FREN 363 - Introduction to Francophone Literature

This course is intended to introduce students to some of the issues (social, historical, and literary) at the core of francophone studies. To this end the syllabus will include literary works and critical essays by authors writing in French from a variety of cultural situations and geographic locations (the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Caribbean). It will treat, on the one hand, the thematic presence of the questions of identity, language, resistance to colonial power, religion, race, etc.; and on the other hand, the ways in which these issues become the object of specifically literary or formal analysis. It will seek out the interpenetration of theme and form in francophone works by exploring the ways in which narrative strategies, for example, transpose the problems and struggles of individuals and societies coming to grips with historical and cultural transformations. The authors studied will include Glissant, Schwartz-Bart, Kane, Kourouma, Ben Jelloun, Condé, and Chamoiseau.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): FREN 212 or equivalent
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Understand how arguments can be made, visions presented, or feelings or ideas conveyed through language or other modes of expression (symbols, movement, images, sounds, etc.);
Analyze and interpret texts, whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts;
Evaluate arguments made in or about texts (whether literary or philosophical, in English or a foreign language, or works of the visual or performing arts).