FREN 380 - Special Seminar

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2015/16b: Inventing the Crime: Representations of Criminality in French and Francophone Literature and Film. The popularity of police procedurals, legal dramas, and detective stories attests to our collective fascination with narratives that concern criminality and the law. This course examines these intersections between textual and cinematic narratives in French and crime in various ways. Through the study of texts, films, and documents inspired by crime cases, students have the opportunity to study major literary movements and genres such as existentialism, surrealism, postcolonial literature and detective fiction. All the while, we analyze questions of gender, race and class in relation to crime to begin to understand how dominant ideas about criminality can help to shape a cultural identity. Authors may include André Gide, Albert Camus, Kamel Daoud, Marguerite Duras and Claire Denis. Ms. Brancky.

One 2-hour period.