|
|
2019 - 2020 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
French Courses
|
|
French and Arabic
Arabic
-
ARB 101 - Beginning Arabic I 5 credits (Fall)
Study of the fundamentals of spoken and written Modern Standard Arabic with emphasis on communication through oral-aural practice and awareness of cultural context. Acquisition of basic grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Youssef -
ARB 102 - Beginning Arabic II 5 credits (Spring)
This course is designed primarily as a continuation of ARB 101 . Emphasizes the development of oral-aural skills and of reading comprehension by providing communicative practice and attention to cultural context.
Prerequisite: ARB 101 or by placement.
Instructor: Youssef -
ARB 221 - Intermediate Arabic I 4 credits (Fall)
Conducted in Arabic. Emphasizes grammar and written and oral skills. Provides an introduction to the analysis of literary and cultural texts.
Prerequisite: ARB 102 .
Instructor: Youssef -
ARB 222 - Intermediate Arabic II 4 credits (Spring)
Conducted in Arabic. Focuses on the development of written and oral skills. Emphasizes vocabulary acquisition, discussion, and composition through the exploration of literary texts and contemporary media materials.
Prerequisite: ARB 221 .
Instructor: Youssef
French
-
FRN 101 - Introduction to French 5 credits (Fall)
This course is designed for a complete beginners and develops fundamental communication skills in French along with some basic cultural knowledge of the French-speaking world. The course meets five days per week.
Prerequisite: None.
Instructor: Staff -
FRN 102 - Introduction to French II 5 credits (Spring)
Offered only in the spring, this course continues the development of communication skills begun in FRN 101 . Students completing French 102 will have a basic knowledge of all major aspects of French grammar and will be able to communicate with French speakers in a variety of day-to-day contexts.
Prerequisite: FRN 101 or by placement.
Instructor: Staff -
FRN 103 - Accelerated Introduction to French 5 credits (Fall)
Offered only in the fall, this course is designed for students who have already taken some French in high school but are still establishing the basics of French grammar and communication. The course covers the equivalent of FRN 101 and FRN 102 in a single semester. Not open to students who have taken FRN 102 .
Prerequisite: Grinnell Placement Test or consultation with department.
Instructor: Staff -
FRN 201 - French Conversation Through Media 1 credits (Fall and Spring)
Using contemporary films, television shows, news program, music and other media, this course develops the ability to speak and understand everyday French. Students also develop their cultural knowledge of France and the French-speaking world. The course provides good practice for students preparing to study abroad or complete a French-language internship. May be taken only once for credit.
Co-requisite: Concurrent registration in any 200- or 300-level French course.
Instructor: Staff -
FRN 221 - Intermediate French I 4 credits (Fall and Spring)
This course moves beyond everyday conversation to develop students’ ability to analyze and discuss complex ideas, texts, and films in French. The course also reviews the essential aspects of French grammar, in order to refine students’ written and oral skills.
Prerequisite: FRN 102 or FRN 103 .
Instructor: Staff -
FRN 222 - Intermediate French II 4 credits (Fall and Spring)
This course increases students’ analytical skills in French, focusing on a particular site (such as Paris) or a particular period of history (such as the Occupation of France during World War II) to discuss a variety of important texts, films, historical documents, or visual media. The class continues to review and refine students’ grammatical skills.
Prerequisite: FRN 221 .
Instructor: Staff -
FRN 301 - Advanced Reading & Written Expression 2 credits (Fall or Spring)
This seven-week course is designed as an intensive workshop in writing with accuracy, nuance, and flair in French. Students examine different models of writing and engage in different activities to improve their own writing in a variety of genres.
Prerequisite: FRN 222 .
Note: Meets 08/30/19 to 10/18/19. Half semester deadlines apply.
Instructor: P. Moisan -
FRN 302 - Phonetics and Advanced Oral Expression 2 credits (Fall or Spring)
This seven-week course is designed as a intensive workshop in understanding French sounds and how to produce them with accuracy, as well as the art of making formal presentations in French. Class activities include phonetic exercises, oral exposés, debates, and dictations.
Prerequisite: FRN 222 .
Note: Dates: 01/22/20 to 03/13/20. Half semester deadlines apply.
Instructor: P. Moisan -
FRN 303 - French Civilization I: Sites of Myth and Memory 4 credits (Fall)
Using historical figures like Joan of Arc and Louis XIV, along with specific intellectual movements, such as Renaissance humanism and the Enlightenment, this course seeks to understand how France has drawn upon a variety of ideas and individuals in creating itself as a nation. The course explores why certain figures have been “immortalized” throughout history and how certain myths have defined various French identities.
Prerequisite: FRN 222 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Harrison -
FRN 304 - French Civilization II: Revolutions and Identities 4 credits (Fall)
Beginning with the French Revolution and continuing until today, this course investigates the many social, political, and artistic movements that have defined France over the past two centuries. The course studies a variety of paintings, texts, documents, and films, to understand phenomena as diverse as Napoleon Bonaparte, the impressionist movement, the ravages of World War I, and the demands for decolonization.
Prerequisite: FRN 222 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: P. Moisan -
FRN 305 - Contemporary Francophone Cultures 4 credits (Spring)
This course focuses on the contemporary French-speaking world and what defines it. It examines the relationship between national identity and the forces of geography, history, language, race, religion, and ethnicity. Topics include: colonization, decolonization, immigration, French-American relations, and societal values related to the family, gender, education, political organization, the state, and secularism.
Prerequisite: FRN 222 .
Note: Plus-2 option available.
Instructor: Caradec -
FRN 312 - Introduction to French Literature from the Middle Ages to the Revolution: From Knights to Libertines 4 credits (Spring)
This course examines the love poems, comic novels, family dramas, and philosophical essays that were written in France during the long period that stretches from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. Students refine their ability to understand the nuances of the French language while also gaining an understanding of French history. Among the many authors studied are Rabelais, Labé, Montaigne, Molière, Voltaire, and Olympe de Gouges.
Prerequisite: FRN 222 .
Instructor: Harrison -
FRN 313 - Introduction to French Literature of the 19th and 20th Centuries: Literary Revolutions 4 credits (Fall)
This course examines the transformation of French literature as it deals with the upheavals brought about by war, revolution, industrialization, colonization and colonial emancipation. Students refine their ability to understand the nuances of the French language while discussing artistic movements such as Romanticism, Realism, the Theatre of the Absurd, Surrealism, and the Nouveau Roman.
Prerequisite: FRN 222 .
Instructor: Staff -
FRN 327 - Social Climbers and Rebels 4 credits (Fall)
This seminar explores the depiction of social conventions - and their subversion - during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the period of Louis XIV, Versailles, and the Enlightenment. This seminar studies questions of individuality, taste, pleasure, social ascension, women’s rights, and what it means to live a good life. It examines a variety of cultural materials, including some contemporary representations, in an attempt to define both the delights and discomforts of “fitting in.”
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Note: Plus-2 option available. Not offered every year.
Instructor: Harrison -
FRN 328 - Comedy in French Literature Prior to the Revolution 4 credits (Fall)
This seminar analyzes how French writers used comedy, and comic techniques, to depict and even criticize different aspects of French society, such as religion, sexual norms, or courtly etiquette. Students will also engage in translation of certain works, to try to understand how to capture humor and cultural notions while using a different language. Some of the authors studied may include Molière, Villedieu, Voltaire, Laclos, and Riccobonié.
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Harrison -
FRN 329 - Literature and Society in 19th-Century and Belle Epoque France 4 credits (Fall)
This seminar examines texts representative of Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism, and post-Romantic poetry. Topics may include: realism and nature; the role of description; the expression of desire; and the relationship between the individual and society.
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: P. Moisan -
FRN 330 - Innovation and Transgression in French from 1870 to 1945 4 credits (Fall)
This seminar examines the evolution of literature and the rise of cinema between 1879 and 1945; examines notions such as moral and aesthetic transgression and innovation. Topics to be studied may include: collage, montage, memory, war, autobiography, and sexuality in authors and filmmakers such as Rimbaud, Rachilde, Colette, Melies, Jarry, Proust, Gide, Celine, and Cocteau.
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: P. Moisan -
FRN 341 - Contemporary French Writing 4 credits (Spring)
This seminar examines the evolution of prose fiction from the 1950s to the present and examines its relationship to biography, autobiography, feminist writing, film, and the popular novel. Explores literary representations of topics such as mother-daughter relations, social class, sexuality, illness, interracial relationships, immigration, and exile.
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Staff -
FRN 342 - Orientalism Revisited 4 credits (Spring)
This seminar examines the relations between France and the Orient as portrayed in paintings, photos, films, and prose fiction from the mid-19th century to the present. Focuses in particular on images of Oriental women, beginning with France’s representation of its colonies as female. The main topics to be considered are: the depiction of interracial relationships; the effect of gender on the experience of immigration; women and war (Algeria and Lebanon); women’s voices in contemporary North Africa; and the notions of tradition and modernity in relation to issues such as arranged marriages, polygamy, and excision. The Orient studied includes Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, and Lebanon.
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Staff -
FRN 346 - The Francophone Caribbean World: From Plantation to Emancipation 4 credits (Spring)
This seminar explores relations between the francophone Caribbean islands (Haiti, Guadeloupe and Martinique) and the métropole from the colonial period to the present. It addresses topics such as slavery, négritude, identity, multilingualism, diaspora, globalization and the environmental challenges facing the region. Students will examine poetry, theater, fiction and film. Authors to be studied include Césaire, Fanon, Roumain, Chamoiseau, Glissant, Condé, Laferrière and Frankétienne.
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Caradec -
FRN 350 - Advanced Topics in Literature and Civilization 4 credits (Fall and Spring)
This seminar does an intensive study of a particular period, author, theme, movement, and/or genre. Topic will be announced each time the course is offered. Conducted in French. Course may be repeated for credit if content is different. For current course content please see the variable topic course listing below or search the online live schedule of courses.
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Note: Not offered every year.
Instructor: Staff
Special Topics-Spring
-
FRN 395-01 - Advanced Special Topic: In(ter)discipline: Literature and the Performing Arts 4 credits (Spring)
This seminar studies a period of anesthetic and social upheaval in France when disciplinary boundaries between literature and the performing arts were not nearly as clear as they are today. We will read literary works featuring other art forms (painting, dance, or music in a text); contrast different artistic renditions of a tale; consider theories of representation, performance, and reception that are applicable to both art and society; and learn about the rise of cultural institutions such as the library, the museum, and the theatre and their relationship to the public. We will seek to understand the role of performance and literature in French society at the birth of modernity. Authors, artists, and composers include Diderot, Noverre, Balzac, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Wagner, Debussy, Halévy, Wilde, Strauss, Loïe Fuller and Colette.
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Instructor: A. Lee
Variable Topics - Fall
-
FRN 350-01 - Advanced Topics in Literature & Civilization 4 credits (Fall)
Contemporary Ecologies: Environment in Literature and Film. Conducted in French. Examines representations of the environment in French and francophone novels and films. Explores topics such as pollution, climate change, animals, waste, the notions of paysage and terroir, contrasts between natural and non-natural, rural and urban, local and global, the human and the non-human. Authors and filmmakers to be studied may include René Barjavel, Georges Perec, Jean-Marie Le Clézio, Marie-Hélène Lafon, Jean-Christophe Rufin, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Joy Sorman, Agnès Varda, Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou.
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Instructor: Caradec
Variable Topics- Spring
-
FRN 350-01 - Advanced Topics in Literature and Civilization 4 credits (Spring)
Bad Queens - Catherine de Médicis and Marie-Antoinette. Catherine de Médicis (1519-1589) and Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793) are two French queens who witnessed tremendous social upheaval during their lifetimes; both were vilified by writers, artists, and political figures for their decisions and their passions. Even today, hundreds of years later, Catherine and Marie are often held responsible for some of the worst suffering of France during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. In this seminar, we will study the representation of these two “bad queens” in a variety of cultural materials, including poetry, autobiography, political tracts, novels, bandes dessinées, and film. We will seek to understand the specific circumstances of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries that led to such hostility toward these two figures, the common features that link the two of them, and the reasons for the French public’s continued fascination with them.
Prerequisite: FRN 312 or FRN 313 .
Instructor: Harrison
|
|
