comprehensive, encyclopedic knowledge of a textural canon, but rather a thematic approach that focuses on key works and important authors and creators from the French and Francophone world. Power and resistance provides a capacious lens through which students consider issues relevant to the history of France and its reach into the cultural life of its former colonies and beyond, gender and race foremost among these defining influences. Students become acquainted with iconic moments and texts from the Francophone world as well as these that have been traditionally underprivileged or unrecognized. This course may be repeated for credit with permission of the instructor. Prerequisite(s): FRE 207, 208, or 235.

FRE 250 Power and Resistance through Writing

A study of French and Francophone cultural production, mainly literary, across time and various genres. The course does not attempt comprehensive, encyclopedic knowledge of a textural canon, but rather a thematic approach that focuses on key works and important authors and creators from the French and Francophone world. Power and resistance provides a capacious lens through which students consider issues relevant to the history of France and its reach into the cultural life of its former colonies and beyond, gender and race foremost among these defining influences. Students become acquainted with iconic moments and texts from the Francophone world as well as these that have been traditionally underprivileged or unrecognized. This course may be repeated for credit with permission of the instructor. Prerequisite(s): FRE 207, 208, or 235.

FRE 271 Translation: Theory and Practice

An introduction to translation both a creative practice and a theoretical investigation into the relationship between language and culture. The course offers both an exploration of language and its rhythms and a discussion of the political role of translators. Students’ creative work focuses on translation of literary texts, both in prose and verse, while readings consider stylistics and aesthetics, philosophy of language and translation, and gender studies and cultural studies in relation to translation theory. Prerequisite(s): FRE 235, 240 or 250.

FRE 340 Social Pulse, Documentary Impulse

What kind of unique knowledge does a documentary film seek to offer? What are the strengths and the limits of this genre in our increasingly visual culture? Does the documentary impulse bring us closer to the “reality” of which it takes the pulse? Does it force us to face the existential and political practices it makes socially visible? How do documentary films, in comparison with historical fictions or novels, position their viewers and call for social engagement? Moreover, to what extent are documentary films able to renew our vision of postcolonial history and memory and confront issues of power, priviledge, and the diversity of views and beliefs? This course examines these topics through the works of several French and Francophone documentary filmmakers. Prerequisite(s): FRE 240 or 250.

FRE 360 Independent Study

FRE 372 Woman Writer/Women Written

Reading and discussion of women writers of the seventeenth century with a focus on their important role in the formation of the novel. Attention is given to women as heroines or titular characters in the works of male authors of the period. Prerequisite(s): FRE 240 or 250.

FRE 373 Close-up on the Enlightenment: Film, Text, Context

Enlightenment ideology has influenced our contemporary culture, anchored as it is visual language. This course illustrates this affinity through various prisms: period texts, both historical and fictional; cinematic representations of the period or adaptations of Enlightenment fiction; film theory; and theories of the Enlightenment. Readings reveal how Enlightenment ideology has shaped contemporary visual culture. Readings and films may include works by Laura Mulvey, André Bazin, Susan Sontag, Denis Diderot, Choderlos de Laclos, Marquis de Sade, Restif de la Bretonne, Michel Foucault, Dorinda Outram, Horkheimer and Adorno, Louis Marin, Sofia Coppola, Eric Rohmer, Roberto Rossellini, and Robert Bresson. Prerequisite(s): FRE 240, 250, or 251.

FRE 377 Colon/Colonisé: Récits de l’Expérience Nord-Africaine

This course studies the colonial, postcolonial, and immigrant experience of North Africans as portrayed in Francophone literature. Readings include narratives and journals from the beginning of the colonial period in Algeria (1830), as well as the contemporary novels and discourse of feminists such as Assia Djebar, Malika Mokeddem, and Leïla Sebbar. Gender is highlighted as a category of analysis. Prerequisite(s): FRE 240, 250, or 251.

FRE 378 Voix francophones des Antilles

An examination of literary voices from the French-speaking Caribbean from the first half of the twentieth century to the contemporary period, including works by authors such as Aimé Césaire, René Depestre, Edouard Glissant, Marie Chauvet, Maryse Condé, Gisèle Pineau, and Patrick Chamoiseau. The course explores topics such representations of colonial past and slavery, the Négritude movement, issues of political and social justice, hybridity, and créolité. Prerequisite(s): FRE 240 or 250.

FRE 379 Documenting the Genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda

This course presents a historical and rhetorical examination of various media and genres that bear witness to the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda and question the ability to document genocide in Africa through Western modes of representation and information. Students analyze literary works written by Francophone sub-Saharan African writers such as Koulsy Lamko (Chad) and Boubacar Boris Diop (Senegal), the play Rwanda 94, written testimonies by Tutsi and Hutu survivors such as Yolande Mukagasana and Esther Mujawayo and those of foreign journalists present during or after the genocide such as Jean Hatzfeld, fictional films by Raoul Peck, and numerous documentaries by Western and Rwandan filmakers. Prerequisite(s): FRE 240, 250, or 251. Course conducted in English.

FRE 457 Senior Thesis

Open only to senior majors, with departmental permission. Before registering for 457 or 458 a student must present to the department chair an acceptable plan, including an outline and a tentative bibliography, after discussion with a member of the department. Students register for FRE 457 in the fall semester. Senior majors register for 457 or 458 only, unless the department gives permission for a second semester’s credit because the nature of the project warrants it. Majors writing an honors thesis register for both FRE 457 and 458.

FRE 458 Senior Thesis

Open only to senior majors, with departmental permission. Before registering for 457 or 458 a student must present to the department chair an acceptable plan, including an outline and a tentative bibliography, after discussion with a member of the department. Students register for FRE 458 in the winter semester. Senior majors register for 457 or 458 only, unless the department gives permission for a second semester’s credit because the nature of the project warrants it. Majors writing an honors thesis register for both FRE 457 and 458.

FRE S15 Gender, Race, and Social Class in French and Francophone Film

This course explores representations of gender, race, and class including the intersectionality and historical evolution of these categories of difference. Students acquire analytical tools to better appreciate and contextualize French and Francophone films and look critically at their various aesthetic frameworks. How do classic French cinema, surrealism, avant-garde cinema, the New Wave, and postcolonial cinema question social norms and values? How do French and Francophone films represent personal memory, national history, gender relations, and colonial and postcolonial gazes? How do filmmakers address social change and capture shifting identities within French and Francophone history and cultures? Course and reading materials are in English; films are in the original with English subtitles.

FRE S24 Cooking up French Culture

The French gastronome Brillat-Savarin wrote, “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are.” This course studies the ways in which food is prepared and eaten in selected works of French literature and film and what those culinary traditions tell us about the changing identity of the French. Literary and cinematic representations may include works by may Flaubert, Zola, Proust, Buñuel, Axel, Jeunet, Ferreri, Barbery, and Gavalda. The course includes some practice in food preparation and service. Prerequisite(s): FRE 201 or higher.

FRE S34 French Drama in Performance

A study and performance of scenes from French dramatic works from a variety of literary styles, movements, and eras. Students read, discuss, and perform dramatic works (or portions thereof) throughout the course and then conceive and create a coherent production of portions of these plays that may be presented in public to area high schools and colleges. Readings may include the works of Molière, Racine, Beaumarchais, De Musset, Ionesco, and Duras, which, though drawn from a wide range of time periods and approaches, are assimilated and reconciled under a common theme to be determined by the class. Prerequisite(s): one French and Francophone studies course beyond 201. Recommended background: adequate oral fluency in French, good reading comprehension.

FRE S39 Tintin et les Intellos

This course studies the intrepid boy reporter Tintin as a cultural icon of vast international acclaim. His adventures, drawn and written by the Belgian writer and artist Georges Remi (Hergé), have been translated into over fifty languages and sold hundreds of millions of copies. Hergé’s legacy is both beloved and troubling: the two bestselling adventures remain Tintin au Congo and Tintin en Amérique, both of which include exceedingly racist and colonialist stereotypes and tropes. In this course, students explore the Tintin phenomenon as artistic production, as colonialist discourse, as commodified object, and as part of a distinctly European tradition of graphic storytelling. Readings include a selection of the twenty-three adventures, studies and interviews concerning Hergé, theoretical works on the art form, and related critical works on the reception and controversy of Tintin’s enduring popularity. Recommended background: One course at or above French 205.

FRE S50 Independent Study