82048 - French Culture and Literature

Learning outcomes

The student - knows the core features (contents, methods and instruments) necessary for the in-depth analysis of French culture and literature - is able to apply this knowledge when tackling a range of semiotically challenging texts - is able to acquire higher-level cultural and literary knowledge and competences independently, and to apply them to a wide range of novel texts

Course contents

French exoticism: Multidisciplinary paths

The theme of exoticism traverses the history of French culture and literature in the 19th and 20th centuries. One could define it as a cultural translation of the other. Authors such as Flaubert and Segalen, and surrealists such as Leiris and Bataille, have certainly contributed to a new approach to the other, as well as an anthropological-literary perspective, thanks to the encroachment of the important anthropologists of the time, such as Griaule, Lévi Strauss and Mauss. The visual arts also shown their fascination with distant cultures: from Gauguin to the surrealist and cubist movements. Indeed, ‘inter-culturality’ is today one of the derived forms.

From literary texts and essays, the course will present a series of concepts based on exoticism, which lead to the study of the perceptions and representations of the other, drawing on the work of authors, anthropologists and artists.

Readings/Bibliography

Extracts, articles, photographs and art work will form part of a collective analysis

Reference texts:

Flaubert, Salambo, Paris, Folio, 2005.

Flaubert, Trois contes, Paris, Folio, 2003.

Lévi Strauss, Tristes tropiques, Paris, Pocket, 2001.

M. Leiris, Afrique fantome, Paris, Gallimard, coll. Telgallimard, 1988.

Victor Segalen, Immémoriaux, Paris, Le Livre de Poche, 2001.

Teaching methods

The cultural and interdisciplinary approach to studying exoticism, draws on literary texts, essays and works of art, to provide insights into the perception of the other, and the historical-political dimension of French colonialism. This kind of approach will reveal the genesis of xenophobic and ethnocentric ideologies, but also the presence of subjective feelings in the face of ‘alienity’, such as seduction, humor and rejection.

70% attendance is mandatory for this module.

Assessment methods

The final examination will take place in two parts. A written part based on students’ personalized research, agreed previously with the teacher, and an oral part, consisting in the analysis of a dossier, composed of chapters of texts, or articles, presented previously by the teacher.

Office hours

See the website of Daniele Emmanuele Di Gaetano