| Course Descriptions
French 78600 Practicum in Translation
Le but principal de ce séminaire est de s'exercer dans l'art de la traduction, de la poésie aussi bien que de la prose, dans ce cas, des textes modernes ou contemporains. A part les textes assignés, chaque étudiant aura un projet individuel de traduction, choisi par lui-même, d'une vingtaine de pages, sur lequel il sera responsable d'une présentation orale au cours du semestre. Cette traduction, fournie d'une introduction du traducteur, prendra place d'un mémoire de recherche. Je voudrais bien que des présentations soient faites également sur les trois auteurs des textes assignés, de préference par deux étudiants qui prépareront l'exposé ensemble. La note finale se composera donc de plusieurs éléments : les traductions faites pour les réunions du séminaire, deux présentations orales (sur votre projet individuel , et sur un des auteurs proposés ), le projet individuel de traduction, et bien entendu votre participation aux échanges et débats du séminaire.
French 76000 Les Ecrivains et la Guerre de 14-18 (in French)
A study of World War I from an interdisciplinary perspective: historical, political, ideological, literary and artistic. This course will first examine the ideological context of France on the eve of the Great War, and the reaction of French intellectuals to the declaration of war. Readings will be drawn from fictional (novels, plays, poetry) and nonfictional works (diaries, letters, articles) by those who actually participated in the war or lived through the period. Pacifist literature of the time will also be included. Other forms of representation will be considered, such as iconography and film. Finally, the impact of the War on France in the 1920s and 1930s will be discussed.
Required readings: Henri Barbusse, Le Feu; journal d'un escouade (1916) (“Le Livre de Poche”, Lgf, 1988) ; Henry Bernstein, L'Elevation (1917); Maurice Genevoix, "Sous Verdun" (1916)- first part of Ceux de 14 (1916-1923) (“Points”, Seuil, 1996); Duhamel, Georges, Vie des martyrs and/or Civilisation (extracts), Romain Rolland, L'Esprit Libre ( 1914-1919) (extracts from this collection of articles written during the war) .
Secondary source: Ralph Schor, La France dans la Première guerre mondiale (no. 128, Collection Histoire, Nathan, 1997) or Jean-Jacques Becker, La France en Guerre 1914-1918 (Complexe, 1988) (a student may choose to read this book instead of Schor’s text, but the book does assume that the reader has some prior knowledge of modern French history)
Film: Jean Renoir, La Grande illusion (1937)
Other required readings will be drawn from the following list:
Articles and extracts from :
Alain (Emile Chartier), Mars ou la guerre jugée (1916) ; Charles Andler, Socialisme impérialiste dans l’Allemagne contemporaine (1912-1913) ; Maurice Barrès, Chronique de la Grande Guerre (articles from L’Echo de Paris) or Diverses familles spirituelles de la France ; Emile Boutroux, « L’Allemagne et la guerre » ; Ernest Lavisse and Emile Durkheim, Lettres à tous les Français (1916). Henri Massis, « Romain Rolland contre la France » (1915). Other articles written during the War might also be assigned.
Play: Nozière, La Prière dans la nuit (1915)
Poetry: Guillaume Appolinaire, Calligrammes (selected poems). Pierre-Jean Jouve, Poème contre le grand crime (excerpts) ; Marcel Martinet, Les Temps maudits (excerpts), as well as other poets.
Secondary sources (excerpts/ articles from) : André Ducasse, Jacques Meyer, Gabriel Perreux, Vie et mort des Français, 1914-1918 (from the part entitled, « Vie et mort chez les civils » (1959) ; Jean-Jacques Becker, Les Français dans la Grande Guerre (1980) ; Jean-Jacques Becker et al, Guerre et Cultures 1914-1918 (1994) ; Jean-Jacques Becker, ed. Histoire culturelle de la Grande Guerre (2005).
There will be an oral report (based on the student’s final paper), a final exam, and a 12-15 page final paper.
If you have any questions, you may contact Prof. Blum (ablum@gc.cuny.edu).
French 87500 The Impact of the Revolution on 19th Century French Novels
We will study how the Revolution and the post-revolutionary society affected the writing of novels. Historical novels, novels of disillusionment, and the attitude of French writers towards romanticism will be examined.
Novels to be studied: Rene by Chateaubriand; Delphine by Madame de Stael;
93 by Victor Hugo; Le pere Goriot by Balzac; Le rouge et le noir by Stendhal;
Nanon by George Sand; Les paysans by Balzac; Blaise Bonnin by George Sand
Requirements: ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN CLASS. One oral presentation (which can be developed into a term paper). A mid-term exam. A term paper (10 pages).
A final exam.
French 86000 Rhétoriques/ identités/ littératures françaises 20e - 21 siècles
Soit en poésie, soit dans la pratique du roman ou de l'essai, les littératures contemporaines en langue française ont souvent raccordé les particularités du langage - et du style - aux modalités d'une quête identitaire de plus en plus pressante. En marge des exemples les plus connus, Saint-John Perse (identité et Universel), Césaire (la négritude) , Schéhadé (Orient et modernité), nous étudierons :
Les divagations mélancoliques du paysage ardennais, dans Le Village pathétique d'André Dhôtel.
Les cassures et les contre-rythmes très spéciaux d'une autre négritude, dans Black Label (éditions Gallimard) de Léon Gontran Damas .
L'approche créole dans Antan d'enfance de Patrick Chamoiseau.
La ferveur cosmique de l'univers provençal dans Le Chant du monde de Jean Giono.
French 73000 The Monarchy, the Nation and its Others in Seventeenth-Century France
This course will begin by questioning the view of Benedict Anderson and others that the nation is born after l789. We will take a set of criteria for nationhood and examine the efforts of Louis XIV and his ministers to unify the country into a nation with a single monarch, law and faith, with centralized political structures, linguistic homogeneity, mapmaking, and cultural propaganda, among other factors. We will, however, principally focus on the idea that a nation forges an inside by creating an outside, that is, by excluding a set of groups or people, though that enterprise is doomed to fail since, to put it reductively, the outside never remains outside but invariably mixes – hybridizes -- with the inside. Further, in late l7th-century France even insiders, such as members of the noblesse d’épée, felt like outsiders in an absolutistic monarchy, and invented/invoked the idea of the nation over and against the abuses of Louis XIV.
The course will be mostly devoted to considering the specificity of four kinds of others: the religious other (both Protestants and Jews); the gendered other in a monarchic state founded on salic law; the sexual other-- the sodomite in a nation purportedly made up of virile Franks; and the racial other: oriental, African and most especially, American indigenous people. The number and complexity of these racial others make this area particularly fertile ground for research projects.
Readings will include work on the nation by Anderson and Foucault, specifically on the early-modern nation, by Hampton, Bell and Sahlins among others; historical documents, such as Le Code Noir; primary readings by Bayle, Bouhours, Molière, the Princess Palatine, Perrault, Racine, Saint Simon, Tallemant des Réaux, as well as a selection of Jesuit relations.
The course will be taught in English; the readings of primary sources will be in French. A previous knowledge of French 17th-century texts is desirable but not required.
Over and beyond the readings, work for the course will consist of a 20-page research paper on some aspect of nation-building and on othering in the early-modern period in France. Each student will also be asked to present one of the readings to the rest of the class.
Any questions, please contact Domna Stanton (dstanton112@aol.com).
French 78200 Literary Translation: Theories and Practice
Course taught in English.
To study theories of translation, to participate in the growing field of translation studies, involves a journey into the age old exchange of parables. Immediately, language theory lies at the base of all issues of translation because translation begins at the moment one uses words to voice a feeling. The practice of translation is as old as literature itself and as human as language; the theories through which one contemplates this practice highlight historical, political, religious, spiritual, psychological, linguistic, and other concerns. The course will begin by looking at some theories of language and overviews of translation theory, starting with George Steiner. We will then look at history and questions concerning the translation of major religious texts, such as the Bible, the Torah and the Qur’an. Further, the issues vexing the relationship between cultures and translation, as well as the particular difficulties of translating poetry, will make up this course’s content. Students will write two (2) five-page papers that develop questions raised in class. The final paper, between fifteen and twenty pages, will focus on and then critique the history and theoretical underpinnings of the translation of a major literary work, such as the translation of Shakespeare.
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