Unit name | Surrealism: Pleasure and Provocation in 1920s Textual and Visual Culture |
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Unit code | FREN30040 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | H/6 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Professor. Harrow |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of French |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit explores the explosive Surrealist project of the 1920s through key works in literature (poetry, narrative and theatre), visual culture and film. Taking as our immediate starting-point the historical pressures and the possibilities of the post-First World War period, we look at how seismic shifts in critical thought (in particular, the theories of Freud) and in aesthetic practice (the international avant-garde projects including Futurism and Dadaism) precipitated the Surrealist moment. The Unit focuses on close reading of selected key texts and images in the Surrealist adventure. It takes those close readings forward in the context of a longer diachronic view that will enable us to situate Surrealism as part of a transhistorical, transnational project.
The aims are:
By the end of the Unit, students will be able to
A mixture of ‘open’ lectures and seminars with student participation in both formats actively encouraged. (2 hours per week: 1 lecture, 1 seminar)
One 3000-word essay (50%) testing ILO’s 1-5
One 2-hour written examination (50%) testing ILO’s 1-4
Aragon, Louis, Le Paysan de Paris (Folio)
Buñuel, Luis (dir.), L’Age d’or
Breton, André, Nadja (Folio)
Desnos, Robert, Corps et biens (NRF)
Eluard, Paul, Capitale de la douleur (NRF)
Magritte, René, selection of paintings
Vitrac, Roger, Victor, ou les enfants au pouvoir (Gallimard / Folio Théâtre)