FREN 232 - The Modern Age

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2015/16b: The Worlds of Madame Bovary. Censored by the government on moral and religious grounds, Flaubert’s 1857 novel Madame Bovary is considered today to be an important document for the reading of modernity in France, a great example of the conflicts surrounding the feminine in the nineteenth century, and a “master text” of French literature. The novel is also relevant to contemporary questions of material culture, desire and the feminine, the individual and society, and literary production. Taking Madame Bovary as our central focus, we read Flaubert’s masterpiece in conjunction with some of the novels, images, and texts from the everyday press that informed the culture that produced its heroine and that she fictitiously and famously consumed herself. The principles of simultaneous readings and the juxtaposition of genres that organize this course offer a unique perspective into both what Emma read and the influence of mass culture on the production of the literary masterpiece. We also consider how Emma’s readings and character persist into the twentieth century by taking up some later incarnations of this novel in both film and text. This class serves as both an exploration of narrative forms and an introduction to the practice of interdisciplinary cultural analysis. Ms. Hiner.

Prerequisite:  FREN 212  or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Two 75-minute periods.