French and Italian

Academic Year: 
2019-20
Address: 
East Pyne
Phone: 
609-258-4670
Website: 
Department of French and Italian
Program offerings: 
Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Studies
André Benhaïm
Graduate Program Administrator
Leslie Savadge

Academic department detail

Overview

The aim of the Department of French and Italian is to train students to become effective teachers and scholars of French language and literature. (The department does not offer a graduate program in Italian; it does, however, teach graduate-level courses in Italian literature for suitably qualified students in this and other departments.) Instruction and supervision are so arranged as to ensure that students acquire a broad understanding of the whole field of French studies as well as a specialized grasp of its sub-fields, and are well-prepared to develop independently as scholars.

The program combines courses (or seminars) with independent study and research, and is punctuated by periodic examinations. It is hoped that students will proceed to the defense of the dissertation at the end of the fifth year.

Courses

Permanent Courses

Courses listed below are graduate-level courses that have been approved by the program’s faculty as well as the Curriculum Subcommittee of the Faculty Committee on the Graduate School as permanent course offerings. Permanent courses may be offered by the department or program on an ongoing basis, depending on curricular needs, scheduling requirements, and student interest. Not listed below are undergraduate courses and one-time-only graduate courses, which may be found for a specific term through the Registrar’s website. Also not listed are graduate-level independent reading and research courses, which may be approved by the Graduate School for individual students.

FRE 500 Second Language Acquisition Research and Language Teaching Methodology Practical and theoretical preparation for teachers of French. Sessions may be held in common with other language programs.
FRE 502 Language and Style History, theory, and practice of literary translation.
FRE 504 Reading Capital This class initiates a reading of Marx's classic critique of political economy, Capital, along with a selection of the principal philosophical readings of the mature Marx since the 1960s: Louis Althusser's Reading Capital, Michel Henry's Marx, and Moishe Postone's Time, Labor, and Social Domination. Emphasis is placed upon developing a categorial understanding of Marx's conceptual apparatus adequate to the contemporary context, in the wake of the collapse of actually-existing Socialism, industrialization, and the crisis of valorization in the Twenty-First century.
FRE 509 The Troubadours and the Occitan Tradition In the glamorous courts of southern France, troubadour songs about love, courtliness, and poetic refinement fired the imagination of audiences across Europe. Their songs found "poetic communities" in which poets display their knowledge of other poets and assume such knowledge in their listeners; such communities become if anything more firmly institutionalized when troubadour poetry declines; but the texts that bind them are also permeated by playfulness and irony. This course will follow the fortunes of troubadour poetry from its origins in the early 12th c. into the 14th, and also introduce theories of ideology, especially those of Zizek.
FRE 510 Seminar in Medieval French Literature (also
MED 510
) To suit the particular interests of the students and the instructor, a subject for intensive study is selected from special topics such as chansons de geste, roman courtois, paleography and textual criticism, rhetorical theory, lyric poetry, the chronicles, and Provençal materials.
FRE 513 Seminar in French Literature of the Renaissance To suit the particular interests of the students and the instructor, a subject for intensive study is selected from topics such as the forms of narrative prose, poetics and logic, chamber theater and fête, Reformation and Counter-Reformation writings, travel literature, and the critical spirit.
FRE 515 The Classical Tradition Satirical writing is a fundamental mode of literature in the age of Louis XIV. Many major authors of the time - poets, playwrights, novelists, moralists - use their works to mock and denigrate a wide variety of individuals and groups, e.g., lawyers and litigants, bad writers and jealous husbands. What allows satire to be a legitimate part of the classical canon?
FRE 516 Seminar in 17th-Century French Literature Usually a treatment of an aspect of the "other" or nonofficial culture of the 17th century; préciosité, parody, and burlesque; correspondence; personal memoirs; and others.
FRE 518 The Literature of Enlightenment The relation of aesthetic form, genre conventions, and ideology is examined through the work of one of the major 18th-century writers or through one or more of the paraliterary forms often preferred by 18th-century writers: the familiar letter, the anecdote, the scientific or critical essay, the commentary, historiography, or natural history.
FRE 519 Enlightenment and Romanticism Study of an aspect of literature or thought in the two periods. Topics envisaged include the writing of history from Voltaire to Michelet, Madame de Staël and the Coppet circle, classical and romantic theories, and practices of translation.
FRE 521 Romanticism The ideological and formal problems raised by the break with classical ideals are studied in a variety of texts, documentary as well as literary. Topics include the conception of the literary work as a personal, original production; the struggle of the author for the creation of a style; and the writer's assumption of his relation to history.
FRE 524 20th-Century French Narrative Prose (also
HUM 524
) Development of the French novel and short story. Particular emphasis is given to Proust, Gide, Malraux, Sartre, Camus, Butor, and Robbe-Grillet. Topics such as the roman fleuve, the poetic novel, the anti-novel, and the nouveau roman are also considered.
FRE 525 20th-Century French Poetry or Theater The aesthetic theories and practices of dramatists or poets who have helped to form our idea of modernism, including Apollinaire, Artaud, Breton, Claudel, Cocteau, Genet, Ponge, Reverdy, and Valéry.
FRE 526 Seminar in 19th- and 20th-Century French Literature (also
COM 525
) Treatment of either the works of an individual writer or a broad topic, such as the impact on literature of other forms of intellectual or artistic activity, including philosophy, the visual arts, history, and psychology.
FRE 527 Seminar in French Civilization The role of political, legal, and economic institutions in the development of French society of the 19th and 20th centuries. The course studies writers actively involved in the political life of the country.
FRE 528 Francophone Literature and Culture Outside of France According to faculty availability, treatment of either francophone literature and culture of a given geographical area (such as Canada, the Caribbean, North or Sub-Saharan Africa, Belgium), the literary and cultural problems common to several geographical areas, or the work of one or more Francophone writers.
FRE 583 Seminar in Romance Linguistics and/or Literary Theory (also
COM 583
) An examination of either the intersection of linguistic and literary analysis as illustrated by the Romance languages or the theoretical foundations of literary study.
FRE 587 Topics in French and Francophone Critical Theory Course provides an introduction to key topics and thinkers in the modern and contemporary field of French and Francophone Critical Theory. Topics may include Deconstruction, Structuralism, Poststructuralism, Postcolonialism, Phenomenology, or French Marxist theory. Thinkers include figures such as Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, Kristeva, Glissant, Levinas, Althusser, Badiou, Ranciere, Fanon, and Balibar.
ITA 551 Medieval Italian Literature Dante and medieval Italian literature to 1321.
ITA 552 Medieval Italian Literature Dante and medieval Italian literature to 1321.
ITA 553 Literature of the Italian Renaissance Currents of Italian thought and literary expression from 1321 to 1600.
ITA 554 Literature of the Italian Renaissance Currents of Italian thought and literary expression from 1321 to 1600.
ITA 556 Topics in Modern Italian Literature Literature of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.