PREVIOUSLY TAUGHT COURSES
Courses summer 2007, Aix-en-Provence (Vanderbilt in France)
FR251 Literature and Culture of Provence (Émile Zola). Présentation et examen des oeuvres d’Émile Zola en fonction d'une analyse bakhtinienne du roman. Le cours sera l'occasion de lire et de commenter sur quelques principaux ouvrages d’Émile Zola en les mettant en relation avec la théorie du roman de Mikhaïl Mikhailovich Bakhtine (1895-1975). Nous mettrons l'accent sur la diversité des voix présentes dans l'oeuvre de Zola, en nous inspirant des notions bakhtiniennes de base, telles que celles d'hétéroglossie, de polyglossie, de chronotope, et de plurilinguisme. Puisque nous avons l’occasion de vivre dans le sud de la France, nous prendrons l’occasion d’examiner également la « présence » (ainsi que la « situatedness ») d’Aix-en-Provence (et Marseille) dans la vie et dans les œuvres de Zola.
FR220 Introduction to French Literature
Courses spring 2007, Aix-en-Provence (Vanderbilt in France)
FR267 Twentieth Century French Literature and Theory Le but de ce cours sera de retracer le chemin qui mène de la modernité à la postmodernité, passant par l’avant-garde, en mettant l’accent sur la représentation du soi et de l'autre en art et littérature, mais aussi dans le cadre de relations personelles effectuer par le langage et par le corps qui agissent, ensemble et indépendament, dans l'espace quotidien et l'espace artistique.
FR240 Rabelais and the Carnivalesque Dans les textes qu’on lira pour ce cours on dit que le carnaval, la fête païenne la plus célébrée dans le monde chrétien, dérape dans le sarcasme et dans la dérision de l'ordre établi, il tourne en ridicule l'autorité et le pouvoir, il brave les interdits et la morale en exaltant ces péchés capitaux que le carême voudrait exorciser. Il fait un pied-de-nez aux pisse-vinaigre et aux puritains de tous bords, il ouvre la vanne au libertinage, aux fantasmes, aux désirs refoulés. Le carnaval force l'Église à tolérer le port des masques, injures à l'idée d'un homme créé à l'image de Dieu, les festins, les danses et les rires bannis du carême. On dit aussi que le carnaval, c'est tout à la fois le mythe du combat mythologique entre le cerf et le serpent qui assure le retour du printemps après les effrois de l'hiver, et c'est aussi le moment où les cerfs perdent leurs cornes et sa fête tourne en dérision les cornes des cocus. Mais le carnaval est plus qu’un événement, d’après Mikhaïl Bakhtine, il est une manifestation de notre nature humaine qui se caractérise en partie par son désir du « carnivalesque ». Dans L'oeuvre de François Rabelais et la culture populaire au Moyen Age et sous la Renaissance Bakhtine éclaire sous un jour totalement nouveau le carnaval et l'oeuvre de François Rabelais, sur la base d'une étude approfondie de ses sources populaires, notamment le carnaval, et, donc, le vocabulaire de la place publique, les formes et images de la fête populaire, le banquet, l'image grotesque du corps, le bas matériel et corporel, et enfin les images de Rabelais et la réalité de son temps.
Courses fall 2006, Aix-en-Provence (Vanderbilt in France)
FR 260 Enlightenment and Revolution. Dans ce cours nous étudierons les écrivains de Marseille et d’Aix-en-Provence qui ont été inspirés par des penseurs et des écrivains de l’âge des lumières et, plus récemment, par certains américains qui suivent ces mêmes tendances pour exprimer la contestation, la résistance, la désobéissance, la résistance, le refus et la révolte. En cours de route, nous examinerons quelques textes de base des mouvements qui ont inspiré la lutte sociale, notamment ceux des anarchistes, des communistes, des féministes, des marxistes et des socialistes, et nous ferons un survol des idées liées aux mouvements contestataires importants dans le sud de la France. Un objectif secondaire de ce cours sera de montrer l’unique place qu’a cette région dans l’histoire de la révolte en France, entre autre sa résistance à la prise de partis politiques qui la différencie grandement à l’approche parisienne, plus idéologiquement rigide et influencé par entre autres le léninisme, le maoïsme, et le stalinisme.
FR 251 Zola and Provence Présentation et examen des oeuvres d’Émile Zola en fonction d'une analyse bakhtinienne du roman. Le cours sera l'occasion de lire et de commenter sur quelques principaux ouvrages d’Émile Zola en les mettant en relation avec la théorie du roman de Mikhaïl Mikhailovich Bakhtine (1895-1975). Nous mettrons l'accent sur la diversité des voix présentes dans l'oeuvre de Zola, en nous inspirant des notions bakhtiniennes de base, telles que celles d'hétéroglossie, de polyglossie, de chronotope, et de plurilinguisme. Puisque nous avons l’occasion de vivre dans le sud de la France, nous prendrons l’occasion d’examiner également la « présence » (ainsi que la « situatedness ») d’Aix-en-Provence (et Marseille) dans la vie et dans les œuvres de Zola.
Courses spring 2006, Vanderbilt University
Maymester HUM294 Destination Montréal: Multiculturalism, Jewish-Catholic Relations and the Law in the Other America: This course will allow students to become immersed in the vibrant life of one of America's oldest cities, a veritable turnstile of Quebecois, Canadian, and European peoples and institutions. We will begin with an introduction to key issues in Canadian legal policies relating to migration and resettlement, and with an overview of fiction written in Quebec by recently-immigrated authors. Emphasis will be placed upon the fiction of one of Quebec’s most prominent and historical communities, and upon fiction by members of recently-arrived immigrant communities.
CLT278, Colonialism and Multiculturalism (graduate and undergraduate) This course will survey central postcolonial theories as a way of thinking about some crucial issues relating to the postcolonial and multicultural experiences, and the issues raised by the integration of people into a host country subsequent to significant upheaval in their country of origin. Along the way, we will examine the implications of colonial encounter, and formation of idea "post-colonial" culture, particularly in a multicultural urban setting. Subjects include language, freedom and agency, gender roles, representation of space, relation between power and narrative. By comparing details of the legal procedure leading to immigrant or refugee status to the experiences recounted in the fictional texts, we will also have occasion to discuss the conflicting images that the society projects onto its ethnic groups, and the effects they have upon individuals attempting to find their way “home” in fiction and in life.
Courses fall 2005, Vanderbilt University
ENG337, Literary and Language Theories (graduate) The goal of this course is to ask some of the basic questions about literary theory, language theory and linguistics, and then to discuss them through reference to theoretical, philosophical, and literary texts. What is literary/language theory? What are we doing when we are doing language studies? What is the relationship between the ‘literary’, the ‘language,’ and the ‘theory’? What is the ‘red thread’ that connects various theories of literature? Students will be encouraged to think through these questions with reference to some excerpts from fundamental precursory work and, moreover, with reference to the basic texts of literary theory from this century. This course will offer a wide-ranging survey of literary and language theories, with special emphasis upon the period post-Saussure. We will examine the principle theoretical approaches, -- formalism, dialogism, structuralism, narratology, semiotics, deconstruction, Freudianism, reception theory, Marxism, feminisms, postcolonial language theory -- but we will also look into some of the exciting language research which have been undertaken outside of the literary realm as a way of situating the project of literary theory within a properly historical and political framework. To ensure that the literary is not separated from the theory , there will be ample discussion of literary examples, if only to demonstrate that the theory often grows out of questions posed in the literature we so enjoy reading.
FR294 Montréal, Paris, New York! (in French) In this course we will assess Montreal as a kind of turnstile of French ideas as they head South the United States, and American ideas as they are translated and transported overseas to Europe. While Quebec culture has grown up in its own way, influenced by but separated-off from either American or French influences, it nevertheless bears some critical imprints of cultural, intellectual and political ideas which have been transported via some seminal individuals. We will focus upon literary luminaries as they move, in person and in text, across borders, but we’ll also think about how communism, French snobbism, nationalism, syndicalism and artistic trends flow from New York to Paris and back, and how they come to be affected when they land, sometimes fleetingly, on the shores of bilingual, bi-and multi-cultural, and in some ways bi-national Montreal.
FR300 Méthodologies (in French) Familiarisation avec le travail théorique lié aux études littéraires, le fonctionnement et le rôle d'un département d'études littéraires, la démarche bibliographique et avec les instruments de recherche imprimés et informatiques. Exigences adaptées aux étudiants en critique et en recherche littéraires. Quelques exposés magistraux, exploration personnelle des guides de recherche en littérature d'expression française, encadrement individualisé par rendez-vous. Ce séminaire portera également sur les aspects théoriques et méthodologiques, et il se veut un lieu privilégié d'échanges et de réflexion, où l'on discutera des problématiques soulevées par les textes choisis comme objets d'étude, et des enjeux théoriques susceptibles d'intéresser les étudiant(e)s dans leur démarche de recherche. Les participants seront invités à réfléchir sur les modalités de leur pratique littéraire et à préciser - en dialogue avec les diverses approches critiques modernes - les notions et concepts auxquels ils recourent.
JS115W Radical Jews, from Karl Marx to Noam Chomsky In this course we will study leading “radical” Jewish intellectuals and writers of the 19th and, moreover, he 20th Century by examining the basic ideas they promoted, and by assessing the approach they take to social issues as regards their Judaism or the Jewish community from which they emerged. Even if Judaism was of little or no importance to many of the crucial radical figures of this period, there is surely something in their upbringing that is reflected in the approach of the many Russian or (Eastern) European Jews who worked in this tradition, including the large number thereof who came to or were born in the United States, including Erich Fromm, Lowenthal, Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Zellig Harris and Noam Chomsky – to name but a few. Several of these individuals least studied and practiced some elements of Judaism, and for others Judaism played an important role in their life and work; but the ideas they promoted and the allegiances they formed teach us a lot about Jewish intellectual life, the New York intellectuals, and the interesting heritage of Jewish radicalism.
Courses spring 2005, Vanderbilt University
Retirement Learning course on Confessions of Suffering in Literature and Law. Narratives of suffering run throughout the corpus of literature, in part because the space of the literary text offers a free arena for the expression of our deepest feelings of loss, of pain, of love. Plaintiffs in search of recompense, status or indemnity at the very heart of legal texts or discourses utter similar narratives. In this course we will examine the question of representing one's suffering through confession, in both literary and legal texts. Most readings will be short scenes, and there will be a number of short film clips shown for the purposes of illustration and discussion.
EUS225, European Realism. This course will trace the rise and development of realism in European fiction of the nineteenth century by examining texts from a range of national traditions including Hungarian, Czech, Irish, French, English and Russian. Particular attention will be given to the theoretical issues that realism, and nineteenth-century realism in particular, pose for literary criticism and cultural studies. We will discuss the history of realism, its rise in the novel form, and also the different ways in which it comes to be manifested in different traditions and texts. All readings will be in English, however if students have working knowledge of any of the languages in which texts were originally written, they are welcome to work in the original text.
JS115W Language, and Politics in Jewish America. A surprising number of Jewish European and American linguists, poets, anthropologists, media-types and scientists of the Cold War era were inspired by “new techniques” aimed at uncovering the structural, mathematical, psychic, poetic or biological basis of language. Given the political urgency of this project, and the vast sums of money available to those involved in propaganda, anti-propaganda, decoding, translating, and describing language, it’s not surprising that this period was witness to a convergence between radical politics, military exigencies and willful reverie. This course will survey the range of experiments undertaken by Jews working in different disciplines, and thereby make some surprising links between well-known Jewish intellectuals, including Leonard Bloomfield, Franz Boas, Louis Brandeis, Noam Chomsky, Albert Einstein, Allen Ginsberg, Zellig Harris and Roman Jakobson. Some of the questions we will address in the course include: Is there a relationship between a Jewish upbringing and the work undertaken by these individuals? What was the reception of this work within an academic setting that was concerned about Jewish politics and religion? How did the US government deal with the fact that this all-important area was so dominated by Jews? What relationship existed between the fact that many of these theorists were immigrant Jews and the left-leaning politics they tended to support?
FR 394 Les intellectuels français 1789-2000 (graduate): Ce cours vise à examiner les rapports franco-américains à partir d’une comparaison entre la vie intellectuelle francaise et la vie intellectuelle américaine. Nous ferons un survol des divers rôles que jouent les intellectuelles en France et aux É-U en insistant sur le contexte socio-historique, politique et universitaire des deux pays, et nous examinerons la traversée des idées de Paris à New York (et autres centres) en passant, parfois, via Montréal, une ville qui sert parfois de plaque tournante pour des biens symboliques. Nous examinerons les oeuvres et l'approche de Chomsky, Bricmont, Sokal, de Beauvoir, Bourdieu, Sartre, Lévy, Aaron face à un contexte intellectuel qui date du 18e siècle, notamment Descartes, Humboldt, Rousseau et Voltaire.
Courses fall 2004, Vanderbilt University
FR 270 The French Literary Tradition: “Passion, raison, littérature” L’objet de ce cours sera l’étude des tendances narratives qui se retrouvent à la fois dans les domaines de la littérature et du droit qui mettent en rapport la relation entre la raison et la passion dans les scènes de la confession, la construction du sujet dans le discours, et dans le processus décisionnel. Nous examinerons des théories pertinentes, telles que celles de Marc Angenot, Mikhaïl Bakhtine, et Michel Meyer, et nous verrons ensuite comment ces théories peuvent s’appliquer aux textes littéraires mettant en scène des situations ou des raisonnements relatifs à ces questions. Pour ce faire, nous examinerons les poèmes, les pièces, les nouvelles et les romans des auteurs francophones à travers plusieurs siècles.
ENG337/CLT380 Introduction to Literary, Linguistic and Language Theories (graduate) The goal of this course is to ask some of the basic questions about literary theory, language theory and linguistics, and then to discuss them through reference to theoretical, philosophical, and literary texts. What is literary/language theory? What are we doing when we are doing language studies? What is the relationship between the ‘literary’, the ‘language,’ and the ‘theory’? What is the ‘red thread’ that connects various theories of literature? Students will be encouraged to think through these questions with reference to some excerpts from fundamental precursory work and, moreover, with reference to the basic texts of literary theory from this century. The goal is to provide the student with a basic grounding in major theoretical approaches, including formalism, Marxist literary theory, dialogism, structuralism and semiotics, narratology, New Criticism, reception theory, feminist literary theory, psychocriticism, deconstruction and sociocriticism, but we will also survey work in other fields, such as anthropology and linguistics, to demonstrate the “literary theory” doesn’t operate, or shouldn’t operate, in its own rarefied realm. This is an ambitious course, with a significant workload, but the idea here is not to have you become specialists in the many complex approaches to language studies, but rather to encourage you to think about language studies within, but also beyond, the sub-field that has come to be known as “literary theory”. Many of the questions in lit theory courses are addressed elsewhere, in philosophy, linguistics, and, implicitly, in literary texts, and considering the broad issues in an appropriately multifaceted manner will give depth and breadth to our thinking about language, both fictional and otherwise.
Courses spring 2004, Vanderbilt University
CLT294 Comparative Issues in Migration to the Americas: the example of the United States and Canada-Québec (graduate and undergraduate). As the richest countries in the hemisphere the United States and Canada/Quebec face similar immigration and refugee problems, and yet they respond with a very different set of laws and policies. What do these disparate approaches show us about the two countries and their relationship to the countries from which refugees, immigrants and "illegals" migrate? Lead by Professor Robert Barsky (French and Italian and Comparative Literature), the faculty and graduate student seminar on comparative issues in United States and Canadian immigration will address these questions through a speakers' series featuring international experts on such questions as the affect of immigration on indigenous peoples, refugee literature, isolationism and law. This course is designed for graduate students in French, Comparative Literature, and Law.
FR270 Crimes, châtiments, et confessions. L’objet de ce cours sera l’étude des tendances narratives qui se retrouvent à la fois dans les domaines de la littérature et du droit, notamment la confession, la construction du sujet dans le discours, la réception des textes, l’argumentation juridique et oratoire, la traduction et l’interprétation interculturelle, et les genres du discours. Nous examinerons des théories pertinentes, telles que celles de Marc Angenot, Mikhaïl Bakhtine, Pierre Bourdieu, Wolfgang Iser, Julia Kristeva et Michel Meyer; nous verrons ensuite comment ces théories peuvent s’appliquer aux textes littéraires mettant en scène des situations ou des raisonnements relatifs à des questions juridiques. Pour ce faire, nous examinerons les poèmes, les pièces, les nouvelles et les romans des auteurs francophones à travers plusieurs siècles.
CLT278 Colonial and Post-Colonial Literature This course will study central postcolonial theory alongside of fiction by immigrant authors as a way of examining the problem of the postcolonial experience, and the issues raised by the integration of people into a host country subsequent to significant upheaval in their country of origin. Along the way, we will examine the implications of colonial encounter, and formation of idea "post-colonial" culture, particularly in a multicultural urban setting. Subjects include language, freedom and agency, gender roles, representation of space, relation between power and narrative. By comparing details of the legal procedure leading to immigrant or refugee status to the experiences recounted in the fictional texts, and by assessing the (perceived) differences between English and French Canada in this regard, we will also have occasion to discuss the conflicting images that the society projects onto its ethnic groups, and the effects they have upon individuals attempting to find their way “home” in fiction and in life. Since efforts to assist refugees in making Canada their “home” are often funded or facilitated by Multiculturalism, in theory and practice, we will also examine a range of government documents relating to multicultural policy as it has evolved since the 1980s.
