Michael Johnson

Description of FR320E

FR 320E • Advanced French I

Prerequisites

FR 612, 312L, 312M, 312N, or the equivalent.

Course Description

This course will be taught in French.

The objective of this course is to improve all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) through a series of communicative tasks (compositions, listening comprehension activities, dictations, oral practice, etc.). Emphasis is placed on diversifying vocabulary, mastering a wider range of grammatical structures, increasing fluency, and developing appropriate rhetorical strategies for essay writing in French. And finally, participants can expect to learn about social issues in the French-speaking world (e.g. role of media in society, immigration, globalization, education, etc.)


Grading Policy

Chapter Exams (4 x 10%) 40%

Oral Exams  (3 x 5%) 15%

Compositions  (4 x 5%) 20%

Daily Assignments  15%

Final Project  10%

FINAL EXAM: NO


Texts

Oukada, Larbi. 2nd Ed. 2012. Controverses. Boston: Thomson/Cengage Heinle. (ISBN textbook 9780495797777; workbook 9781439082065): Required

Hawkins, French Grammar and Usage, (2nd edition), 2001, MCG, ISBN: 9780658017988: Recommended

Oxford, Compact Oxford Hachette French Dictionary, 3rd Ed., Oxford University Press, ISBN: 9780198610717: Recommended

Description of FR320E

FR 320E • Advanced French I

Prerequisites

FR 612, 312L, 312M, 312N, or the equivalent.

Course Description

This course will be taught in French.

The objective of this course is to improve all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) through a series of communicative tasks (compositions, listening comprehension activities, dictations, oral practice, etc.). Emphasis is placed on diversifying vocabulary, mastering a wider range of grammatical structures, increasing fluency, and developing appropriate rhetorical strategies for essay writing in French. And finally, participants can expect to learn about social issues in the French-speaking world (e.g. role of media in society, immigration, globalization, education, etc.)


Grading Policy

Chapter Exams (4 x 10%) 40%

Oral Exams  (3 x 5%) 15%

Compositions  (4 x 5%) 20%

Daily Assignments  15%

Final Project  10%

FINAL EXAM: NO


Texts

Oukada, Larbi. 2nd Ed. 2012. Controverses. Boston: Thomson/Cengage Heinle. (ISBN textbook 9780495797777; workbook 9781439082065): Required

Hawkins, French Grammar and Usage, (2nd edition), 2001, MCG, ISBN: 9780658017988: Recommended

Oxford, Compact Oxford Hachette French Dictionary, 3rd Ed., Oxford University Press, ISBN: 9780198610717: Recommended

This course introduces students to early French literary culture from the Middle Ages to the Revolution. A significant portion of the course is devoted to developing the fundamentals of writing literary analysis in French of poetry, theater, and literary prose, through short writing assignments, in-class writing workshops, and guided revisions. The final unit introduces students briefly to French literary criticism through Roland Barthes's Sur Racine.

Prerequisites:FR 320E or the equivalent.

II. Course Materials

Orizet, Jean, ed. Anthologie De La Poésie Française. Larousse, 2010.

Racine, Jean. Phèdre. Hachette Education, 2002.

De Graffigny, Françoise. Lettres D’Une Péruvienne. MLA Publications, 1993.

Barthes, Roland. Sur Racine. Seuil, 1979.

All other course readings will be posted on Blackboard

III. Course Work:

Grading Policy:

Three short papers (drafts)                   30%

Three short papers (final)                     30%    

Two exams                                           30%

One oral presentation                           10%

This course introduces students to early French literary culture from the Middle Ages to the Revolution. A significant portion of the course is devoted to developing the fundamentals of writing literary analysis in French of poetry, theater, and literary prose, through short writing assignments, in-class writing workshops, and guided revisions. The final unit introduces students briefly to French literary criticism through Roland Barthes's Sur Racine.

Prerequisites:FR 320E or the equivalent.

II. Course Materials

Orizet, Jean, ed. Anthologie De La Poésie Française. Larousse, 2010.

Racine, Jean. Phèdre. Hachette Education, 2002.

De Graffigny, Françoise. Lettres D’Une Péruvienne. MLA Publications, 1993.

Barthes, Roland. Sur Racine. Seuil, 1979.

All other course readings will be posted on Blackboard

III. Course Work:

Grading Policy:

Three short papers (drafts)                   30%

Three short papers (final)                     30%    

Two exams                                           30%

One oral presentation                           10%

FR381M: Critical Approaches

Michael Johnson

Course Description:

This course introduces students to major critical approaches to literature and culture, with emphasis on twentieth-century French writing. In class discussion and in writing assignments, students will consider the ways in which literature encodes and reflects––but can also influence, shape, or even erode––the culture in which it is produced. Although much discussion will focus on how criticism makes possible new readings of literature, the final goal of the course will be to move beyond applied theory to what might be called a poetics and politics of literary criticism. For if twentieth-century criticism has taught us anything it is that critical writing, like any literary text, can be analyzed formally and rhetorically, and can thus also be historicized and read in relation to the various axes of power, race, class, nation, and gender out of which it is produced. 

The course is organized as a series of units that include the following: 1) formalism and structuralism [Jakobson, Todorov, Genette, Barthes, Lévi-Strauss], 2) existentialism and phenomenology [Heidegger, Sartre, Poulet], 3) post-structuralism and deconstruction [Derrida, DeMan, Culler, Johnson], 4) Marxist criticism and cultural studies [Marx, Althusser, Jameson, Adorno/Horkheimer, Bourdieu], 5) historicism and historical approaches [Foucault, Jauss, Greenblatt], 6) feminist and queer criticism [Irigaray, Cixous, Wittig, De Beauvoir, Sedgwick, Showalter, Bulter], 7) psychoanalytic theory [Freud, Lacan, Felman, Gallop], 8) critical race theory and post-colonial criticism [Fanon, Hooks, Senghor, Chamoiseau/Bernabé/Confiant, Memmi, Spivak, Said] and 9) film theory [Metz, Bazin, Mulvey]. Students will choose the content of the last unit of the course based on their own interests, which may include eco-criticism, cognitive approaches, cyborg theory, the “animal turn,” genre theory, archive theory, affect studies, etc.

Course Texts:

Readings will be available on Blackboard

Course Grade:

Participation               10%

2 presentations           20%

3 short papers             30%

1 final paper                40%

FR 326K – Introduction to French Literature I: Middle Ages to the 18th Century

I. Course Description and Objectives:

Ce cours offre un survol de la littérature française d’Ancien Régime. Le but de notre cours sera d’ancrer une série de textes-clefs dans leurs contextes sociaux et historiques. Parmi les thèmes récurrents se trouvent les suivants: l’émergence l’individu ; les transformations de la conception de la différence sexuelle, celles-ci intimement liées aux transformations du discours sur l’amour ; l’évolution de la notion de l'« auctoritas », c’est-à-dire, l’autorité de l’écrivain conféré par le Roi, dans la société française prérévolutionnaire. 

This course introduces students to early French literary culture from the Middle Ages to the Revolution. We will examine the changing social and cultural contexts in which the literature was produced. Recurrent lines of inquiry include: the emergence and evolution of discourses on the individual in relationship to the social order and to the divine; the evolving relationship between notions of romantic love and conceptions of gender roles; changing notions of auctoritas within pre-Revolutionary French society.

Prerequisites:

FR 320E or the equivalent.

Grading Policy:

Two tests                                             30%

Three short papers                               30%                

One oral presentation                           10%

Class participation                                30%

(Participation includes attendance, writing exercises, weekly reading blog participation, quizzes, etc.)

FR390K: Love, Sex and Friendship in Medieval French Literature

Michael Johnson

Course Description:

A number of the discourses that shape our understanding of friendship, love and sexuality in the West emerged in a form recognizable to us during the medieval period, from romantic love and marriage, to virginity and celibacy. This course looks at a variety of literary works that reflect medieval conceptions of friendship, love and sexuality and that treat such themes as sodomy, clerical sexuality, the iuvenis, sexual violence, misogyny, passionate friendship, and female sexuality. A wide range of literary genres will be represented including lyric poetry, epic, fabliaux, romance, breton lays, and high allegory. Students will gain a broad understanding of medieval French literature––including genres, historical context, and critical issues––in addition to developing focused specialization on medieval love and sexuality. Over the course of the semester students will give one presentation on the readings, and will write one short textual analysis and one seminar paper engaging questions raised in the course.

Course Texts:

Selected French and Occitan love lyric

André le chapelain, Traité de l’amour courtois

Béroul et Thomas d’Angleterre, Tristan et Iseult

Desgrugillers-Billard (ed.), Ami et Amile

Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain ou Le Chevalier au lion

Marie de France, Lais

Rossi et Straub (eds.), Fabliaux Érotiques

Roche-Mahdi (ed.), Le Roman de Silence

Alain de Lille, De planctu Naturae

Altercatio ganimedis et helene

Guillaume de Lorris et Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose

Course Grade:

Participation                10%

Presentation                20%

Short paper                  20%

Final paper                  50%

@font-face { font-family: "Geneva"; }@font-face { font-family: "Verdana"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }

FR 320E • Advanced French I

Prerequisites

FR 612, 312L, 312M, 312N, or the equivalent.

Course Description

This course will be taught in French.

The objective of this course is to improve all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) through a series of communicative tasks (compositions, listening comprehension activities, dictations, oral practice, etc.). Emphasis is placed on diversifying vocabulary, mastering a wider range of grammatical structures, increasing fluency, and developing appropriate rhetorical strategies for essay writing in French. And finally, participants can expect to learn about social issues in the French-speaking world (e.g. role of media in society, immigration, globalization, education, etc.)


Grading Policy

Chapter Exams (4 x 10%) 40%

Oral Exams  (3 x 5%) 15%

Compositions  (4 x 5%) 20%

Daily Assignments  15%

Final Project  10%

FINAL EXAM: NO


Texts

Oukada, Larbi. 2006. Controverses. Boston: Thomson/Cengage Heinle. (ISBN textbook 1-4130-0449-0; workbook 1-4130-6837-5): Required

Hawkins, French Grammar and Usage, (2nd edition), 2001, MCG, ISBN: 0-658-01799-5: Recommended

Oxford, Compact Oxford Hachette French Dictionary, 3rd Ed., Oxford University Press, ISBN: 0-19-861071-8: Recommended

FC345: The New French Graphic Novel

Michael A. Johnson

Course Description:

Called the “ninth art” in France, the comic strip has been considered a culturally relevant art form much longer in France than in the US. However, it is only in the past two decades that the comic-strip medium has moved beyond traditionally escapist comic book genres (fantasy, adventure, sci-fi) to encompass more reality-oriented genres such as autobiography, documentary, historical fiction, and travelogue, and to also address such serious and pressing questions as France’s colonial legacy, civil unrest in the French banlieu (suburban ghettos), immigration, and war. This course looks at works from the new wave of the French graphic novel with special emphasis on innovations with the comic strip medium. We will study a variety of works, themes, and graphic styles from the raw punk aesthetic of Julie Doucet’s autobiographical New York Diary to the childlike expressionism of David B.’s Epileptic, from Appollo’s & Lewis Trondheim’s faux-naif use of animal characters to reimagine France’s colonial history to Emmanuel Guibert’s experimentation with mixed-media in his stark testimony of war in Afghanistan. Our readings will be guided by a set of related questions: What is the expressive potential of the medium? What can the comic strip express that a painting, a novel or a film might not be able to? And which of these graphic works exploit most fully the expressive potential of the medium? 

Course readings:

Ann Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée: Critical Approaches to the French-language Comic Strip (Intellect Ltd., 2008)

David B., Epileptic (Pantheon, 2006)

Julie Doucet, My New York Diary (Drawn & Quarterly, 2004)

Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis (Pantheon, 2004)

Jean-Pierre Stassen, Deogratias: a Tale of Rwanda (First Second, 2006)

Appollo & Lewis Trondheim, Bourbon Island 1730 (First Second, 2008)

Manu Larcenet, Ordinary Victories (ComicsLit, 2005)

Marguerite Abouet, Aya (Drawn & Quarterly, 2007)

Joann Sfar, The Rabbi’s Cat (Pantheon, 2007)

Guy Delisle, Burma Chronicles (Drawn & Quarterly, 2008)

Emmanuel Guibert, The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders (First Second, 2009)

Christophe Blain, Isaac the Pirate (ComicsLit, 2003)

Course grade:

3 short papers (45%)

1 final project (30%)

participation (15%)

group presentation (10%)

Prerequisites

FR 612, 312L, 312M, 312N, or the equivalent.


Course Description

This course will be taught in French.

The objective of this course is to improve all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) through a series of communicative tasks (compositions, listening comprehension activities, dictations, oral practice, etc.). Emphasis is placed on diversifying vocabulary, mastering a wider range of grammatical structures, increasing fluency, and developing appropriate rhetorical strategies for essay writing in French. And finally, participants can expect to learn about social issues in the French-speaking world (e.g. role of media in society, immigration, globalization, education, etc.)


Grading Policy

Chapter Exams (4 x 10%) 40%

Oral Exams  (3 x 5%) 15%

Compositions  (4 x 5%) 20%

Daily Assignments  15%

Final Project  10%

FINAL EXAM: NO


Texts

Oukada, Larbi. 2006. Controverses. Boston: Thomson/Cengage Heinle. (ISBN textbook 1-4130-0449-0; workbook 1-4130-6837-5): Required



Hawkins, French Grammar and Usage, (2nd edition), 2001, MCG, ISBN: 0-658-01799-5: Recommended



Oxford, Compact Oxford Hachette French Dictionary, 3rd Ed., Oxford University Press, ISBN: 0-19-861071-8: Recommended

FR326K: Introduction to French Literature I : Middle Ages to the 18th Century

Prerequisites :

FR 320E or the equivalent.

Course Description :

This course introduces students to early French literary culture from the Middle Ages to the Revolution. We will examine the changing social and cultural contexts in which the literature was produced. Recurrent lines of inquiry include: the emergence and evolution of discourses on the individual in relationship to the social order and to the divine; the evolving relationship between notions of romantic love and conceptions of gender roles; changing notions of kingship and authority within pre-Revolutionary French society.

Assignments:

two tests, three short papers (3-4 pages), one oral presentation, weekly Blackboard reading questions

Grade :

2 tests: 30%

3 papers: 30%

1 oral presentation: 10%

Class participation (including attendance, reading questions, quizzes, etc.): 30%

Texts :

R.-J. Berg, Littérature française: texts et contextes, Vol. 1

Other readings will be posted on Blackboard

First Session

Prerequisites

FR 612, 312L, 312M, 312N, or the equivalent.


Course Description

This course will be taught in French.



The objective of this course is to improve all four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) through a series of communicative tasks (compositions, listening comprehension activities, dictations, oral practice, etc.). Emphasis is placed on diversifying vocabulary, mastering a wider range of grammatical structures, increasing fluency, and developing appropriate rhetorical strategies for essay writing in French. And finally, participants can expect to learn about social issues in the French-speaking world (e.g. role of media in society, immigration, globalization, education, etc.)


Grading Policy

Chapter Exams (4 x 10%) 40%



Oral Exams  (3 x 5%) 15%

Compositions  (4 x 5%) 20%

Daily Assignments  15%

Final Project  10%

FINAL EXAM: NO


Texts


Oukada, Larbi. 2006. Controverses. Boston: Thomson/Cengage Heinle. (ISBN textbook 1-4130-0449-0; workbook 1-4130-6837-5): Required



Hawkins, French Grammar and Usage, (2nd edition), 2001, MCG, ISBN: 0-658-01799-5: Recommended



Oxford, Compact Oxford Hachette French Dictionary, 3rd Ed., Oxford University Press, ISBN: 0-19-861071-8: Recommended