Major texts of modern French literature. Readings and writing assignments in English for non-majors; in French for French majors and minors. Class discussions in English.

This course explores female-authored and female-directed French literary and cinematic works from the mid-twentieth century to the present, focusing on how women writers and filmmakers represent the body, desire, memory, and the self. Across literature and film, we ask how these works complicate the relationship between the female speaker and their body, the self and the voice, and memory and its narration, and how femininity, desire, and memory are shaped by social expectations, histories of violence, gender hierarchies, and unequal power relations. Through formal experimentation—fragmented narration, silence, repetition, haunting, and refusal—and theoretical readings on the gaze, trauma, testimony, spectrality, and erotic desire, students will engage collaboratively and develop a shared vocabulary for thinking about femininity, representation, and ethical spectatorship.

Course taught in English.

Required texts include Marguerite Duras's The Ravishing of Lol Stein and Marie NDiaye's Self-Portrait in Green, as well as a selection of primary and secondary sources available on BCourses.

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills