Inventing Oneself – The Adventure of Freedom in French and Francophone Thought
Instructor: Clémentine Fauré-Bellaïche
Office: Shiffman 112
Office Hours: Monday, Wednesday 2:00-3:00 pm, and by appointment
Class Hours: Mon, Wed & Thurs
Tel: 781 736 3205
email:
- Course description:
In “What is the Enlightenment?” Michel Foucault has defined the attitude of modernity as “the task of elaborating oneself.” This course is about this attitude, and in particular about a strain in French and Francophonethought and literature centered on existential freedom – this idea that one is always, and at each moment of one’s life, inventing oneself.Although it encompasses most of the writers who have been referred to as “existentialists,”such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Simone de Beauvoir, the scope of the course is larger. It goes back in time, to the great precursors of existentialist thought, such as André Gide and his crucial interlocutor, Nietzsche. And it opens the spatial compass, too, retracing the migration of existentialist themes and forms in Frantz Fanon’s anti-colonial thought and their political dissemination; exploring the transatlantic connections between French existentialists and American black writers like Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison; or examining the Algerian writer Kamel Daoud’s postcolonial reappropriation of Camus’s The Stranger in his Meursault Investigation.
An important aspect of the course will be the filiation connecting existentialism and contemporary theories of identity. We will enlarge our disciplinary perspective and read, alongside the literary works assigned on the syllabus, philosophical extracts from Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Foucault. We will also watch movies centered around existential themes, and fecundly read through an existentialist prism. Above all, the course hopes to transmit to the students the power – existential, political – that aesthetic workshave in engaging our own existential freedom and in helping us shape, and give form to our own lives.
- Required materials:
Books:
André Gide, The Immoralist(1902)
Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942)
Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation (2014)
Jean-Paul Sartre: - Existentialism is A Humanism (1946)
- No Exit (1944)
Richard Wright, Eight Men, short stories: students will be required to read one (1960)
Simone de Beauvoir - The Ethics of Ambiguity(1947)
- The Blood of Others (1945)
Films (on Latte)
Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal (1958)
Agnès Varda, Cleo from 5 to7 (1962)
Michelangelo Antonioni, The Eclipse (1962)
Michel Gondry, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind(2004)
Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Raoul Peck, I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
Mia Hansen-Love, Things to Come(2016)
Requirements:
-Participation will count for your final grade (20%), and is crucial to the success of the course. Participation includes: coming to classpreparedto discuss the material; taking an active part in class discussion; being present and on time (exceptions apply for illness,sport, family emergency, and religious holidays.) If you cannot attend a class, please email me your justification.
-1 group oral presentation (by pairs)– the list of topics for the oral presentations will be handed out in class (35%). This presentation is conceived both as a real work of research and a group project: please consult with me before your presentation so that I can suggest you primary and secondary sources.
-2 papers (about 6 pages, 45%).
Program:
“To give style to one’s character…- a great and rare art!” (Nietzsche)
January 10
Introduction
January 11
Film: The Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry
January 15
No class
January 17
Philosophy: Michel Foucault, What is Enlightenment?
January 18
Essay: Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life
January 22
Novel: André Gide, The Immoralist
January 24
Novel: André Gide: The Immoralist
January 25
Novel: André Gide, The Immoralist
January 29
Philosophy: Nietzsche, The Gay Science (extracts)
January 31
Philosophy: Michel Foucault, The Culture of The Self
February 1
Film: The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson
“Standing Up To Heaven with Vigor and Loquacity…” (Kamel Daoud) – The Death of God in Colonial and Postcolonial Algeria
February 5
Film:Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal
February 7
Novel:Albert Camus, The Stranger
February 8
Novel:Albert Camus, The Stranger
February 12
Novel:Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation
February 14
Novel:Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation
February 15
Novel:Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation
Freedom, Forlornness, and The Others
February 26
Essay: Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (extract)
February 28
Play: Sartre, No Exit
March 1
Film:The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson
March 5
Essay: Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism
March 7
Essay: Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism
March 8
Film: The Eclipse, Michelangelo Antonioni
“One Is Not Born A Woman, but Becomes One” (Simone de Beauvoir)
March 12
Essay: Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity
[First paper due]
March 14
Essay: Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity
March 15
Guest - Chandler Rosenberger on Vaclav Havel & Existentialism
March 19
Film: Cléo de cinq à sept, Agnès Varda
March 21
Novel: Simone de Beauvoir, The Blood of Others
March 22
Novel: Simone de Beauvoir, The Blood of Others
March 26
Novel: Simone de Beauvoir, The Blood of Others
March 28
Short story: Richard Wright, The Man Who Lived Underground
March 29
Film: I'm not your negro, Raoul Peck
“There is no black mission. There is no white burden.” (Frantz Fanon)
April 9
Essay: Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
April 11
Essay: Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
April 12
Novel: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
April 16
Novel: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
April 18
Novel: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
April 19
Novel: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
April 23
Novel: Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
April 26
Film: Things to come, Mia Hansen-Love
[Second paper due]
Academic Integrity:
Academic integrity is central to the mission of educational excellence at Brandeis University. Each student is expected to turn in work completed independently, except when assignments specifically authorize collaborative effort. It is not acceptable to use the words or ideas of another person--be it a world-class philosopher or your classroom partner--without proper acknowledgement of that source. This means that you must use notes and quotation marks to indicate the source of any phrases, sentences, paragraphs or ideas found in published volumes, on the internet, or created by another person.
Violations of University policies on academic integrity, described in Section 3 of Rights and Responsibilities, may result in failure in the course or on the assignment, and could end in suspension from the University. Remember that tutors, even those sanctioned by Brandeis University, are not authorized to do work for you. If you have questions on the type of help you may receive, please ask me before you seek help from someone.
If you are working in a group that I have authorized, I will expect your answers to resemble those of your partners. Otherwise, I expect you to do your work separately from your friends, classmates, family members, and so on. If you have questions on the type of help you may receive, please ask me before you seek help from someone. Remember, too, that the work you do for this course cannot be used for another course, and you cannot recycle in this class work that you have produced for another course.
Students with Disabilities:
If you are a student with a documented disability on record at Brandeis University and wish to have a reasonable accommodation made for you in this class, please see me immediately. Retroactive accommodations cannot be provided.