FFS 180 - Paris in the 1920s

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

The 1920s in Paris have been dubbed “Les Années Folles” or the “Crazy Years.” A postwar beacon for artistic talent where ingenuity and imagination shone with unparalleled brilliance, Paris was an intellectual destination and a refuge, a place for experimentation in lost causes and new beginnings. What made the 1920s so memorable and creative a time for the many young idealists and iconoclasts who lived together in Paris, intent on reinventing themselves and the world around them? In the writing seminar we explore major cultural and literary facets of the decade, from cabarets to cafés, and from surrealist poetry to the modernist novel, sifting fact from fiction, politics from poetry, glitter from grit, and trauma from nostalgia. Works read in whole or in part are selected from such authors as Djuna Barnes, Sylvia Beach, Gwendolyn Bennett, André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Paul Eluard, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, James Joyce, George Orwell, Jean Rhys, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and Tristan Tzara. English works are read in the original, other works in English translation. Mark Andrews.

Open to first-year students; satisfies the college requirement for a First-Year Writing Seminar.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS