The table below lists the readings due each class, with online versions when available.
| SES # | TOPICS | ASSIGNED READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Is There French Theory in This Class? |
Foucault, Michel. “This is Not a Pipe.” Les Cahiers du chemin, n°2 (1968): 79–195. Magritte, René. “Les deux mystères.” Painting, 1966. |
| LEAVING REPRESSIVE SOCIETY | ||
| 2 | Judging the War, Rebuilding a Nation |
Kaplan, Alice. “Justice in Hindsight.” Chapter 13 in The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach. University of Chicago Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780226424156. Camus, Albert, and Arthur Koestler. “Reflection on the Guillotine.” Extract from Réflexions sur la peine Capitale. Calmann-Lévy, 1957. |
| 3 | The Genesis of May 1968 |
Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Existentialism is a Humanism.” Text from a lecture given in 1946. Debord, Guy-Ernest. “Separation Perfected.” Chapter 1 from The Society of the Spectacle. Black & Red, 2000. ISBN: 9780934868075. Movie: Pierrot le Fou. Directed by Jean-Luc Godard. 110 min. 1965. |
| 4 | Revolution and its Outsiders: Women, Migrants, Sexual Minorities |
Deleuze, Gilles. Anti-Oedipus. Continuum, 2004, pp. 380–5. ISBN: 9780826476951. [Preview with Google Books] Foucault, Michel, and R. Hurley. “Part Four: The Deployment of Sexuality. Chapter 2: Method.” In The History of Sexuality. Volume I: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. Viking, 1979, pp. 92–102. ISBN: 9780713910940. |
| 5 | The Capitalist Machine: Society as Prison |
Foucault, Michel. “Part Three: Discipline. Chapter 3: Panopticism.” In D__iscipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. Vintage books, 1995, pp. 195–228. ISBN: 9780679752554. Movie: Un prophète. Directed by Jacques Audiard. 150 min. 2009. |
| CULTURAL TASTE, NATIONAL IDENTITY | ||
| 6–7 | Cultural Mythologies |
Barthes, Roland. “The Great Family of Man,” and “Myth Today.” Extracts from Mythologies. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972, pp. 100–2 and 109–12. ISBN: 9780374521509. Visit: Museum of Fine Arts |
| 7 | The Idea of Europe | Discussion with Professor Helen Drake, Loughborough University Schuman, Robert. “Declaration May 9, 1950.” |
| 8 | “Parlez-vous français?” The New Politics of Language |
Lacan, Jacques. Extract (on the language of self) from Écrits: A Selection. Routledge, 2007, pp. 96–7. ISBN: 9780415255462. Lyotard, Jean-François. “The Nature of the Social Bond: The Postmodern Perspective.” Chapter 5 in The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. University Of Minnesota Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780816611737. |
| 9 | Social Distinction |
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Harvard University Press, 1984, pp. 1–7. ISBN: 9780674212770. [Preview with Google Books] Movie: Le goût des autres. Directed by Agnès Jaoui. 112 minutes. 2000. |
| BEYOND LIBERATION | ||
| 10 | Feminist and LGBT Politics: the Ethics of Ambiguities |
de Beauvoir, Simone. “Biological Data.” Chapter 1 in The Second Sex. Translated by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. Vintage, 2011, pp. 21–4. ISBN: 9780307277787. Eribon, Didier. Insult and the Making of the Gay Self. Translated by Michael Lucey. Duke University Press, 2004, pp. 130–40. ISBN: 9780822333715. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 11 | Communities and Anticommunitarianism |
Blanchot, Maurice. The Unavowable Community. Translated by Pierre Joris. Station Hill Press, 1988, pp. 9–12, 24–6 and 54–7. ISBN: 9781581771046. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998, pp. 4–7, 110–3, and 140–3. ISBN: 9780801858307. [Preview with Google Books] |
| 12 | Postcolonial France |
Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Richard Philcox. Grove Press, 2008, pp. 89–99. ISBN: 9780802143006. [Preview with Google Books] Movie: L’Esquive. Directed by Abdel Kechiche. 117 minutes. 2003. |
| 13 | Video Project Presentations | |
