Oct 31, 2024  
2024-25 Catalog 
    
2024-25 Catalog
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FREN 336 - Social Networks in French Literature


Social networks of all kinds, from the court of Louis XIV to nineteenth-century Paris, foster excitement, competition, glamour, and thrill, but also anxiety and isolation. These societies are built on an intense exchange of messages and information, often corrupted by lies, misinformation, and mutual manipulation. Exposed to compromises of privacy and security risks, what humans create is destroyed daily. Personal credit and reputation are constantly at stake and vulnerable in a market of appearances, which can make its members shine or perish. Among the influencers, sycophants, and fans, there are sociopaths, bullies, and trolls who use harm, humiliation, or ruin to satisfy their own pleasure or interest. We will explore how authors from the seventeenth century to the present examine these social dynamics through novels and plays by authors such as Madame de Lafayette, Laclos, Balzac, Camus, Sartre, and Genet in works such as La Princesse de Clèves, Le Père Goriot, La Peste, or Les Bonnes. We will also ask how literary works contribute to the formation and dissemination of these networks through salons, reviews, and their own apparatus of distribution and reception. Conducted in French.

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group I
Prerequisite(s): FREN 212  
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Not offered: 2024-25
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).



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