Course Meeting Times
Lectures: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session
Prerequisites
One intermediate subject in French, or permission of instructor.
Course Description
Only a handful of Western cities can rival Paris’s mythic status as “City of Light,” “City of Love,” “Capital of the Nineteenth Century,” and “Capital of Modernity.” And yet visitors to Paris are often shocked by just how small the “great” city actually is. This course will investigate Paris’s oversized status as a global capital by looking at the events, transformations, cultures, and arts for which the city is known. It will investigate Paris as a magnet for immigrants and how the city has been transformed by their presence. And it will look at Paris as a mythic place, dreamed of and reconstructed as far away as Bollywood and Las Vegas. This course will help us better understand Paris and its place in French and global cultures today.
Course Mechanics
All class sessions are mandatory. Students are responsible for completing all assignments on time. Classes consist of a mixture of informal lecture and discussion.
Assignments and Grades
All work will be completed in French. Grades will be based on the following:
- Class Participation: 20% Evaluated based on student’s attendance, the demonstration of adequate preparation, and the quality (not just quantity) of oral participation.
- Weekly Response Papers: 25% Each week students will submit a short paper that responds to the week’s theme / materials. These will be graded for argument, engagement with the readings, and quality of writing.
- Presentation: 25% Working in pairs, students will choose a project from the list of possible topics and dates made available the first week of class. The topics will relate to the theme of each week. Presentations will be graded for their argument, content, use of images, and language skills.
- Creative Project: 30% Students will complete a creative project of their own choosing that engages with what they learn about Paris during this semester. Students have a wide range of flexibility here to work on a project that engages them, but each project must be approved by the professor. Those who do not wish to complete a creative project may write a research paper instead.
- Project Proposal: Proposals will define the subject and team members, explaining why the project is interesting. They will give a rough timeline for completion.
Late assignments will lose one full letter grade for each day past the deadline. Assignments handed in a week late will automatically receive no credit. No extensions will be granted after an assignment’s due date has passed.
Grading
| ACTIVITIES | PERCENTAGES |
|---|---|
| Class Participation | 20% |
| Weekly Response Papers | 25% |
| Presentation | 25% |
| Creative Project | 30% |
Technology
Cell phones must be silenced (not just placed in vibrate mode) and put away during class time. You may use laptops / tablets, but only to take notes or access information relevant to the topic at hand. If used for other purposes, laptops / tablets will be banned.
Enrollment Limits
Enrollment limited to 18 for pedagogical purposes. Priority will be given to pre-registered students, including pre-registered undergraduates who were cut from the same class the previous semester due to the enrollment cap. In case of over enrollment, preference given to pre-registered declared French majors, minors and concentrators, followed by juniors, seniors, sophomores, continuing students, and freshmen (in that order), who attend the first day of class.
Academic Integrity
Students are expected to adhere to MIT’s Academic Integrity policies. All work (research papers, weekly papers, presentations) must be completed independently, unless otherwise cleared by the instructor. Students are encouraged to discuss the readings and their projects with each other (they may, for example, want to practice their presentations for their classmates or have a classmate look over a draft of their creative project), but they are individually responsible for all written work.
Violating the Academic Integrity policy in any way (e.g., plagiarism) will result in official Institute sanction. Possible sanctions include receiving a failing grade on the assignment, being assigned a failing grade in the course, having a formal notation of disciplinary action placed on your MIT record, suspension from the Institute, and expulsion from the Institute for very serious cases.
Please review the Academic Integrity policy and related resources (e.g., working under pressure; how to paraphrase, summarize, and quote; etc.) and contact me if you have any questions about appropriate citation methods, the degree of collaboration that is permitted, or anything else related to the Academic Integrity of this course.
Required Books
Mabanckou, Alain. Bleu-Blanc-Rouge. Presence Africaine Edition, 1998. ISBN: 9782708708136.
