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Academic Year 2000/2001


Legends of the French Revolution
FREN 259 SP

This course will examine Revolutionary political culture as it was narrated and represented by (guillotined) participants of the French Revolution, 19th-century novelists, and present-day film-makers. Special topics will address freedom of the press and pornography as social criticism; revolutionary rhetoric and its influence in theater, festivals, and music; women's movement and gender dynamics in art and literature; family romance and the revolutionary collective unconscious; correlations with the revolutions of 1830, 1848 and 1870.

MAJOR READINGS

Balzac, LES CHOUANS Chenier, Poetry Gouges, LES DROITS DE LA FEMME ET DE LA CITOYENNE Hugo, QUATRE-VINGT-TREIZE Jacobin discourses by Danton, Marat, Robespierre, Saint-Just Pornographic political pamphlets against Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI Roland, MEMOIRES (excerpts) Rousseau, LE CONTRAT SOCIAL Sade, LA PHILOSOPHIE DANS LE BOUDOIR Michelet, HISTOIRE DE LA REVOLUTION FRANCAISE (excerpts) FILMS: DANTON, (Andrzej Wajda) MARAT/SADE, (Peter Brook) LA MARSEILLAISE, (Jean Renoir) LA NUIT DE VARENNES, (Ettore Scola) Napoleon (Abel Gance)

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Grading mixed. Oral reports, short papers.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA RLAN    Grading Mode: Student Option   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-26-2001


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