Werewolves, vampires, phantoms, and fairies inhabit French fables, legends, fairy tales, short stories, novels, and film. The course studies supernatural fictional creatures in relation to concepts of physical and moral beauty, animality, good, evil, comfort, fear, kindness, familiarity and the uncanny.

Francophone philosophers from the Caribbean adopted a critical perspective and questioned aporias and blind spots of our history. We will read texts by Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Edouard Glissant (1928-2011), Patrick Chamoiseau to see how they reflected on issues such as colonialism. 

Love fascinated people in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as it still does today. This course will examine understandings and uses of love in religious and secular literature, music and art. What is the relationship, for medieval writers, between the love of God and the love of human beings? What is the role of poetry in promoting and producing love? What medieval ideas about love continue to shape our modern understandings and assumption.

Examines major works of sixteenth-century French literature situated in the larger historical and cultural context of the Continental Renaissance. Topics vary and may include, for example, humanism and reform, women writers, and urban culture. May be repeated for credit with different topics. Prerequisite: FREN 3032 and at least one FREN course numbered 3041 to 3043 (or instructor permission).

Study of the various aspects of the nineteenth-century French literature. Topics vary. May be repeated for credit with different topics. Prerequisite: FREN 3032 and at least one FREN course numbered 3041 to 3043 (or instructor permission).

An exploration of a selection of poetry and prose works by Baudelaire to gain an in-depth understanding of one of the most celebrated poets in Western literature. Through close readings, we will examine poetry¿s relation to beauty and suffering, the structuring and de-structuring of poetic form, and the ethics of poetic modernity in Baudelaire in order to reflect more generally on what poetry affords us in life.

What is the good life, and what is a good life? Saints seem to live perfectly good lives, but stories about them often grapple with this question, encouraging audiences to think deeply about their own lives in ways that go beyond any one ethical system. Looking at old and new stories of parent-child struggles, spectacular sinning and redemption, gender transformation, and daily moral predicaments, we will explore what it means to live well.

This course is about imagining life and sensory experiences of colonized subjects witnessing a changing urban environment. For some cities, imagining its past is naturally inscribed in a continuation meticulously informed. For cities that have been victim of a colonial experience, this haunted past needs to be revived to recreate a perception of historical continuity in the space and a sense of spatial belonging.

A global city, Paris is more than the capital of France; it holds meaning the world over. How did Paris achieve such iconic status? To answer that question, this course explores a variety of cultural and geographic forms (maps, paintings, architecture, cinema, literature, and music) that illustrate key features of the "city of light" and invite students to "read" the city, unlock its codes, and discover its many nuances.

Normally, only French majors may enroll in this course and only by written permission from the department chair prior to the end of the first week of classes.