ELEMENTARY FRENCH I

Basic elements of French grammar. Oral, writing, and reading skills. Students may take either or both of these courses at Columbia.

• MWF 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• MWF 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• TRF 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• TRF 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Elsa Stephan
  CULPA: 3 Info
• 4 points

REVIEW OF FRENCH FUNDAMENTALS

Prerequisites: Primarily for students who need further instruction to qualify for the intermediate course. Credit cannot be granted for both FREN BC1002 and BC1102 (or its equivalent). Enrollment limited to 20 students per section. Oral and written review of basic grammar and syntax. Readings in modern French and Francophone literature.

• MW 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• MW 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Hadley T Suter
  CULPA: 7 Info
• 3 points

INTERMEDIATE FRENCH I

Prerequisites: FREN BC1001, BC1002, BC1102, C1101 and C1102, or an appropriate score on the placement test. Further development of oral and written communication skills. Readings in French literature.

• MW 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• MW 5:40 p.m.-6:55 p.m.
• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Hadley T Suter
  CULPA: 7 Info
• Instructor: Alexandre Bournery
  Info
• Instructor: Melanie Heydari
  Info
• 3 points

INTERMEDIATE FRENCH II

Advanced work in language skills. Readings in French literature. Prerequisites: FREN BC1203 or an appropriate score on the placement test.

NOTE: This course
does not
fulfill the Columbia College and GS language requirement.

• MW 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• MW 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• TR 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Karen Santos da Silva
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 3 points

COMPOSITION AND CONVERSATION

Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 12 students. Discussions on contemporary issues and oral presentations. Creative writing assignments designed to improve writing skills and vocabulary development. FREN BC1204: French Intermediate II or the equivalent level is required.

• MW 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Karen Santos da Silva
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 3 points

Advanced Translation

ADVANCED TRANSLATION

Translation of French texts--both critical and literary, focusing on particular questions or themes.  FREN BC1204: French Intermediate II or the equivalent level is required.

• TR 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Anne Boyman
  CULPA: 16 Info
• 3 points

ADVANCED ORAL FRENCH

Prerequisites: At least one French course after completion of FREN BC1204: Intermediate II or permission of the instructor. Oral presentations and discussions of French films aimed at increasing fluency, acquiring vocabulary, and perfecting pronunciation skills.

• MW 2:40 p.m.-3:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Anne Boyman
  CULPA: 16 Info
• 3 points

MAJOR FRENCH TEXTS I

An exploration of the early periods of French literary creation (Medieval-17th century) through works of fiction, poetry, and theatre. Special attention is given to texts that use tradition to bring about change, to provoke, to contest social norms, and to test the expected parameters of literary expression. 

• TR 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Laurie Postlewate
  CULPA: 17 Info
• 3 points

JALOUSIE-LITTERATURE FRANCAIS

This course takes jealousy-in its psychosexual, socio-political, ontological dimensions, and in its formal implications-as a lens through which to view a series of seminal works of French literature from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. These works include: 12th-century Arthurian legend (Béroul); a late-medieval, proto-feminist short story (Navarre); 17th-century neo-classical tragedy (Corneille); 12th and 17th-century folkloric forms (Marie de Frances lai and Perraults fairy tale, respectively); the Enlightenment philosophical novel (Montesquieu); the 19th-century realist novel (Balzac); the early 20th-century modernist novel (Proust); and the nouveau roman (Robbe-Grillet). Two contemporary adaptations (Singers 2008 novel based on the Navarre story, and Chabrols 1996 film based on Prousts novel) will also be studied. In addition, a selection of highly condensed, relevant secondary readings (excerpts of 10 pages of less) will provide students with an introduction to an array of theoretical approaches to literary study: most notably, psychoanalysis, political philosophy, and literary theory. FREN BC1204: French Intermediate II or the equivalent level is required.

• MW 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Caroline Weber
  CULPA: 8 Wikipedia Info
• 3 points

LOVE & LITERATURE

This course offers an in-depth study of love as it has been treated in a variety of French literary texts. These texts will be related to a number of important philosophical and theological approaches to love, particularly in respect of certain ideas concerning ethical love, erotic love, and religious faith as an act of loving God. The first objective of this class is to show how one can relate literature to philosophy and theology; the second is to gain a broad, but thematically focused familiarity with French literature, and with some literary works beyond the French tradition. FREN BC1204: French Intermediate II or the equivalent level is required.

• TR 10:10 a.m.-11:25 a.m.
• Instructor: Brian D O'Keeffe
  CULPA: 28 Info
• 3 points

Women Writers of Contemporary Middle Eas

WOMEN WRITERS MIDEAST AFR

Since the last decades of the twentieth century there has been a dramatic increase in the number of women writers from the Middle East and North Africa. This advanced course, which will be taught mainly in French, provides a window into this rich and largely neglected branch of world literature. Students will encounter the breadth and creativity of contemporary Middle Eastern and North African women’s literature by reading a range of twentieth- and twenty-first-century novels, short stories, memoirs and poetry available in French or in translation, and by viewing films that are from or about Iran, Lebanon, Algeria, and Egypt. How do Middle Eastern women authors address women’s oppression – both social and physical – and enunciate issues such as the tension between tradition and modernity, sexuality, identity and class from a female perspective? What literary traditions and models do they draw on? How different are those texts written in French for a global audience, as opposed to those written in Persian or Arabic? What are the effects of reading them in translation? Authors will include Marjane Satrapi, Shahrnush Parsipur, Assia Djebar, Maïssa Bey and Nawal El Saadawi.

• TR 11:40 a.m.-12:55 p.m.
• Instructor: Melanie Heydari
  Info
• 3 points

EXISTENTIALISM

Prerequisites: Successful completion of Intermediate II French or the equivalent. In-depth survey of the writers who exemplified French existentialism: Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir. The texts have been chosen for the richness with which they address fundamental philosophical questions about the meaning of life, especially questions of death and suffering, freedom and responsibility, legitimate and illegitimate violence. The first objective of this class is to show how existentialist thought combines literature and philosophy; the second objective is to gain a broad, but also deep familiarity with 20th-century French literature and thought. FREN BC1204: French Intermediate II or the equivalent level is required.

• TR 1:10 p.m.-2:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Brian D O'Keeffe
  CULPA: 28 Info
• 3 points