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University of Dublin
TrinityCollege
Department of French
Senior Sophister — Guide to Courses2010/11
Two-Subject Moderatorship
Please Retain for Reference
This booklet should be read in conjunction with relevant entries in the University Calendar. In case of any conflict between the Handbook and the Calendar, the provisions of the Calendar shall apply.
Lecturing staff
Individual telephones can be accessed from outside College by pre-fixing (01) 896; email addresses are followed by <@tcd.ie>.
Dr Sarah Alyn-Stacey, room 4105, tel. 2686, email <salynsta>
Dr Edward Arnold, room 4106, tel. 1836, email <ejarnold
Professor Johnnie Gratton, room 4090, tel. 2278, email <grattonj>
Dr Rachel Hoare, room 4103, tel. 1842, email <rmhoare>
Dr Claire Laudet, room 4108, tel. 2313, email <claudet>
Dr Paule Salerno-O'Shea, room 4113, tel. 1472, email <psalerno>
Mr David Parris, room 4112, tel. 1979, email <dparris>
Professor David Scott(Head of Department), room 3136, tel. 1374, email <dscott> (on sabbatical Hilary Term 2011)
Departmental Offices
(Sinead Doran/Mary Kelly), Room 4111, tel. 1553, email, <french
(Lorraine Kerr) Room 4089, tel. 1333, email, <lkerr>
Please read carefully the regulations and course-descriptions which follow, and complete this form in the following manner.
1. Name four Topics in order of preference.
2. Obtain the signature of a member of staff for your choice of special subject.
3. Return this page to the Departmental Office, Room 4111,by 12.00 hrs on Monday 22 February 2010
N.B. As far as possible the French Department will try and accommodate students in the courses of their choice, however, the department is not in a position to guarantee that all courses offered will take place. The number of students opting for a particular course, timetable constraints and availability of staff has to be taken into account.
Students intending to go 'off books' in 2010/11 should still complete the form, but indicate their intention below. They should note that completion of this form does not in itself constitute a request for permission, which should be sought from the Senior Lecturer via their tutor at as early a stage as possible. Students who obtain permission, and then change their mind, should notify the department immediately.
Name: (in block capitals):
Student Number: ______
SS Topics: (state 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th choices in order of preference):
1.
2.
3.
4.
Special Subject Dissertation:
Subject area:
Signature of intended supervisor:
Year Off Books:
I intend/do not intend to spend next year off books. (Delete as applicable.)
I confirm that I have received a copy of the departmental statement concerning courses and assessment for the Senior Sophister year 2010/11
Signature ______Date: ______
Senior Sophister Requirements and Assessment Procedures
The requirements for Senior Sophister students in TSM French in 2010/11 are as follows:
1. Language: All students are required to attend language classes, and submit regular written work.
2. Topics: Students selecttwo Topics from the range offered. All choices are subject to availability, to timetable constraints and to the approval of the Head of Department. An assessment essay (2,500 words) is to be submitted in respect of each topic. One of the two assessment essays is to be written in French. The first essay is to be submitted by 12.00 hrs on Monday 17 January 2011, the second by 12.00 hrs on Friday 25 March 2011 to the Departmental Office, Room 4111. Titles for essays will be published in the SS Handbook which will be available on the French Department website at the beginning of the academic year. For details of courses, see list below.
3. Special Subject: Each student selects a special subject of his or her own choice, in consultation with an appropriate member of staff (for details of staff interests, see below). Please note that members of staff are instructed not to accept more than their quota of supervisees, and the fact that a student wishes to be supervised by a member of staff does not guarantee that the member of staff will be able or willing to act. It would obviously be prudent to consult with the supervisor of your choice at an early stage. The candidate's work on this special subject is to be embodied in a dissertation of 9,000 to 12,000 words, to be written in English or French, or in an alternative piece of submitted work of a different nature but of comparable substance, to be submitted in either case by 12.00 hrs on Monday 7 March 2011 to Room 4111. A computer-generated word-count must be included on the title page of your submitted dissertation. Please note that, if you exceed the set word-limit, your dissertation will be returned with an instruction to reduce the length appropriately. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure (s)he maintains adequate contact with her/his supervisor, who will provide guidance on how to improve content.
The assessment for Moderatorship Part II for 2011 is as follows:
1. Language paper I (Translation into French and résumé)
2. Language paper II (Translation from French and essay)
3. Topic I (submitted work and examination)
4. Topic II (submitted work and examination)
5. Special subject (dissertation) or equivalent to be submitted in English or French
6. Viva voce examination
Each item carries the same weight (100 marks), other than the oral examination, which carries half that weight (50 marks). Candidates must satisfy the examiners in respect of the language componentstaken all together (nos. 1, 2 and 6). Moderatorship Part II is weighted at 550 marks (recalculated out of 500), and is combined with Moderatorship Part I, weighted at 350 marks, together with 150 marks for Junior Sophister assessment work, to produce an overall mark out of 1,000.
The oral examination takes place in the presence of an extern examiner. As part of this examination, candidates will be required to deliver an oral exposé on one of two subjects chosen by the candidate, and approved in advance. The examination is followed immediately by discussion of the candidate’s dissertation, which may result in a modification of the provisional mark given.
Candidates should note that, following comments from extern examiners concerning an unduly narrow focus of study in some instances, all ‘Topic’ papers will carry the rubric that candidates should avoid excessive overlap with dissertation subjects.
Senior Sophister Courses2010/11
NB Where a course is undersubscribed, the course may not be offered.
1.Court and Conflict in 16th and 17th – Century FranceFR4024 (Dr Alyn Stacey)
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Aims: The aim of this course is to provide students with an insight into the importance of the Court in 16th and 17th-century France and the extent to which it was often at the centre of social conflict. It aims also to look at some of the key socio-philosophical and literary changes which made themselves felt at every level of society during the 16th and 17th centuries. Through close textual analysis of some of the major writings of the period, the course aims to examine the representation of the Court, the writings of major Court writers and notions of ideal kingship. The course will also analyse modern cinematic representations of the court.
Objectives: By the end of the course, students will be acquainted with the works of some of the major writers of the 16th and 17th centuries. They will be familiar with a considerable range of ideas and genres which reflect the preoccupations of the time. They will be familiar with the aims of ‘heritage’ cinema. They will have developed their abilities to closely analyse texts and film.
Course Structure: Teaching will be by lecture, student papers and discussion. Students are also encouraged to attend the seminars organised by the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies based in Trinity (details from Sarah Alyn Stacey, Coordinator of the Centre).The course is structured as follows:
Michaelmas Term
Introduction
Filming the Renaissance Court
La Reine Margot (Patrice Chéreau, 1994)
French Court versus Papal Court
Joachim Du Bellay, Les Regrets (Larousse)
Ideal Kingship
François Rabelais, Gargantua (Garnier Flammarion)
Cleopatra in the Renaissance
Etienne Jodelle, Cléopâtre captive (edition provided)
Hilary Term
Kings, Politics and Honour
Pierre Corneille, Cinna(Paris, Garnier Flammarion)
Bienséance and the Court
Molière, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme(Paris, Garnier Flammarion)
A libertin view of the world
Saint-Amant, Anthology (edition provided)
The Spiritual versus the Earthly Order
Blaise Pascal, Trois discours des grands (Departmental edition to be provided)
Filming the 17th-Century Court
Tous les matins du monde (Alain Corneau, 1992)
- Counter-Revolution Extreme Right(s) and Fascism in French Culture and Politics 1870-1945 FR4016(Dr. Arnold)
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The objectives of this course are to give students an insight into one of the main varieties of European fascism and a grounding in the intellectual, political, social and historical background of France during the ThirdRepublic. This approach will focus upon literary, political and cultural manifestations of French fascism and extreme right-wing thought which originated in the intellectual climate of the Belle Epoque and its "fin-de-siècle” mood, were developed during the interwar years and were forcibly expressed during the Occupation years. The interest of studying the precursors of French fascism resides in the fact that many of the themes developed in France in the Belle Epoque fed the ideology of Italian fascism and Nazism. This has led many scholars to consider France as being the country which "invented" fascism.
To this effect, the first part of the course will evaluate the importance of the intellectual and historical precursors of French counter-revolutionary thought and fascism. This will include the study of the individuals (Drumont, Barrès, Maurras) and movements (Action Française, Ligue de la Patrie Française, Ligue des Patriotes) involved in events such as Boulangism and the Dreyfus Affair, and the concomitant antisemitism, racialism and nationalism. The writings of Communist, Marxist and Marxist revisionist theorists (Guesde, Jaurès, Blum) will also be briefly studied to give a contextual perspective to these emerging anti-enlightenment themes.
The second part of the course will investigate the influence of the Great War on the emergence of fascist doctrines, intellectuals and movements. A clear distinction can be made between literary, intellectual fascism (Drieu la Rochelle, Brasillach, Céline, Rebatet) and fascist or conservative-reactionary movements (le Faisceau, les Croix de Feu, le PSF, les Jeunesses Patriotes, le Francisme, la Cagoule, le PPF). The period of the Occupation and VichyFrance -the third section of the course- is considered by some scholars to be the culminating point of the fascist temptation in France. Others see it as a return to conservative, reactionary values of pre-revolutionary France and not necessarily as a pure expression of French fascism.
The final section of the course will analyse the ideology and political myths of the Front National in France, and ask the question whether the movement of notably Jean-Marie le Pen has reactivated some aspects of this ideological tradition in France.
This course will be based on the study of primary sources of a varying nature (novels, autobiographies, political and economic programmes, visual and spoken propaganda, newspaper articles).
3.Writing the Other: Biography, Autobiography and Photography in Contemporary French Writing. FR40 (Prof. Gratton)
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Aims: This course begins by examining examples of biographical writing (where the ‘other’ is the biographical subject) with a view to broadening the notion of the ‘other’ in a more speculative manner to include lines of inquiry such as:
(a)the mixing of autobiographical and fictional elements into the biographical project;
(b)the photographic image as the ‘other’ of written text;
(c)the instance or experience of the self as ‘other’;
(d)the ‘otherness’ of memory itself.
Students will be encouraged to develop their own interests and insights by comparing and contrasting works by different authors among the prescribed texts. While several of the prescribed texts are relatively short, students should note that they will also be required to engage with a selection of the critical and theoretical works recommended in the secondary reading list (to be distributed at the start of the course).
Objectives: Through exposure to a variety of texts that mix the biographical, the autobiographical and the photographic, students will become familiar with the key issue of generic hybridity in contemporary French writing and will become acquainted with a number of important theoretical preoccupations in contemporary critical thought, such as the theory of the subject, self/other relations, and issues in textual/visual studies. Students will have developed their close reading skills, their ability to compare and contrast works by different authors, and their capacity to exercise initiative in the way they go about defining and pursuing their own areas of interest within the course
Structure: Weekly two-hour seminars throughout the academic year.
Prescribed Texts (in taught order)
Semester 1
Ernaux, Annie, La Place (1983, Folio p/b edition),
Ernaux, Annie, Une Femme (1987, Folio p/b edition)
Modiano, Patrick, Dora Bruder (1997, Folio p/b edition)
Carrère, Emmanuel, L’Adversaire (2000, Folio p/b edition)
Semester 2
Barthes, Roland, La Chambre claire (Seuil/Gallimard, 1980)
Duperey, Annie, Le Voile noir (1992, Seuil ‘Points’ p/b edition)
Depardon, Raymond, Errance (2000, Seuil ‘Points’ p/b edition)
Calle, Sophie, Des Histoires vraies (Actes Sud, 2006)
Calle, Sophie, L’EROUV de Jérusalem (Actes Sud, 1996)
Ernaux, Annie, Marie, Marc, L’Usage de la photo (2005, Folio p/b edition)
(NB Dates above refer to year of original publication not that of subsequent paperback (p/b) reprints)
Seminar Programme
Semester 1 (week 7 = Study Week)
1-1Contact Session/Introduction
2-2Ernaux, La Place
3-3Ernaux, Une Femme
4-6Modiano, Dora Bruder
8-10Carrère, L’Adversaire
11-12Barthes, La Chambre Claire
Semester 2 (Week 7 = Study Week)
1-3Duperey, Le Voile noir
4-5Depardon, Errance
6-8Calle, Des histories vraies
9-9Calle, L’Erouv
10-12Ernaux / Marie, L’Usage de la photo
4. The Acquisition and Teaching of French as a Second Language (L2):
theory, methods and data FR4010 (Dr. Hoare)
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The objective of this course is to give students an insight into theories of second language acquisition and teaching with specific reference to French. Engagement with theoretical aspects will lead to critical examination of research in applied linguistics. To this effect the course will be divided into three sections, the first examining some views of language and language learning, the second concentrating on the acquisition of French as a second language and the third on teaching methods. A major part of each section will be examination of recent original research in the area. The course will be structured in the following way:
Part 1: Background
Language learning and language teaching – an introduction
Part 2: Acquisition of French as L2
Learners and their errors
Acquisition: some characteristics
Motivation and attitudes towards learning French
Individual language learners: some differences
Good language learners: what makes the difference?
Part 3: Teaching French
Overview of language teaching: theory and methods
Language planning
Syllabus design
Conveying language: induction versus deduction
Focus on skills
Language testing
There is no core text for this course which deals specifically with French. However, students are advised to purchase ‘An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching’ by Keith Johnson published by Pearson Education Limited (2008) which addresses the major theories, methods and issues pertaining to the learning and teaching of a L2. A dossier of studies and articles pertaining to the learning and teaching of French as a L2 will be made available to students at the beginning of the course.
5.Migrance FR4026 (Mr. Parris)
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From a world of national frontiers and literatures, we have come to a world of shifting populations and cultural intermingling. From a society that believed that race and culture needed to be protected from outside influences, we have come swiftly (in only a few decades) to a situation where we see this as an enrichment. It could however be wrong to suppose this has been achieved without difficulties for either the host communities or the migrants themselves. In this course we shall look at a mixture of fictions and essais from France, and Canada, viewing migration both from the standpoint of the newcomer and the host community.
Texts (as many of the following as are available):
Albert Memmi, Le Racisme (Poche - 1994)
Didier Van Cauwelaert, Un aller simple (1994)
Ben Jelloun, Tahar, Le Racisme expliqué à ma fille, (Seuil - 1998)
Francine Noël, Nous avons tous découvert l'Amérique (Actes Sud - 2000)
Naïm Kattan Adieu, Babylone : Mémoires d'un juif d'Irak with Michel Tournier (Albin Michel 2003)
Régine Robin, La Québécoite, (XYZ (1993))
Micone Marco, Migrances Suivi de Una Donna, (VLB - 2005)
Abdellah Taïa , L'armée du salut, Points (6 mars 2008)
Abla Farhoud, Le Bonhur a laqueue glissante, Typo (1 septembre 2005)
Special Subject2010/11
The choice of a Special Subject is left to the individual student. However, this choice must be agreed with a member of the teaching staff of the Department of French, who will act as supervisor. By special arrangement with the head of department, supervision may be sought from a member of staff in a cognate department. You should therefore consult members of staff about a dissertation subject at the earliest opportunity and obtain his or her signature showing agreement in principle. The following list is intended to give students an idea of each member of staff’s academic interests. The subject of your dissertation should be indicated on the form supplied, but it is recognized that this subject may be modified or defined more closely in due course. The number of students to be supervised by any member of staff will be limited: you are advised to take action without delay.
Sarah ALYN-STACEY French Renaissance poetry. French Renaissance literature, with particular reference to Marc-Claude de Buttet and the court circle of Marguerite de France, duchesse de Savoie. Classical and Italian influences on French Renaissance literature. Comparative Renaissance literature (French, English, Italian). Critical theory, notably its application to Renaissance texts and also the related concerns of intertextuality and literary hermeneutics. Contemporary cinema.
Edward J. ARNOLD Twentieth-century French intellectual, political and social history: history of ideas in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Europe; right and left-wing, counter-revolutionary, fascist and national-populist thought in France, 1880s to the present.
Johnnie GRATTONTwentieth-century/contemporary fiction, short fiction, biography and autobiography (especially since 1975). Text/Image studies (especially autobiography and photography). French critical thought since structuralism (especially the theory of the subject).
Rachel HOARE Linguistics. Second language acquisition. Socioloinguistics of French, especially attitudes towards regional languages and varieties in France. Language variation.