Catalan 20. Catalan Language and Culture: a Multimedia Approach
Catalog Number: 2559
Bradley S. Epps and staff
Half course (spring term). M., Tu., Th., at 4. EXAM GROUP: 9, 18
Intermediate course introducing students to Catalan culture and boosting their oral and writing skills through a wide range of resources: Internet, television, radio, cinema, and music. Activities include in-class and on-line discussion, role-playing, audio and video recordings, and more.
Note: Conducted in Catalan. May be taken Pass/Fail by undergraduates or Sat/Unsat by GSAS students.
Prerequisite: Catalan Ba, basic knowledge of Catalan, or permission of course head.
*Catalan 91r. Supervised Reading and Research
Catalog Number: 2578
Bradley S. Epps and staff
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Fall: M., 2–3:30, Th., 4:30–6.
Tutorial supervision of research on subjects not treated in regular courses. May be used for further language study after Catalan Ax or Ba.
French Ax. Reading Modern French
Catalog Number: 2763
Marlies Mueller and staff
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Fall: Section I: Tu., Th., 10–11:30; Section II: Tu., Th., 11:30–1.; Spring: Tu., Th., 10–11:30. EXAM GROUP: 12, 13, 14
An introduction to reading and translating modern French texts for students who require only a basic knowledge of French for research purposes. French Ax presents the principle structures of French grammar in a systematic and coherent manner and, at the same time, makes reading and translation assignments as discipline-specific as possible for each student’s needs.
Note: Conducted in English. Not open to students with a score of 500 or above on the Harvard Placement Test or the SAT II French test, to those with more than one year of undergraduate French, or to auditors. May not be used to fulfill the language requirement and may not be taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. See details and section on-line on the French Ax website.
Prerequisite: Some previous study of a Romance language helpful but not necessary. Fluency in English required.
*French Bab. Intensive Beginning French: Special Course
Catalog Number: 8780 Enrollment: Limited to 15 students per section.
Marlies Mueller and staff
Full course (spring term). Section I: M. through F., at 10 and Tu., Th., at 11. Section II: M., W., F., at 12 and Tu., Th., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 3, 5, 12
A complete first-year course for non-requirement students. Provides a solid foundation in French for those with absolutely no prior knowledge of the language. Speaking, listening, reading, and writing are all emphasized, with class time devoted to oral expression. After French Bab, students should be able to engage in everyday conversation with native speakers, and read straightforward texts, both fiction and non-fiction, with relative ease.
Note: May not be used to fulfill the language requirement and may not be taken Pass/Fail or Sat/Unsat. Interested students should fill out the on-line request form on the French Bab website by the beginning of the fall term examination period.
Prerequisite: An advanced knowledge of at least one foreign language but no previous study of French.
French Ca. Intermediate French I
Catalog Number: 1810
Carole Bergin and staff
Half course (fall term). M. through Th., sections at 9, 10, 11, 12, or 1. EXAM GROUP: 10
A beginning intermediate course emphasizing listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and including a study of grammar. Students become familiar with contemporary France through videotapes, feature length films, and multimedia and are introduced to French literature through a variety of texts.
Note: Conducted in French. May not be taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Section on-line on the French Ca website.
Prerequisite: 500-599 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement Test; 3 years of French in high school; French A; or permission of course head.
French Cb. Intermediate French II: Voyage linguistique à travers la Francophonie
Catalog Number: 6343
Carole Bergin and staff
Half course (spring term). Three weekly meetings: Sections M., W., F., at 10, 11, 12, or 1.
In French Cb, students continue the study of grammar begun in French Ca. and further develop their communicative skills. Students are introduced to the concept of “la francophonie” as represented in literary texts and films from Quebec, the Caribbean, and Africa.
Note: Conducted in French. May not be audited or taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Section on-line on the French Cb website.
Prerequisite: 550-599 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test; French Ca; or permission of course head.
French 25. Comprehensive Intermediate French III, Language and Culture: L’Etre humain et son univers
Catalog Number: 8781
Marlies Mueller and staff
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Sections M., W., F., at 10, 12, or 1. EXAM GROUP: 3, 5, 6
Comprehensive review of French grammar and intensive vocabulary building combined with French literary and cinematographic masterpieces. Authors and filmmakers, whose reflections on enduring questions of human experience and the meaning of life are compared and contrasted, include Baudelaire, Camus, Kieslowski, Pagnol, Rimbaud, and Sartre. By the end of the term, students should be able to understand lectures in French and express their thoughts orally and in writing with confidence using correct French.
Note: Conducted in French. A grade of A- in French A or French Bab, a B in French Ca with language requirement completed, a B in French Cb; or 600 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test; or permission of course head. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. See details and section on-line on the French 25 website.
[French 27. Oral Expression I: Le Français parlé]
Catalog Number: 3060
---------- and staff
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Fall: M. through F., at 9 or 12. Spring: M. through F. at 9. EXAM GROUP: 2, 11
Emphasizing speech strategies, useful vocabulary, idiomatic expressions, and listening comprehension, this course helps students develop oral fluency while learning about contemporary France and Francophone countries. Films, music, news media, and Internet resources offer virtual linguistic and cultural immersion, and provide material for in-class discussions and special activities. After a term of French 27, students should feel comfortable speaking French and have confidence to handle any situation commonly encountered in a French-speaking environment.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in French. May not be used to fulfill the language requirement. May not be audited or taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. See details and section on-line on the French 27 website.
Prerequisite: A grade of A- or better in French A or Bab, or B in French Ca with language requirement completed; or B in French Cb; or 600-659 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test; or permission of course head.
French 31. Oral Expression II: La France à travers les médias
Catalog Number: 0490
Carole Bergin and staff
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Section I: Tu., Th., 10–11:30; Section II: Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 12, 13
Intended for those who have learned how to handle everyday situations in a French-speaking environment, French 31 prepares students for interacting on a more sophisticated level. Students will fine-tune their oral language skills through a more advanced study of pronunciation, grammar and discourse strategies, while discussing and debating topics of current interest as they are presented in the media, including the press, radio, television, cinema, and the Internet.
Note: Conducted in French. May not be audited or taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Students may take no more than two courses numbered in the 30s. See details and section on-line on the French 31 website.
Prerequisite: French 25 or 27; 660-689 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test; or permission of course head.
French 35. Upper-Level French I, Language and Culture: "La quête de soi et le rapport avec autrui”
Catalog Number: 1935
Marlies Mueller and staff
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Sections: M.,W., F., at 10, 11 or 12. EXAM GROUP: 3
Course in French language and culture designed to enhance facility in all language skills. Considers representations of self in literature and cinema. How does one arrive at knowledge of self, and what are the consequences of this knowledge for relationships with others? This question examined through authors and filmmakers such as Baudelaire, Camus, Duras, Hugo, Leconte, Rouan, Truffaut, Vercors. Complete grammar review, vocabulary building, emphasizing idiomatic subtleties and social etiquette in oral and written communication.
Note: Conducted in French. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Students may take no more than two courses numbered in the 30s. Section on-line on the French 35 website.
Prerequisite: French 25; 660 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test; or permission of course head.
French 36. Upper-Level French II, Language and Culture: Liberté et Conscience
Catalog Number: 6963
Marlies Mueller and staff
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., 10–11:30. EXAM GROUP: 12, 13
Advanced course in French language and literature structured to develop near-native fluency in written and oral expression. Examines the nature and consequences of freedom. How do power, knowledge, and freedom interrelate? Politics, philosophy, art, and literary imagination are considered in their relation to the creation and expansion of individual autonomy. Authors and film directors include Balzac, Beauvoir, Camus, Granier-Deferre, Maupassant, Nuytten, Ophuls, Renoir, Ribowska, and Yourcenar. Consolidating grammatical structures, vocabulary building, intensive stylistic exercises.
Note: Conducted in French. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Students may take no more than two courses numbered in the 30s. Section on-line on the French 36 website.
Prerequisite: French 25, 27, 31 or 35; 690 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test; or permission of course head.
French 37. Les régions de France: hier et aujourd’hui
Catalog Number: 7909
Marie-France Bunting and staff
Half course (fall term). Sections M., W., F., at 11 or 12. EXAM GROUP: 4, 5
A journey through various regions of France surveying the present and past identities of Bretagne, Alsace, Provence, Dordogne, and Périgord, through history, folklore, gastronomy, art, music, and regional literature. Resources for class discussions include current articles from the French press, historical, sociological and literary writings as well as films and video documents. Emphasis on oral communication. An advanced grammar review is offered along with practice in writing and vocabulary enrichment.
Note: Conducted in French. May not be taken Pass/Fail. Students may take no more than two courses numbered in the 30s.
Prerequisite: French 31, 35 or 36; 690 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test; or permission of course head.
French 42. Introduction au monde francophone
Catalog Number: 2581
Mylène Priam and staff
Half course (spring term). Section l: Tu., Th., 10-11:30; Section ll: Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 12, 13
Designed to introduce students to cultural issues expressed in the works of some leading Francophone writers and through art and films while helping them acquire greater skills and confidence in both oral and written expression. Discussions will focus on issues of identity, exile, tradition and modernity, rural/urban culture.
Note: Conducted in French. May not be taken Pass/Fail. Students may take no more than two courses numbered in the 40s.
Prerequisite: French 31, 35, 36, or 37; 720 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test; or permission of course head.
French 47b. La Société française à travers les âges
Catalog Number: 6222
Marie-France Bunting
Half course (fall term). Sections M., W., F., at 10 or 12. EXAM GROUP: 3, 5
Aims to improve all linguistic skills while providing an historical survey of France from the Middle Ages to the end of the 19th century. Discussion will focus on prominent figures, social archetypes and major events that contributed to the formation of a national identity. Readings from historical, literary and sociological sources, and films. Active use of the language in class and practice in writing will be emphasized.
Note: Conducted entirely in French. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Students may take no more than two courses numbered in the 40s.
Prerequisite: French 35, 36, 37, or 42; 750 on the SAT II or the Harvard placement test; or permission of course head.
French 48b. Contemporary French Society
Catalog Number: 8290
Marie-France Bunting and staff
Half course (spring term). Sections M., W., F., at 10 or 12. EXAM GROUP: 3
Designed to develop greater linguistic fluency while introducing students to major debates in French society today. Themes to be explored include: family, gender, the education system, urban problems and social stratification, immigration, and French politics. Students will participate in discussions based on readings from the French press as well as from sociological and literary sources. Films and video documents closely related to the course material will emphasize the social, cultural and human aspects.
Note: Conducted entirely in French. May not be taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Students may take no more than two courses numbered in the 40s.
Prerequisite: French 35, 36, 37, 42, 45, or 47b; 750 on the SAT II or the Harvard placement test; or permission of course head.
French 51. Writing Workshop: Atelier d’ecriture
Catalog Number: 0575 Enrollment: Limited to 15 per section.
Marie-France Bunting
Half course (fall term). M., W., 1–2:30; M., W., 1–2:30. EXAM GROUP: 6, 7
Aims to strengthen and develop competence in written expression. Using short stories, essays and sample texts drawn from history and philosophy, students learn to practice different styles in creative, argumentative, and analytical writings. Special emphasis is paid to stylistic variations, lexical nuances, and complex grammatical structures. In addition, each student presents several explications de texte (close reading of a text).
Note: Conducted in French. May not be taken Pass/Fail. Students may take no more than two courses numbered in the 50s.
Prerequisite: French 36, 37, 42, 47b, or 48b; 750 on the SAT II or the Harvard placement test; or permission of course head. Strongly recommended for concentrators and joint concentrators.
French 52. Advanced Oral Expression
Catalog Number: 2610
Marie-France Bunting
Half course (spring term). M., W., F., at 11 and 1. EXAM GROUP: 4
Designed for students interested in working with the specificity of oral French in order to improve their comprehension, fluency, syntactic accuracy, and pronunciation. The aim of the course is: to fine-tune listening comprehension; to develop linguistic skills in presenting oneself, expressing emotions, debating, negotiating, etc.; and to improve pronunciation. Authentic materials on video cassettes will be used as models. In addition to practical and corrective work, students will participate collectively in a theatrical production.
Note: Conducted in French. May not be taken Pass/Fail. Students may take no more than two courses numbered in the 50s.
Prerequisite: French 37, 42, 47b, or 48b; 750 on the SAT II or the Harvard placement test; or permission of course head. Recommended for concentrators and joint concentrators.
French 55 (formerly French 45). Le Français économique et commercial
Catalog Number: 7122
Carole Bergin and staff
Half course (spring term). Section I: Tu., Th., 10–11:30; Section II: Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 12, 13, 14
Designed for students working or traveling for business in French-speaking countries. Through audiovisual materials, the Internet, and the French press, students become familiar with the current business and economic climate in France and find out about practices, customs, and “intangibles” that make French businesses different from their American counterparts. Those enrolled may take the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry exams and obtain an official diploma attesting to their proficiency in French.
Note: Conducted in French. May not be audited or taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Students may take no more than two courses numbered in the 50s. See details and section on-line on the French 55 website.
Prerequisite: A placement score of 720 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test; or permission of course head.
French 70a. Introduction to French Literature I: From the Middle Ages to Modernity
Catalog Number: 2865
Alexia E. Duc
Half course (spring term). M., W., F., at 11. EXAM GROUP: 4
Readings and discussion of texts of various genres representative of central trends in French literature from the Middle Ages through the 18th century. Emphasis on developing analytical skills by tracing the transformations of ethical, literary, philosophical and social currents.
Note: Conducted in French.
Prerequisite: 720 on the SAT II test; the Harvard Placement test; equivalent preparation; or permission of course head.
French 70b. Introduction to French Literature II: Representations of Change From the Romantics to the Present
Catalog Number: 6720
Janet Beizer
Half course (fall term). Th. 1-3. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
Significant texts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries examined in the light of close reading and contemporary criticism.
Note: Conducted in French; third hour devoted to discussion of texts studied.
Prerequisite: 720 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test, equivalent preparation, or permission of course head.
French 70c. Introduction to French Literature III: The Francophone World
Catalog Number: 6432
Francis Abiola Irele
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 3. EXAM GROUP: 17
Studies short stories, poetry, film, and drama from Black Africa, Québec, Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guyana, Vietnam, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Madagascar, Djibouti, and La Réunion.
Note: Conducted in French.
Prerequisite: 720 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test, equivalent preparation, or permission of course head.
*French 91r. Supervised Reading and Research
Catalog Number: 3954
Marie-France Bunting and members of the Department
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Tutorial supervision of research on subjects not treated in regular courses.
*French 97. Tutorial—Sophomore Year: The Politics of Poetics: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Analysis
Catalog Number: 0173
Alice Jardine
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., at 10. EXAM GROUP: 12
An introduction to literary and cultural interpretation as it has evolved in French Studies since WWII. Our conversations will be structured around rigorous analysis of key literary works in relation to literary theory, semiotics, psychoanalysis, and politics.
Note: Required of concentrators in their sophomore year. Open to non-concentrators with permission of course head.
*French 98. Tutorial—Junior Year
Catalog Number: 0879
Marie-France Bunting and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Note: Successful completion of one term of French 98 is required of all honors concentrators.
*French 99. Tutorial—Senior Year
Catalog Number: 2836
Marie-France Bunting and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Full course. Hours to be arranged.
Note: For honors seniors writing a thesis. The first term may be counted as a half course only with the permission of the Undergraduate Adviser in French. Students who do not complete a thesis are required to submit a substantial paper in order to receive either half course or full course credit. To enroll, see Marie-France Bunting, Undergraduate Adviser.
French 111. Violence: Medieval French Responses - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 5324
Matilda T. Bruckner (Boston College)
Half course (fall term). Tu., 4–6. EXAM GROUP: 18
Explores the relationship between violence, culture, and human nature in a selection of texts (12th-13th c.). Problems include vendettas and the pursuit of justice, militant religion and social order in feudal society.
Note: Conducted in French.
[French 112. From the Troubadour to the “Grand Rhétoriqueur”: Lyric Poetry in Medieval France (12th to 15th Century) ]
Catalog Number: 5007
Virginie Greene
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Medieval poets created both new poetic forms and new figures of poets. Singers, writers, composers, lovers, dreamers, rhetoricians, moralists, and preachers: poets could be all of those. This course studies how their poetry grew from and elaborated upon the impulse “I have to sing” (chanter m’estuet) to become a highly self-conscious art of writing.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. Conducted in French.
French 115. Animals, Monsters and the Medieval Imagination - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 3742
Matilda T. Bruckner (Boston College)
Half course (spring term). Tu., 4–6. EXAM GROUP: 18
Explores how animals, real and imaginary, help define our identity between overlapping boundaries of the natural and the unnatural, the human and the nonhuman. Readings range widely across genres from fables to tales to romance.
Note: Conducted in French.
[French 118. French Poetry: Pleiade and Baroque]
Catalog Number: 1142
Tom Conley
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Takes up the impact of the Pléiade and the Lyon School on poetry in the Wars of Religion and their aftermath. Includes study of Scève, Marguerite de Navarre, Ronsard and his school, Jodelle, Desportes, D’Aubigné, Tyard, Sponde, Chassignet, Tristan l’Hermite, Malherbe and the early Corneille. Emphasis placed on the relation of lyric to space and nascent science.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. Conducted in French.
French 119. Renaissance Literature: Radically Pre-Modern - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 2160
Virginia Krause (Brown University)
Half course (fall term). Th., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 17, 18
An exploration of literature from this stormy period in French history, from the birth of Humanism to the Wars of Religion and the witch hunts. Close readings in cultural context. Topics include court culture, ethics, and the history of the book as well as Renaissance notions of Eros, the sacred, and the "human." Readings in Rabelais, Marot, Marguerite de Navarre, Ronsard, Hélisenne de Crenne, Louise Labé, and Montaigne, among others.
Note: Conducted in French.
[French 121. The Text of the Renaissance]
Catalog Number: 4006
Tom Conley
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Studies writing of the Renaissance in cultural and political context; includes readings of Rhétoriquers, Marot, Rabelais, arts poétiques, Ronsard, Pléiade and Baroque poetry, d‘Aubigné, and essays by Montaigne.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in French.
French 126. Literature and Humanism in the 17th Century I: The Courtier, the Hero and the Saint
Catalog Number: 6971
Alexia E. Duc
Half course (spring term). W., 2–3:30. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
An exploration of the relations between ethics and writing in the 17th century. The readings focus on three major figures of the period (the courtier, the hero, and the saint) in order to analyze the humanist legacy of the Renaissance in the times of absolutism and the relationships between literary genres and anthropology. Readings include: d’Urfé, Caussin, Sales, Charron, Corneille, Mairet, Cyrano de Bergerac, Retz, Molière.
Note: Conducted in French.
French 132a. 20th-Century French Fiction I: The Realist Mode
Catalog Number: 4382
Susan R. Suleiman
Half course (fall term). W., 4–6. EXAM GROUP: 9
How has realism been interpreted by its major modern practitioners in French? Is realism in fiction a style, a genre, an ideology, a way of seeing, a way of reading? What is the relation between realism and history, politics, sexual politics, and ethics? Discussions of works by Colette, Gide, Céline, Malraux, Sartre, Camus, Beauvoir, and others, as well as selected critical and theoretical essays.
Note: Conducted in French.
[French 132b. 20th-Century French Fiction II: The Experimental Mode]
Catalog Number: 1890
Susan R. Suleiman
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
What are some alternatives to (or subversions of) realism in fiction? We will examine four major experimental currents or movements in 20th-century imaginative writing: Surrealism, the nouveau roman, the Oulipo, and écriture féminine. Discussion of works by Breton, Bataille, Robbe-Grillet, Sarraute, Queneau, Perec, Duras, Wittig, Cixous, as well as selected critical essays.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. Conducted in French.
[French 136. Feminist Literary Criticisms]
Catalog Number: 3845
Alice Jardine
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Close readings of postwar French fiction and theory with emphasis on what is called “the feminine” in key psychoanalytic, philosophical, and literary writings of the French poststructuralist tradition. What has been the legacy of fifty years of dialogue between French postwar theory and feminist practice in the US? Writers considered include Cixous, Duras, Hyvrard, Irigaray, Kristeva, and Wittig as well as Deleuze, Derrida, and Lacan.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. Conducted in English.
Prerequisite: Excellent reading knowledge of French.
French 137. 20th-Century French Theater
Catalog Number: 4065
Susan R. Suleiman
Half course (spring term). M., 2–4:30. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8, 9
We explore the richness and variety of French theatrical writing and theory, starting with Jarry’s groundbreaking Ubu Roi (1896); special emphasis on experimental and avant-garde productions. Discussion of works by Jarry, Apollinaire, Artaud, Sartre, Beckett, Genet, Ionesco, Duras, Cixous, and others.
Note: Conducted in French.
[French 139a. The 18th Century: Self and Society]
Catalog Number: 3637
Christie McDonald
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
An exploration of how the relationship between self and other, society and utopia, inaugurates a discourse on change from the second half of the 18th century through the French Revolution: Marivaux, Rousseau, Diderot, d’Alembert, Voltaire, Sade, Gouges, Beaumarchais, Condorcet.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in French.
French 139b. The 18th Century: Ethical Dilemmas
Catalog Number: 2223
Christie McDonald
Half course (spring term). Tu., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
Questions how notions of personhood and otherness inhabit the emergent novel, exploring the way in which events and values are resisted or subsumed in literary discourse and the kind of social and political responsibility that accompanies it. Readings will be taken from the works of Charrière, Gouges, Laclos, Marivaux, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Sade, Voltaire, etc.
Note: Conducted in French.
French 156. Houses of Fiction: Zola - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 7443
Janet Beizer
Half course (fall term). W., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 6, 7
Zola’s novels, closely tied to the private sphere, focus on physical and psychological enclosures. These inner realms include not only the home, but also such competing spaces as houses of prostitution, commercial houses, houses of worship, prison houses, poorhouses, and madhouses - houses that potentially subvert the sanctity of bourgeois home and hearth even while miming their form. Reading Zola, we’ll probe connections between the naturalist novel and the social and aesthetic production of domestic space.
Note: Conducted in French.
[French 161. Rereading Realism]
Catalog Number: 1729
Janet Beizer
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Is Realism real? Is Naturalism natural? As we read Realist and Naturalist texts, we will consider how ideological and aesthetic conventions of the “real” and the “natural” interacted with literary movements of the second half of the nineteenth century, focusing particularly on texts that represent representation. Readings will include Balzac, Flaubert, Huysmans, Zola, and Rachilde.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. Conducted in French.
French 165. Marcel Proust
Catalog Number: 4620
Christie McDonald
Half course (spring term). Th., 4–6. EXAM GROUP: 18
In Proust’s novel, A la recherche du temps perdu, questions of time and memory, truth and signification, literature and philosophy converge to ask: who am I? What does it mean to become a writer? Discussion of Proust’s novels and essays, as well as a number of critical texts.
Note: Conducted in French.
French 167. Parisian Cityscapes
Catalog Number: 7641
Verena A. Conley
Half course (fall term). M., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
Examines the rapid urbanization of Paris from World War II to the present by means of fiction, films and critical essays. Investigates how the Americanization of France, decolonization, immigration, globalization and the European Union continue to restructure the city with repercussions on its social, political, and artistic life (Allouache, Augé, Balibar, Beauvoir, Beyala, Godard, Kassovitz, Maspero, Latour, Ross, and others).
Note: Conducted in French.
French 175. Julia Kristeva: Can Literature Still Change the World?
Catalog Number: 7207
Alice Jardine
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., at 10. EXAM GROUP: 12
A textual and political introduction to one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century as well as an attempt to draw some conclusions about the promises of her work for the future. Designed for both undergraduates and graduate students looking to understand and evaluate the import of art and literature on the world stage. Special attention will be paid to the question of gender and women in Kristeva’s writings.
Prerequisite: Excellent reading knowledge of French.
French 185. National Identity and Narrative Representation in 20th-Century Francophone Literature - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 5070
Mylène Priam
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 13, 14
Through works of prominent Francophone authors from various origins who discuss their own comprehension - fictionalized, poetic or autobiographic - of being French and/or African, Cuban, Eastern European, etc., we explore the plural foundations of contemporary France and the question of French cultural, national or social identity to examine, question, deconstruct issues namely of territoriality, boundaries, nomadism, exile, ethnicity, citizenship, notions of Republic, national or continental sentiment.
Note: Conducted in French.
French 187. The Contemporary Antillean Novel in French - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 7775
Mylène Priam
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 13, 14
Looks at some of the major texts that played a critical role in building and developing the Antillean literary landscape. The Caribbean geography, mutation of the milieu, notions of memory and history are some of the aspects that will be observed. Selected novels and critical essays from Haiti, Martinique and Guadeloupe.
Note: Conducted in French.
[French 190. Albert Camus]
Catalog Number: 7510
Stanley Hoffmann
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
A study of Camus’s writings as a journalist, playwright, novelist and political thinker, and of the controversies in which he was involved (the fate of Algeria, the occupation and liberation of France, the relations with Catholics, Camus’s anticommunism, the Camus-Sartre clash). The tension between his art and his commitments, as well as his influence during and after his life will be examined.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in French.
French 195 (formerly French 277). The African and Caribbean Novel in French: Comparative Perspectives
Catalog Number: 5245
Francis Abiola Irele
Half course (fall term). M., 4–6. EXAM GROUP: 9
Examines a representative selection of novels by Francophone African and Caribbean novelists, and evaluates the development of the narrative genre that has arisen from the double heritage of the oral tradition and the literate conventions of the West.
Note: Conducted in French.
Prerequisite: Solid reading knowledge of French.
French 220. Writing and Memory in the French Wars of Religion - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 2666
David P. LaGuardia (Dartmouth College)
Half course (spring term). F., 1–3:30. EXAM GROUP: 6, 7, 8
These late sixteenth-century wars devastated France, bankrupting the nobility, and killed thousands, nevertheless provoking a wealth of memorial, propagandistic, poetic, essayistic, and polemical writing, influenced by revolutionary practices of printing, publishing, and bookselling.
Note: Open to qualified undergraduates. Conducted in French.
[French 238. Failure and Change: Rereading Enlightenment]
Catalog Number: 2066
Christie McDonald
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Analysis of crossover between discourses: religious, political, social, philosophical, and literary. Topics include authority, freedom, equality, sentiment, reason, libertinism, fanaticism, and tolerance. 18th-century readings: Kant, Rousseau, Sade, Voltaire, etc.; 20th-century European and American debates about Enlightenment.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in French.
French 242. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 8898
Christie McDonald and Stanley Hoffmann
Half course (fall term). Th., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
A broad sweep of Rousseau’s anthropological, literary, social and political, as well as the autobiographical works. Discussion focused on key themes such as the relation between sentiment and reason, nature and culture, independence and dependence. Readings include the Discours, the Contrat social, Emile, Nouvelle Héloise, and Les Confessions.
Note: The language of class discussion will be determined.
Prerequisite: An excellent reading knowledge of French.
[French 255. Metamorphoses of the Vampire]
Catalog Number: 3630
Janet Beizer
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
The vampire myth came of age with literary modernism and shares with it an identity in displacement, fragmentation, and fluidity. Texts may include Baudelaire, Nodier, Balzac, Gautier, Maupassant, Rachilde, Stoker, Coppola, and theory.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. Conducted in French or English.
French 256. Sand, Colette, and the Mothers of Invention
Catalog Number: 3546
Janet Beizer
Half course (spring term). Th., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
Women writing often seek legitimation through literary foremothers such as George Sand and Colette. We will explore the maternal imaginary as it plays out in novels and memoirs by Sand, Colette, and their critics.
Note: Conducted in French or English, to be determined by class composition. Readings in French.
[French 259. The Culture of Hysteria in Nineteenth-Century France ]
Catalog Number: 3349
Janet Beizer
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Reading medical and literary narratives of hysteria, we will ask why the disease flourished in this time and place, tracing hysteria as symptom of a cultural malaise. Readings in canonical and popular novels, medical encyclopedias and treatises.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. Conducted in French or English, to be determined by class composition. Readings in French.
French 264. France in the World: Cultural Production, Transmission and Dialogue - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 5402
Susan R. Suleiman and Christie McDonald
Half course (fall term). Tu., 1–3; W., 7–10 p.m. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
Works by French writers and artists who staged "encounters with the Other," and by non-French ones who have adopted French/France as their artistic home. Montesquieu, Diderot, de Stael, Chateaubriand, Leiris, Lévi-Strauss, Makine, Némirovsky, Semprun and others.
Note: Conducted in French or English, to be decided.
French 274. Hybridization, Intertextuality and Metissage in Literatures from Mauritius, La Reunion & the Caribbean - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 6398
Mylène Priam
Half course (fall term). Th., 3–6. EXAM GROUP: 17, 18
Explores novels, concepts, theories (Créolization, Divers, etc) that challenge any stable notion of identity and help to problematize the definition of postcolonial literatures in French. Works by Glissant, Chamoiseau, Maximin, Condé, Rakotoson, Segalen, Foucault, etc.
Note: Conducted in French.
[French 285r. French Literature: Seminar]
Catalog Number: 7479
Tom Conley
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Topic for 2009-10: Montaigne.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. Conducted in French. Open to qualified undergraduate students.
*French 330. Direction of Doctoral Dissertations
Catalog Number: 7843
Janet Beizer 3957, Tom Conley 1908 (on leave 2007-08 ), Verena A. Conley 2250, Alexia E. Duc 3801, Virginie Greene 1007 (on leave 2007-08), Francis Abiola Irele 4354, Alice Jardine 7457, Christie McDonald 1160, Mylène Priam 5302, and Susan R. Suleiman 7234
Italian Ax. Reading Italian
Catalog Number: 4015
Elvira G. DiFabio and staff
Half course (spring term). M., Th., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 8, 9, 17, 18
For students (both undergraduate and graduate) with little or no knowledge of Italian. Aims at the rapid development of reading skills as a tool for research. Selections of materials in accordance with the needs of the participants.
Note: Not open to auditors. May not be used to fulfill the language requirement. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Section on-line on the Italian Ax website.
*Italian Bab. Intensive Beginning Italian: Special Course
Catalog Number: 3065 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Chiara Frenquellucci and staff (fall term); Elvira G. DiFabio and staff (spring term)
Full course (fall term; repeated spring term). Section I: M. through F., at 10 and Tu.,Th., at 11; Section II : meets M., W., F., at 12 and Tu.,Th., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 3, 12
A complete first-year course in one term for students with no knowledge of Italian. Speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills are all emphasized with class time focused on developing oral/aural skills. Selected readings from 20th-century authors.
Note: May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Students who have not placed out of the language requirement must take one full year of a language. Italian Bab or Dab taken alone may not be used to fulfill the language requirement. However, there are ways to combine Bab or Dab with another course in order to fulfill the language requirement. Consult Elvira Di Fabio, Undergraduate Adviser for details.Conducted in Italian. Section on-line on the Italian Bab website.
Prerequisite: An advanced knowledge of at least one foreign language, preferably a modern Romance language, but no previous study of Italian.
Italian Ca. Intermediate Italian I: L’italiano in giallo, rosa e nero
Catalog Number: 3217
Chiara Frenquellucci and staff
Half course (fall term). Section I: M., W., F., at 12 and W., at 2; Section II: M., W., F., at 1 and W., at 3. EXAM GROUP: 5
Refines and expands knowledge of structures and vocabulary that students have acquired in beginning Italian, highlighting the functions of describing and comparing, making recommendations and talking about the past. Students are introduced to contemporary Italian culture through readings that include a mystery (un giallo), a romance (un rosa), and a gothic tale (un nero).
Note: Conducted in Italian. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Section on-line on the Italian Ca website.
Prerequisite: Italian A or Bab, or 450-599 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test, or permission of course head.
Italian Cb. Intermediate Italian II: Raccontiamo storie!
Catalog Number: 6805
Chiara Frenquellucci and staff
Half course (spring term). Section I: M., W., F., at 12 and W., at 2; Section II: M., W., F., at 1 and W., at 3. EXAM GROUP: 5, 6
A logical continuation of Italian Ca, with a grammar review highlighting the functions of talking about tastes, making hypotheses, and talking about the future. Content includes Calvino folktales and Collodi’s Pinocchio. Sophisticated written/oral communication through regular writing assignments, and a special project at the end of the term, normally the staging of a class rendition of Pinocchio.
Note: Conducted in Italian. Open to students whose placement score indicates a more advanced course, or as a continuation of Italian Ca. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Section on-line on the Italian Cb website.
*Italian Dab. Italian through Documentaries
Catalog Number: 7258 Enrollment: Limited to 15.
Chiara Frenquellucci and staff
Full course (fall term; repeated spring term). M., W., F., at 12, Tu., Th., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: Fall: 5; Spring: 5, 15, 16
A complete second-year course in one term for students with a basic knowledge of Italian. Speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills emphasized through the principal functions of communication. Focus on further developing oral/aural skills through viewing and creating documentaries about Italians and Italian Americans in the Boston area. Assignments include workbook exercises to refine the use of complex grammatical structures, weekly blog entries on each group’s work in progress, and an end-of-term collaborative film project.
Note: May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Students who have not placed out of the language requirement must take one full year of a language. Italian Bab or Dab taken alone may not be used to fulfill the language requirement. However, there are ways to combine Bab or Dab with another course in order to fulfill the language requirement. Consult Elvira Di Fabio, Undergraduate Adviser for details. Conducted in Italian. Section on-line on the Italian Dab website.
Prerequisite: Italian A or Bab, 450-599 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test, or permission of course head.
Italian 33. Oral Expression: La musica dell’italiano
Catalog Number: 6463
Elvira G. DiFabio and staff
Half course (fall term). M., W., F., at 11. EXAM GROUP: 4
An oral expression course based on Italian Opera, Italian 33 is intended for students with an advanced-intermediate knowledge of Italian but does not require prior knowledge of either music or opera. Content focuses on both the cultural and the linguistic elements of the "musical voice" of Italians as expressed by Rossini, Verdi, Donizetti, Puccini, Leoncavallo, and others.
Note: Conducted in Italian. Monthly screenings to be arranged. May not be taken for credit by students who have passed Italian 35. Section on-line on the Italian 33 website.
Prerequisite: Italian Cb, 600 or above on the SAT II or Harvard Placement test, or permission of course head.
Italian 35. Upper-Level Italian I: Parliamo dell’Italia
Catalog Number: 2659
Elvira G. DiFabio and staff
Half course (fall term). M., W., F., at 12. EXAM GROUP: 5
Insights into Italian society and culture, especially through Italian newspaper and magazine articles, feature films, and videotapes. For students with a solid grasp of the fundamentals of Italian grammar. Aims at improving command of the language both in speaking and writing, combined with reading strategies. Practice consists of discussions, exercises in diction, and written reports.
Note: Conducted in Italian. May not be taken for credit by students who have passed Italian 33. Section on-line on the Italian 35 website.
Prerequisite: Italian Cb, 630 or above on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test, or permission of course head.
Italian 36. Upper-Level Italian II: La cultura della lingua
Catalog Number: 5223
Elvira G. DiFabio and staff
Half course (spring term). M., W., F., at 12. EXAM GROUP: 5
Aims at advancing students’ proficiency in speaking, reading and writing through vocabulary development and extension of control of higher-level syntactical patterns. Students read two complete novels and selections from two others, and view feature films on which they are based, all related to twentieth-century Italian society. Practice through class presentations, compositions, and discussions.
Note: Conducted in Italian. Section on-line on the Italian 36 website.
Prerequisite: Italian 35 or permission of course head.
Italian 40. Advanced Oral Expression: Teatro dal vivo
Catalog Number: 0804 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Chiara Frenquellucci and staff
Half course (spring term). M., Th., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 8, 9, 17, 18
Reading, analyzing and enacting plays by Carlo Goldoni, Eduardo De Filippo, Carmelo Bene and Nobel Prize-winners Luigi Pirandello and Dario Fo. Student preparation culminates in the production of a theatrical work at the end of the term.
Note: Conducted in Italian. Open to graduate students with permission of course head. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Section on-line on the Italian 40 website.
Prerequisite: Italian 33 or higher, or permission of course head.
Italian 44. Advanced Italian: Effetto Commedia: What Makes Italians Laugh?
Catalog Number: 5776
Elvira G. DiFabio and staff
Half course (fall term). M., Th., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 8, 9, 17, 18
Comedy Italian-style in cinema (from Totò to Benigni) and its origins. Presents students with another dimension of Italian culture, while perfecting their language skills. Problems in composition addressed through short weekly assignments; grammar review in context. Weekly video screenings.
Note: Conducted in Italian. Open to graduate students with permission of course head. Section on-line on the Italian 44 website.
Prerequisite: Italian 35 or higher, or permission of course head. Appropriate for concentrators electing the Italian Studies track.
[Italian 48. Advanced Italian: Voices from Italy: Issues of Identity]
Catalog Number: 0178
Elvira G. DiFabio
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 13, 14
An exploration of various identities of Italy, including that of non–Italians in contemporary Italy and Italians living abroad. Students will investigate these issues from a wide variety of sources, including literary, historical and sociological texts, news reports and feature films. Frequent oral and written assignments. Grammar reviewed in context, with particular emphasis on the functions of describing, summarizing and expressing an opinion.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in Italian. Open to graduate students with permission of course head. Section on-line on the Italian 48 website.
Prerequisite: Italian 35 or higher, or permission of course head. Appropriate for concentrators selecting the Italian Studies track.
[Italian 50. Literary Translation]
Catalog Number: 5676
Elvira G. DiFabio and staff
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Translation from English to Italian, and occasionally from Italian to English, using sample texts from literature, history, and philosophy, as well as texts being considered for publication. Discussion of a variety of styles, literary devices, semantic and cultural distinctions, and structural differences, along with testimony from a number of authors, including Pavese, Eco and Venuti.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in Italian. Open to graduate students with permission of course head. Section on-line on the Italian 50 website.
Prerequisite: Italian 44 or higher or permission of course head.
*Italian 60. Italian and the Community
Catalog Number: 4014 Enrollment: Limited to 12.
Elvira G. DiFabio and staff
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). M., at 3, Th., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 8, 17, 18
An advanced language course examining the Italian experience in the US. Promotes community engagement as a vehicle for greater linguistic fluency and cultural understanding. Students will be placed with Boston-area public schools as teaching assistants or aides. Class work focuses on community service through language; texts and articles on language pedagogy, including national/European standards and advanced placement; development of activities using archives the Italian public broadcast network, for application in the classroom.
Note: Section online at the Italian 60 web site.
Prerequisite: Italian 36, 40 or above, a score of 750 on the Harvard Placement Test, or permission of course head.
Italian 83. Italian Popular Culture from ’60 to ’06 - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 4259
Giuliana Minghelli
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., 1–2:30. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
Introduction to Italian popular culture through songs, TV shows, comics, popular films and fiction. Texts will be read against the socio-historical context of the early sixties "miracolo economico," the political upheaval of the late sixties and seventies, the "riflusso" of the eighties, the political "glasnost" of the nineties and up to contemporary times. We will discover and analyze competing inscriptions of "Italianness" and the ongoing creation of their meaning over the past half-century.
Note: Conducted in Italian.
*Italian 91r. Supervised Reading and Research
Catalog Number: 2287
Elvira G. DiFabio and staff
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Tutorial supervision of research on subjects not treated in regular courses.
*Italian 97. Tutorial—Sophomore Year
Catalog Number: 1795
Elvira G. DiFabio and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Note: Conducted in Italian. Successful completion of one term of Italian 97 is required of concentrators.
*Italian 98. Tutorial—Junior Year
Catalog Number: 1167
Elvira G. DiFabio and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Note: Successful completion of one term of Italian 98 is required of all honors concentrators.
*Italian 99. Tutorial — Senior Year
Catalog Number: 7840
Elvira G. DiFabio and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Full course. Hours to be arranged.
Note: Successful completion of one term of Italian 99 is required of all honors concentrators.
[Italian 123. Semantics of Desire: Love in Dante’s Poetry]
Catalog Number: 8912
Lino Pertile
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Examines Dante’s discourse on love, earthly and heavenly, in the context of the literature and culture of his times. In addition to a selection from Dante’s Comedy, texts will include Book 4 of Virgil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Ars amatoria and Andreas Cappellanus’ De amore, Saint Bernard’s commentary on the Song of Songs, Guinizzelli’s and Cavalcanti’s Rime and Iacopone da Todi’s Laude.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in Italian.
Prerequisite: Reading knowledge of Italian.
Italian 128. The Fantastic from Dante to Calvino and Beyond - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 3468
Giuliana Minghelli
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., 10–11:30. EXAM GROUP: 12, 13
Starting with Dante’s descent to hell on the back of Gerione and with Ariosto’s ascent to the moon on the hippogryph, explores the notion of the fantastic and the marvelous in Italian literature. The Gothic short story, the uncanny worlds of Buzzati and Landolfi, Calvino’s postmodern knights, and Benni’s science fiction show how fantastic literature defamiliarizes and questions the "laws" of verisimilitude, mapping new territories between utopia and dystopia, suspended at the border of the unconscious.
Note: Conducted in English.
[Italian 140. The Human Comedy: the novella from its origins to the Renaissance]
Catalog Number: 4689
Lino Pertile
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
The tradition of the Italian novella, or short story in prose, from its inception in the anonymous Novellino to its maturity in Boccaccio’s Decameron and the works of other major storytellers from Sacchetti to Bandello. Selected tales will be studied for their artistic quality, and as a mirror of the varied life of Italian society between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. Conducted in English or Italian.
[Italian 141. Renaissance Epic]
Catalog Number: 5328
Francesco Erspamer
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
The literary masterpieces of the golden century of Italian civilization were two narrative poems, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso and Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, both celebrating the chivalric spirit of a bygone era. The course analyzes their relation with the epic tradition and their significance in the making of the modern conception of the world.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. Conducted in English.
Italian 164. I Promessi Sposi - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 8087
Sergio Zatti (University of Pisa) and Luis Fernández-Cifuentes
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 13, 14
I Promessi Sposi will be considered in the context of the realistic narrative of modern Europe and analyzed as a historical novel that gives special stress to some peculiar features of Italian history and anthropology: family, political power, religion both as faith and as institution, democratic culture and authoritarian tendencies.
Note: Conducted in Italian.
Italian 173. Apocalypse and Other Ends. From the Fin-de-siècle to the End of the Millennium - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 1095
Maria Grazia Lolla
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 13, 14
A course about apocalyptic literature in Italy including novels, short stories, essays, films and comic books. The course will focus on the changing significance of apocalypse throughout the centuries; fin-de-siecle anxieties and hopes; the expectation and the experience of the war; the relationship between the economic boom of the sixties, the advent of mass culture and the representation of the end of the world as "we" know it.
Note: Conducted in English.
Prerequisite: A reading knowledge of Italian.
Italian 176. Italian Modernism - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 3800
Giuliana Minghelli
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., 10–11:30. EXAM GROUP: 12, 13
In what sense can we speak of an Italian Modernism? This course will examine the Italian contribution to the Modernist project by analyzing key issues in reference to disruptive texts: the crisis of the naturalist aesthetic in D’Annunzio’s fiction and Pirandello’s drama; the various embodiments of the "diseased" subject of Modernism vis-à-vis the rise of Fascism.
Note: Conducted in Italian.
Italian 177. The Culture of Italian Emigration - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 4923
Teresa Fiore
Half course (fall term). Tu., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 17, 18
The exploration of the emigration experience through literature and film by Italian and Italian American authors of the 19th- and 20th-centuries will be the ground to address questions of national identity, regional affiliations, ethnic belonging, and gender formations. Reading list includes, among others, works by Di Donato, Fante, and Scorsese as well as Pascoli, Sciascia, Messina, and Amelio.
Note: Conducted in English or Italian, depending on the students’ knowledge of Italian.
[Italian 178. Contemporary Italy: Identities, Society, Cultures]
Catalog Number: 3111
Francesco Erspamer
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
A survey and a discussion of how Italy has changed since World War II and particularly in the last fifteen years from a poor, agricultural country of emigrants to an opulent, industrialized and multiethnic society, and a key player within the European Union. The course surveys recent Italian history and analyzes Italian politics, economy, institutions and culture.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in English.
[Italian 230. Petrarca and the Divided Self]
Catalog Number: 5548
Lino Pertile
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Petrarch’s vernacular poetry in cultural context of Trecento Italy. Particular reference to Dante and the dolce stil nuovo. Stylistic and linguistic features of Petrarch’s Rime analyzed in depth while philosophical aspects are related to Petrarch’s Latin works, especially the Secretum.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in Italian.
Italian 237. Autobiography in 18th- and 19th-Century Italy - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 5333
Sergio Zatti (University of Pisa) and Luis Fernández-Cifuentes
Half course (spring term). M., 1:30–4. EXAM GROUP: 6, 7, 8
Notions of autobiography since Jean-Jacques Rousseau as a perspective onto eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century autobiographies (Vittorio Alfieri, Carlo Goldoni, Giambattista Vico and selections from Giacomo Leopardi’s Zibaldone).
Note: Conducted in Italian.
[Italian 250. Decadent Italy]
Catalog Number: 1235
Francesco Erspamer
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Readings in turn-of-the-century Italian literature, from the scapigliati, Verga, and D’Annunzio, to Fogazzaro, Grazia Deledda, and Pirandello. This course analyzes the complex process of self-fashioning and modernization that Italy went through between its unification and the advent of fascism.
Note: Expected to be given in 2009–10. Conducted in Italian.
[Italian 260. Up to Speed: Italian Fiction and Cinema, 1990–2005]
Catalog Number: 1335
Francesco Erspamer
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
The transformation of Italian society and culture through the narratives of the best Italian novelists and directors of today.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in Italian.
Italian 262. Time: Rhetoric and Ideology of a Cultural Concept
Catalog Number: 3847
Francesco Erspamer
Half course (fall term). W., 2:30–5. EXAM GROUP: 8, 9
Studies the development of the idea of Time in modern thought, with examples mostly taken from Italian literature. Readings include Galileo, Vico, Leopardi, Pirandello and the Futurists, Carlo Levi, Tomasi da Lampedusa, Calvino.
Note: Conducted in Italian.
[Italian 288r. Italian Literature Seminar]
Catalog Number: 0613
Lino Pertile
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Topic for 2008-09: Pavese
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in Italian.
*Italian 330. Direction of Doctoral Dissertations
Catalog Number: 3679
Francesco Erspamer 5074, Franco Fido 2446, and Lino Pertile 3416 (on leave 2007-08)
Latin American Studies 98. Tutorial—Junior Year
Catalog Number: 1224
Mariano Siskind and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Note: Successful completion of one term of Latin American Studies 98 is required of all honors concentrators in their junior year.
Latin American Studies 99. Tutorial—Senior Year
Catalog Number: 7959
Mariano Siskind and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Weekly individual instruction for honors seniors writing a thesis.
Note: Successful completion of one term of Latin American Studies 99 is required of all honors concentrators. To enroll, see the Undergraduate Adviser in Latin American Studies.
Portuguese Ac. Beginning Portuguese for Spanish Speakers
Catalog Number: 0430
Clémence Joüet-Pastré and staff
Half course (fall term). M., W., F., at 12 or 1. EXAM GROUP: 5, 6
An introductory language course designed for Spanish-English bilinguals. Along with the fundamental communication skills—understanding, speaking, reading and writing—the course will focus on those features of Portuguese which are most difficult for Spanish speakers: pronunciation, idioms and grammatical structures particular to Portuguese. Students will be introduced to the cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world through readings and authentic materials, including films, music, and videotapes.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Open to Spanish-English bilinguals. Not open to auditors. Section on-line on the Portuguese Ac website.
Prerequisite: 750 on the Spanish SAT II or the Harvard Placement test; 5 on the Spanish AP test; or a 40s level Spanish course.
Portuguese Ad. Beginning Portuguese for Spanish Speakers
Catalog Number: 1315
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and staff
Half course (spring term). M., W., F., at 12 or 1. EXAM GROUP: 5
A continuation of Portuguese Ac. By the end of the second term, students should be able to communicate easily with native speakers and be acquainted with basic elements of Luso-Brazilian culture.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Not open to auditors. Section on-line on the Portuguese Ad website.
Prerequisite: Portuguese Ac.
Portuguese Ba. Introduction to Portuguese
Catalog Number: 0514
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and staff
Half course (spring term). Section I: M., W., 3–5; Section II: Tu., Th., 3–5; Section lll: T., Th., 5-7pm. EXAM GROUP: 8, 9
A basic introductory course for students who can devote only one term to the study of Portuguese. Teaches fundamental communication skills—understanding, speaking, reading and writing—but does not offer a complete study of grammar.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese. May not be taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Not open to auditors. Section on-line on the Portuguese Ba website.
Portuguese Ca. Intermediate Portuguese I
Catalog Number: 7692
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and staff
Half course (fall term). Section 1: M., W., 2–3:30; Section II: Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
A beginning intermediate course for students interested in expanding and strengthening their basic Portuguese linguistic skills. Reading, writing, and conversational competency is emphasized through the study of the Luso-African-Brazilian cultures. The course aims to promote cross-cultural understanding through the use of authentic materials such as literary texts, multimedia, film, music, and videotapes.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese. Recommended for students who wish to improve their ability to speak and write Portuguese. May not be taken Pass/Fail. Section on-line on the Portuguese Ca website.
Prerequisite: Portuguese A or permission of course head.
Portuguese Cb. Intermediate Portuguese II
Catalog Number: 2799
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and staff
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 13, 14
Aims to further develop the four communicative skills while expanding students’ background knowledge of the history and cultures of the Portuguese-speaking world. Portuguese Cb covers the important grammar points not studied in Portuguese Ca.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese. May not be taken Pass/Fail. Section on-line on the Portuguese Cb website.
Prerequisite: Portuguese Ca or permission of course head.
Portuguese 37. Brasil hoje: Contemporary Brazilian Culture through Media
Catalog Number: 5024
Clémence Jouët-Pastré
Half course (fall term). Section l: M., W., 2:30–4; Section ll: Tu., Th., 11:30–1. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
Students engage in systematic grammar review, along with practice in writing and vocabulary enrichment, while examining contemporary Brazil as presented in the Portuguese-language press, television, literature, and film. They analyze the ways Brazilians and non-Brazilians construct different and conflicting images of Brazil and “Brazilness.” Issues of race relations, national identity, ethnicity, and gender addressed. Discussions based on historical and literary tests, advertisements, films, videotapes of Brazilian television, and current issues of newspapers and magazines.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese. May not be taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students.
Prerequisite: Portuguese Ca/Cb or permission of course head.
Portuguese 44 (formerly Portuguese 38). Images of Brazil: Contemporary Brazilian Cinema
Catalog Number: 8893
Clémence Jouët-Pastré
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., 2:30–4. EXAM GROUP: 16, 17
Examines major Brazilian films in their historical, political, and social context. Class discussion also focuses on documentaries, reviews, and critical articles. In-depth textual and grammatical analysis, vocabulary building, reflections on the similarities and differences of the oral and written Portuguese will lead students to achieve a high level of competency.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese. May not be taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Section on-line on the Portuguese 44 website.
Prerequisite: Portuguese Ca/Cb or permission of course head.
Portuguese 60 (formerly Portuguese 40). Portuguese and the Community
Catalog Number: 3322
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and staff.
Half course (spring term). Tu., Th., 11:30–1 plus four hours of activity-based learning per week. EXAM GROUP: 13, 14
An advanced language course examining the Luso-African-Brazilian experience in the US. Promotes community engagement as a vehicle for greater linguistic fluency and cultural understanding. Students will be placed with Boston-area community organizations and agencies. Class work focuses on readings and films by and about Luis-African-Brazilians and specific uses of Portuguese language from these communities. Authors include D. Macedo, Braga Martes, Margolis, Sales, Albues, and Villas Boas.
Note: Section on-line on the Portuguese 60 website.
Prerequisite: Portuguese 37, 38 or a score of 100 on the Harvard Placement Test.
*Portuguese 91r. Supervised Reading and Research
Catalog Number: 5589
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Advanced reading in topics not covered in regular courses.
Note: Limited to juniors and seniors.
*Portuguese 97. Tutorial — Sophomore Year
Catalog Number: 5769
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (spring term). M., W., 2–3:30. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
Successful completion of one term of Portuguese 97 is required of all concentrators in their sophomore year.
*Portuguese 98. Tutorial — Junior Year
Catalog Number: 8667
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Successful completion of one term of Portuguese 98r is required of all honors concentrators. To enroll see course head.
*Portuguese 99. Tutorial — Senior Year
Catalog Number: 8753
Clémence Jouët-Pastré and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Full course. Hours to be arranged.
For honors seniors writing a thesis. Successful completion of one term of Portuguese 99 is required of all honors concentrators. To enroll, see course head.
[Portuguese 119 (formerly Portuguese 219br). Major Poems of the Portuguese Language II]
Catalog Number: 3242
Joaquim-Francisco Coelho
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
A continuation of Portuguese 118.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in Portuguese.
Portuguese 122a. Introduction to the Literature of Portugal I
Catalog Number: 2943
Joaquim-Francisco Coelho
Half course (fall term). M., 3–5. EXAM GROUP: 8, 9
The main currents of Portuguese literature. Emphasis on major authors, literary schools, and socio-aesthetic ideas from Gil Vicente and Camões to Eça de Queiroz, Fernando Pessoa, Jorge de Sena and José Saramago. Aims to teach students to read Portuguese texts and to think and write about them in a broad Western European context.
Prerequisite: Excellent reading knowledge of Portuguese.
[Portuguese 141. The Short Stories of Machado de Assis ]
Catalog Number: 8700
Joaquim-Francisco Coelho
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Analyzes Machado’s short stories in chronological order of composition, emphasizing their social content, the idiosyncratic behavior of their characters, and the author’s use of language to convey the ambiguities of human nature.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in Portuguese and English.
[Portuguese 150. Seminal Sounds, Images and Words in Brazilian Culture]
Catalog Number: 0596
Nicolau Sevcenko (Universidade de São Paulo)
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
Underscores some of the moments, works and artists which contributed to fundamental changes in Brazilian culture, either in the aesthetic, ethic or cognitive senses. Throughout the course, local culture will always be considered in relationship with its European, Latin American and North American counterparts.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in Portuguese.
Portuguese 155. Performing Arts, Literature and Culture in Modern Brazil
Catalog Number: 3301
Nicolau Sevcenko (Universidade de São Paulo)
Half course (spring term). Tu., 1–3. EXAM GROUP: 15, 16
One of the main features of Brazilian culture is the way by which all forms of artistic creation tend to converge and coalesce into organic units, more often than not centered on music and dance. This course will try to explore and understand the driving forces behind this multi-artistic instinct.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese.
Portuguese 227. Fernando Pessoa
Catalog Number: 7375
Joaquim-Francisco Coelho
Half course (spring term). M., 2–4. EXAM GROUP: 7, 8
Study of the works of Portugal’s most distinguished literary figure of the 20th century as poet, critic, and prose writer, as well as his relation to the corpus of Portuguese literature.
Note: Conducted in Portuguese and English.
[Portuguese 251. Culture in Turmoil: Brazil in the 60s and 70s]
Catalog Number: 7461
Nicolau Sevcenko (Universidade de São Paulo)
Half course (fall term). Hours to be arranged.
A discussion of some of the most creative and exciting trends in modern Brazilian culture that arose in resistance to military dictatorship: Tropicalismo, Concretismo and Neo-Concretismo, MPB, Cinema Novo, Teatro de Arena and Literatura Marginal.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in Portuguese.
Portuguese 266. Urban Explosion: City and Culture in Rio and Sao Paulo
Catalog Number: 8916
Nicolau Sevcenko (Universidade de São Paulo)
Half course (spring term). Th., 5–7 p.m. EXAM GROUP: 18
Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, energetic centers of cultural creativity in modern Brazil, also experienced exponential urban growth, laying groundwork for extreme social tension, political unrest and widespread violence. Can culture play a role to curb urban malaise?
Note: Conducted in Portuguese.
*Portuguese 321. Literature of Brazil: Supervised Reading and Research
Catalog Number: 5933
Joaquim-Francisco Coelho 7715 and Nicolau Sevcenko (Universidade de São Paulo) 5229 (spring term only)
*Portuguese 330. Direction of Doctoral Dissertations
Catalog Number: 4072
Joaquim-Francisco Coelho 7715, Bradley S. Epps 2880, Luis Fernández-Cifuentes 2091, Mary M. Gaylord 2632, Nicolau Sevcenko (Universidade de São Paulo) 5229 (spring term only), and Doris Sommer 2744
[Romance Studies 82. The Middle Ages at the Movies]
Catalog Number: 1479
Kimberlee Campbell
Half course (spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Explores major themes of the Middle Ages, from war to the role of women in society, comparing medieval texts to modern cinematographic versions of the Cid, the story of Joan of Arc, and the King Arthur’s court, among others. Students will examine medieval source materials as well as modern, developing a critical sense of the social uses for history, and the ways in which these may be articulated through film.
Note: Expected to be given in 2008–09. Conducted in English. Students may elect to do course assignments in Spanish or French.
*Romance Studies 91r. Supervised Reading and Research
Catalog Number: 8210
Mary M. Gaylord and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Tutorial supervision of research on subjects not treated in regular courses.
*Romance Studies 97. Tutorial—Sophomore Year
Catalog Number: 1994
Mary M. Gaylord and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Note: Successful completion of one term of Romance Studies 97 is required of all concentrators in their sophomore year.
*Romance Studies 98. Tutorial—Junior Year
Catalog Number: 5203
Mary M. Gaylord and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). Hours to be arranged.
Note: Successful completion of one term of Romance Studies 98 is required of all honors concentrators in their junior year.
*Romance Studies 99. Tutorial—Senior Year
Catalog Number: 1067
Mary M. Gaylord and members of the Department and Tutorial Board
Full course. Hours to be arranged.
Note: Weekly individual instruction. Successful completion of one term of Romance Studies 99 is required of all honors concentrators. To enroll, see the Undergraduate Adviser in Romance Studies.
Romance Studies 189. The Culture of Antifascism - (New Course)
Catalog Number: 3680
Francesco Erspamer
Half course (fall term). M., W., at 12. EXAM GROUP: 5
The purpose of this course is to show that antifascism has not just been a form of tactical resistance to historical fascisms but rather a vital intellectual and social movement in its own right, committed to fight against bigotry, racism, authoritarianism, and inequality. Readings will include Italian writers and thinkers of the first and second half of the 20th century, such as Gramsci, Silone, Emilio Lussu, Piero Gobetti, Carlo Rosselli, Moravia, Vittorini, Pasolini.
Note: Conducted in English.
Spanish Ax. Reading Spanish
Catalog Number: 5318
Ernesto E. Guerra
Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., 10–11:30. EXAM GROUP: 12, 13
For students (both undergraduate and graduate) with little or no knowledge of Spanish. Aims at the rapid development of reading skills as a tool for research.
Note: Not open to auditors. May not be used to fulfill the language requirement. May not be taken Pass/Fail, but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Conducted in English. Section on-line on the Spanish Ax website.
*Spanish Bab. Intensive Beginning Spanish: Special Course
Catalog Number: 5577 Enrollment: Limited to 15 students per section.
Johanna Damgaard Liander and staff
Full course (fall term; repeated spring term). Section I: M. through F., at 9 and Tu., Th., at 10; Section II: M. through F., at 11 and Tu., Th., at 12. EXAM GROUP: 2, 4, 11
For students with no previous formal training in Spanish but with competence in at least one foreign language. Emphasis on communication skills. Language instruction supplemented by cultural and literary readings, film, and computer materials.
Note: May not be used to fulfill the language requirement. May not be taken Pass/Fail. Interested students should contact the instructor before registration for fall term and before fall examination period for spring term.
Spanish Ca. Intermediate Spanish I
Catalog Number: 5914
Nina C. de W. Ingrao and staff
Half course (fall term). Sections M., W., F., at 9, 10, 11, 12, and 1. EXAM GROUP: 10
A beginning intermediate course emphasizing listening, speaking, reading and writing, and including a review of grammar. Selected readings and related activities respond to a wide variety of interests: current events and issues, as well as short stories by well-known Spanish and Latin American authors. After Spanish Ca students should be able to communicate in Spanish with native speakers.
Note: Conducted in Spanish. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Section on-line on the Spanish Ca website.
Prerequisite: Spanish A, Bab, 450-599 on the SAT II test or on the Harvard Placement Test, 3 years of Spanish in high school, or permission of course head.
Spanish Cb. Intermediate Spanish II
Catalog Number: 6874
Nina C. de W. Ingrao and staff
Half course (spring term). Sections M., W., F., at 9, 10, 11, 12, and 1. EXAM GROUP: 10
Emphasis on oral communication, with continued practice in reading and writing. Class discussions focus on Hispanic culture, art, and literature. Special listening materials used for insight into daily life in Spanish-speaking areas. After the Ca-Cb sequence, students should be able to understand lectures in Spanish, converse on everyday topics with a native speaker, read material of average difficulty and mature content, and write with acceptable style and correctness.
Note: Conducted in Spanish. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Section on-line on the Spanish Cb website.
Prerequisite: Placement score of 550-599, Spanish Bab, Ca or permission of course head.
*Spanish Dab. Intensive Intermediate Spanish: Special Course
Catalog Number: 4553
Adriana Gutiérrez and staff
Full course (spring term). M. through F., at 10; Tu., Th., at 11.
A complete second-year course in one term. Geared toward motivated students with an elementary knowledge of Spanish who want to accelerate their progress in the language. Consolidates and expands oral comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. Class materials include literature, film, and media.
Note: Conducted entirely in Spanish. May not be used to fulfill the language requirement . May not be taken Pass/Fail.
Prerequisite: Spanish A, Spanish Bab, 450-599 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test, or permission of course head.
Spanish 30. Oral Expression: Temas de actualidad
Catalog Number: 0479
Nina C. de W. Ingrao and staff
Half course (fall term; repeated spring term). M., W., F. at 11, 12, and 1. EXAM GROUP: 4, 5, 6
Intended for students who have learned to handle everyday situations. Prepares students for interacting on a more sophisticated level in a work or study setting. Class discussions and activities as well as the written assignments are based on topics of current interest researched by the students, selected stories, films, and the press. Review of grammar included.
Note: Conducted in Spanish. May not be taken Pass/Fail but may be taken Sat/Unsat by GSAS students. Students may take no more than two courses numbered in the 30s. Section on-line on the Spanish 30 website.
Prerequisite: 600-719 on the SAT II test or the Harvard Placement test, Spanish Cb or 27, or permission of course head.