Spring 2025
FRENCH 24 001 - SEM 001
Freshman Seminars
Games of Love and Hate: “Reading-Performing” Two French Comedies of Misanthropy (in French!)
Nicholas Paige
Class #:27640
Units: 1
Instruction Mode:
In-Person Instruction
Offered through
French
Current Enrollment
Total Open Seats:
2
Enrolled: 10
Waitlisted: 0
Capacity: 12
Waitlist Max: 5
No Reserved Seats
Hours & Workload
2 hours of outside work hours per week, and 1 hours of student-instructor coverage of course materials per week.
Final Exam
FRI, MAY 16TH
07:00 pm - 10:00 pm
Dwinelle 4114
Other classes by Nicholas Paige
Course Catalog Description
The Berkeley Seminar Program has been designed to provide new students with the opportunity to explore an intellectual topic with a faculty member in a small-seminar setting. Berkeley seminars are offered in all campus departments, and topics vary from department to department and semester to semester. Enrollment limited to freshmen.
Class Description
In this Freshman Seminar, we’ll undertake a kind of “reading performance” of two astoundingly successful French theatrical comedies about friendship and misanthropy, one classic (Molière’s Le Misanthrope [1665]) and one modern (Yasmina Reza’s «Art» [1994]). Rather than discuss or analyze the plays as aesthetic objects, our weekly work will be structured around a “table” performance of them, with the idea being that approaching them practically, from the inside, is a great way to understand and enjoy them. We won’t be “acting” in the sense of using the space of a stage to physically perform from memory. Rather, reading the text before us, our attention to diction, pacing, tone, and accentuation will help us imaginatively bring the characters to life through almost entirely verbal means. This is a great chance to keep up and improve your high school French, to learn something about how the genre of comedy works, and to encounter two great plays. The class itself will be run in English, but reading-performing the texts requires either two years of high school of French, or the completion of French 2 at Berkeley. Students with less experience than this should contact the instructor before enrolling.
Rules & Requirements
Repeat Rules
Reserved Seats
Current Enrollment
No Reserved Seats
Textbooks & Materials
See class syllabus or https://calstudentstore.berkeley.edu/textbooks for the most current information.
Guide to Open, Free, & Affordable Course Materials
Associated Sections
None