| Unit name | Representations of Francophone Cultures |
|---|---|
| Unit code | FREN10013 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | C/4 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Professor. Stephens |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
None |
| School/department | Department of French |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Why is this unit important?
This unit enables you to develop an understanding of French-speaking cultures through the creative works that they produce. It familiarises you with the concept of culture as ‘text’: as something that can be ‘written’ and ‘read’ in the sense of being produced and prompting varied discussion. Taking this idea as its starting point, the unit identifies the ways in which the French-speaking world is ‘legible’ and open to interpretation through different forms of cultural production, including literature, the performing arts, and the moving image. It therefore addresses how everyday meanings and values have been shaped, shared, and questioned in different places (within and outside metropolitan France), moments (from the Middle Ages to the present day), and spaces (in writing, on stage, on screen, and beyond). Together, these works will give you a preliminary insight into how to analyse the many different forms and media types in which the French language and its associated cultures have represented themselves.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
This unit develops your foundational knowledge of the field of French and Francophone studies. It introduces you to that field’s methods of cultural study by focusing on the relationship between different artistic forms and their material as well as social and historical contexts of production. By honing key skills in close reading as well as thematic and comparative analysis as the basis of devising clear arguments, you will build confidence in the critical value of your own voice. You will also survey the geographical, historical, thematic, and methodological variety of study available to you in subsequent years for programmes in French.
An overview of content
This unit explores and examines French-speaking cultures through an illustrative selection of primary sources. The works to be studied are taken from French-language film (both narrative and documentary), fiction (whether short stories or longer-form writing), poetry (in verse and/or prose), and theatre (as both printed text and live performance). Their selection spans different historical periods, reaching back far beyond the French Revolution of 1789 and moving up to the present day. Given the French language’s historical associations with culture as a tool of influence and power, you will in turn investigate how the French-speaking world’s creative economy has both configured and contested notions of artistic taste, moral authority, and social acceptability. These dynamics will be shown to have directly impacted how French speakers have represented and reimagined markers of identity like gender, race, class, nationality, and sexuality. Set works may vary from year to year and have in the past been taken from various writers (such as Voltaire, Guy de Maupassant, and Maryse Condé), poets (like Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud), playwrights (from Jean Racine to Jean Cocteau), and filmmakers (including Claude Chabrol and Agnès Varda), as well as from individuals who move between literary and visual cultures (such as the surrealist photographer Claude Cahun and the installation artist Christian Boltanski).
How will students, personally, be different as a result of the unit?
Whether you have studied these kinds of cultural artefacts before or not – and whatever preconceptions you may or may not have of ‘Frenchness’ – you will learn how to think critically and creatively about different artistic forms and the cultural contexts in which they are used. The unit allows you to become attentive to a work’s representational properties (such as its style and structure), empathetic towards the experiences that it captures (from love and loss to social belonging and displacement), and imaginative in considering its interpretive tensions and ambiguities. Working collaboratively, you will also recognise the value of group discussion in formulating and challenging your own ideas, and this engagement with other perspectives will help develop your sense of positionality as well as your autonomy as a learner.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
Each week, your teaching will involve the following three activities (each lasting one hour):
Using your own time for weekly independent learning, you will be expected to work through the primary materials and relevant secondary sources identified in the unit’s Resource List (including academic publications like book chapters and journal articles). By regularly consulting those secondary sources and summarising other arguments or viewpoints, you will broaden and deepen your knowledge and understanding from the in-class teaching.
This unit assumes no previous knowledge of French-speaking cultures or the French language itself, since it engages with each primary source’s socio-cultural background and makes all key materials available in translation.
Tasks which help you learn and prepare you for summative tasks (formative):
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
When assessment does not go to plan
When required by the Board of Examiners, you will normally complete reassessments in the same formats as those outlined above. However, the Board reserves the right to modify the form or number of reassessments required. Details of reassessments are normally confirmed by the School shortly after the notification of your results at the end of the academic year.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. FREN10013).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
