French and Francophone StudiesFrench 110
Elementary French
Staff
(See Timetables for times)
French 110 is a first-semester elementary language course for students who have never studied French before or who have had very little exposure to the language. Most students with previous French should be in French 121 (elementary French for "false beginners"). All students who have already studied French elsewhere are required to take the placement test to determine which elementary course is appropriate for them. Students with a score of less than 380 on the SAT II or below 18 on the computer placement test should enroll in French 110.
As in other French courses, class will be conducted entirely in French. You will be guided through a variety of communicative activities in class which will expose you to a rich input of spoken French and lead you from structured practice to free expression. You will be given frequent opportunity to practice your newly acquired vocabulary and grammatical structures in small group and pair work activities which simulate real-life situations. The course will introduce you to French and Francophone culture through authentic materials including written documents, simple articles, songs, films, videos, and taped conversations between native speakers. Out-of-class homework will require practice with audio and video material, and will include regular writing practice. The course will also invite you to explore the Francophone world on the Internet.
French 112
Elementary French: Accelerated
Staff
(See Timetables for times)
French 112 is an intensive elementary language course covering the equivalent of French 110 and 120 in one semester. Students must have departmental permit to register. The course is normally open only to students who have no previous knowledge of French, and who have already fulfilled the language requirement in another language.
French 120
Elementary French
Staff
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French 120 is the second-semester continuation of the elementary sequence and is open to students who have completed French 110 at Penn (see the description of 110). Students who place into the second-semester level should normally enroll in French 121. In those semesters when French 121 is not offered, students with an SATII score between 380 - 440 or a placement score between 18 - 29 are allowed to enroll in French 120.
French 121
Elementary French
Staff
(See Timetables for times)
French 121 is an intensive one-semester language course for students who have had some French before but who can benefit from a complete review of elementary French. Students with an SATII score between 380 - 440 or a placement score between 18 - 29 should enroll in French 121. This course will provide a re-introduction of the basic structures of French with intensive work on speaking and listening designed to prepare students to take Intermediate French. Due to the nature of the course, the first half will progress rapidly with much more difficult material being presented after the midterm period.
As in other French courses, class will be conducted entirely in French. You will be guided through a variety of communicative activities in class which will expose you to rich input of spoken French and lead you from structured practice to free expression. You will be given frequent opportunity to practice your newly acquired vocabulary and grammatical structures in small group and pair work activities which simulate real-life situations. The course will introduce you to French and Francophone culture through authentic materials including written documents, simple articles, songs, films, videos, and taped conversations between native speakers. Out-of-class homework will require frequent practice with audio and video material, and will include daily written assignments. The course will also invite you to explore the Francophone world on the Internet.
French 130
Intermediate French
Staff
(See Timetables for times)
French 130 is the first half of a two-semester intermediate sequence designed to help you attain a level of proficiency that should allow you to function comfortably in a French-speaking environment. You are expected to have already learned the most basic grammatical structures in elementary French and you will review these on your own in the course workbook. This course will build on your existing skills in French, increase your confidence and ability to read, write, speak, and understand French, and introduce you to more refined lexical items, more complex grammatical structures, and more challenging cultural material. Students having completed French 120, or with an SATII score of 450 - 540 or a placement score between 30 and 35 should enroll in this course.
As in other French courses at Penn, class will be conducted entirely in French. In addition to structured oral practice, work in class will include frequent communicative activities such as role-plays, problem-solving tasks, discussions, and debates, often carried out in pairs or small groups. Through the study of authentic materials such as articles, poems, songs, films, videos, and taped conversations between native speakers you will deepen your knowledge of the French-speaking world. The course explores the customs and values prevailing in France, Senegal, Cameroun, Martinique, and other cultures, with a focus on living standards, family traditions, cuisine, and leisure activities. Daily homework will require listening practice with audio and video material, in addition to regular written exercises in the workbook and frequent composition practice. The course will also invite you to explore the Francophone world on the Internet.
French 140
Intermediate French
Staff
(See Timetables for times)
French 140 is the second half of a two-semester intermediate sequence designed to help you attain a level of proficiency that should allow you to function comfortably in a French-speaking environment. Students having completed French 130, or with an SATII score of 550 - 640 or a placement score above 35 should enroll in this course. See the course description for French 130.
Through the study of authentic materials such as articles, poems, songs, films, video-clips, and taped conversations between native speakers, you will deepen your knowledge of France as well as North Africa and other French-speaking areas. The content areas you will explore include the world of work and contemporary social issues, such as the environment, poverty, homelessness, crime, and racism.
French 180
Advanced French in Residence
Staff
Open only to residents in La Maison Francaise
French 202
Advanced French
Staff
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French 202 is a one-semester third-year level French course. It is designed to prepare students for subsequent study in upper level courses in French and francophone literature, linguistics, civilization, cinema, etc.
It is also the appropriate course for those students who have time for only one more French course and wish to solidify their knowledge of the language by continuing to work on all four skills - speaking, listening, reading and writing. Students’ work will be evaluated both in terms of progress in language skills and of ability to handle and engage in the content areas.
The class studies two thematic units dealing with a wide variety of magazine articles, literary texts, historical documents, movies, songs, etc. In the first dossier, students get a chance to expand their knowledge of French history, with one major focus on World War II and the German occupation of France. In the second dossier, students study youth-related issues (such as upbringing and education, television, unemployment, racism, etc…). The class touches upon issues of identity in France as well as in the Francophone world,
in the context of immigration and colonization.
French 211
French for Professions I
Staff
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This content-based language course, taught in French, introduces economic, business, and professional terminology through the study of the following topics: the French economy and monetary policy (transition to the Euro); financial institutions (banking and postal services, stock market and insurance); specificity of the French fiscal system; business practices (business letters and resumes); advertising and the internal structure and legal forms of French companies. France’s atypical system of industrial relations as well as cultural differences and their impact on the business world will also be explored.
On completion of the course, students will have the opportunity to take the Certificat Pratique de Français Commercial et Economique, administered by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Prerequisite: Intermediate-high advanced level French.
French 212
Advanced French Grammar and Composition
Staff
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Intensive review of grammar integrated into writing practice. A good knowledge of basic French grammar is a prerequisite (French 202 or equivalent is recommended). Conducted entirely in French, the course will study selected grammatical difficulties of the French verbal and nominal systems including colloquial usage. Frequent oral and written assignments with opportunity for rewrites. There will also be a reading component (magazine and newspaper articles as well as selections from Camus’s L’Etranger).
French 214
Advanced French Composition and Conversation
Staff
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This is a course intended to improve speaking and writing skills by offering extensive practice in a variety of styles and forms. It will also help students better understand contemporary French culture, thought and mode of expression. Activities include the study, analysis and emulation of model texts, the discussion and debates about current events and social issues as covered by the French news media (television, print, Internet sources). Students will do oral presentations based on research, take part in class discussions and compile a writing portfolio (journal, essays, blog).
French 217
French Phonetics
Prof. Edelstein
(See Timetables for times)
Designed to provide students with a solid foundation in French phonetics and phonology. Part of the course will be devoted to learning how to produce discourse with native-like French pronunciation, rhythm and intonation. The second half of the course will be devoted to improving aural comprehension by examining stylistic and dialectical differences in spoken French.
French 221
Perspectives in French Literature
Staff
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This course is designed to provide students with a knowledge of major aspects of the French literary tradition from the Middle Ages to the present and, at the same time, to unify a broad variety of works under the rubric of textual eroticism and romance. Texts will include prose narratives (Tristan et Iseut, Manon Lescaurt, L’Amant), plays (Phedre, On ne badine pas avec l’amour), and poetry (by Ronsard, Hugo, Baudelaire, Apollinaire). All readings and class discussion in French.
French 226
French Civilization from Beginning to 1789
Staff
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An introduction to the social, political and historical institutions of France from the dawn of civilization until the Revolution of 1789. The course will be illustrated with visual material of architecture and painting and readings will include literary and non-literary texts. Of interest not only to French majors (for whom it is a requirement) but also to majors in history, international relations, and political science. All readings and class discussion in French. (General Requirement - may be counted as a Distributional course in History and Tradition).
French 230
Masterpieces of French Cinema
Staff
Registration required for Lecture and Recitation
(See Timetables for times)
The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the history and scope of French cinema all the way to the present time through the analysis of key works of the French film canon. Particular attention will be paid to successive period styles (“le réalisme poétique”, “la qualité française”, “la nouvelle vague”, “le cinéma du look”, “le film de banlieue”, etc.) as well as various genres (war, drama, comedy, crime, etc.) and a variety of critical lenses will be used (psychoanalysis, socio-historical and cultural context, politics, aesthetics, gender…) in an effort to better understand the specificities and complexities of French cinematic culture.
French 340
Renaissance Literature
Prof. Donaldson-Evans
(See Timetables for times)
This course introduces a diverse and fascinating era that marks the beginning of the early modern period. We will look at the political, historical and social context of France during the whole sixteenth century, examine the Italian Renaissance and its transformation in France, and investigate how contemporary writers and poets translated the discoveries of Humanism into their works. Authors to be studied will include the poets Clément Marot, Maurice Scève, Louise Labé, Pernette Du Guillet, Ronsard and Du Bellay. In addition we will analyze a number of stories from Marguerite de Navarre's rewriting of the Decameron (L'Heptaméron), as well as Rabelais's work and some essays of Montaigne. At the same time we will examine some examples of the art and architecture of the time, and view the film Le Retour de Martin Guerre, a fairly accurate portrayal of life in the sixteenth century and starring the archetypal French actor, Gérard Depardieu.
French 360
The Enlightenment
Prof. DeJean
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Books have many powers. All too rarely, however, do they shape public opinion and change history.
The greatest works of the Enlightenment are perhaps the most striking exception ever to this rule. Our seminar will attempt to understand what the Enlightenment was and how it made its impact. We will read above all the works of the three individuals who, more than anyone else, defined the age of Enlightenment: Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. We will see, for example, how Voltaire used his works to teach Europeans to believe in such concepts as brotherhood and the fraternity of man. We will retrace Rousseau’s invention of autobiography and his redefinition of education. And we will explore the construction of perhaps the most characteristic of all Enlightenment masterpieces, the Encyclopédie edited by Diderot and d’Alembert.
We will pay particular attention to the risks each of these authors ran in making such controversial works public: they were constantly threatened by censorship from both church and state; Voltaire was exiled; Diderot was sent to prison. The seminar will meet on the 6th floor of Van Pelt Library so that we can have access during our meetings to the original editions of many Enlightenment classics. We will thus be able to discuss both ways in which these works were shaped by the fear of censorship and techniques devised by their authors to elude censorship.
We will also consider topics such as what the Enlightenment meant for women and the Enlightenment’s global influence in the 18th century, particularly on the founding fathers of this country. We will thus read works by the greatest women authors of the age, as well as Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography.
French 370
French Literature of the 19th Century
Prof. Goulet
(See Timetables for times)
Currents in Nineteenth-Century Narrative
In this course, we will study four major literary movements of the nineteenth century -- Realism, Romanticism, Naturalism, and the Fantastic – through the works of their well-known practitioners. Emphasis will be given to individual texts’s narrative strategies and to the definitions, limits, and overlaps of their authors’s literary projects, as articulated in texts like Balzac’s L’Avant-propos à la Comédie humaine and Zola’s Le roman expérimental. The novels and short stories will also afford us a glimpse into the shifting social and political contexts of the nineteenth century, from its post-Revolutionary beginnings to the “decadent” fin-de-siècle.
Texts will include Honoré de Balzac’s Le Père Goriot, Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris, Emile Zola’s La Bête humaine, Guy de Maupassant’s Le Horlà, and Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s Claire Lenoir.
French 389
Anthropology and French Modernism
Prof. Richman
(See Timetables for times)
The goal of this course is to explore the French specificity of a critical perspective resulting from the ethnographic detour into other cultures. The results figure among the most daring social, political, literary, and artistic innovations of modern intellectual and cultural history. Following an introduction to the formation of “anthropological thinking” from the Renaissance encounter with the New World in the essays of Montaigne, we focus on its revival at the turn of the nineteenth century in the art of Gauguin and the “ethno-fiction” of Segalen. We then follow the emergence of an “ethnographic surrealism” during the interwar period, the fascination with Spain and Spanish bullfighting, the ethnographic cinema of Jean Rouch, and the polemic between Lévi-Strauss and Derrida regarding the politics of writing. Our panorama concludes by questioning to what ends the French “taste for others” evidenced in the 1550 “tableaux vivants” of Amerindians was more recently cultivated by such grandiose State undertakings as the 1931 Exposition coloniale and the 2006 Quai Branly museum devoted to the artifacts of non-western peoples.
Conducted entirely in French.