Unit name | Modern French Narrative |
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Unit code | FREN20039 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | I/5 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Professor. Stephens |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
FREN10001 or equivalent standard in French language |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of French |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit examines some of the key themes of modern and contemporary French prose fiction through the study of five narratives. It begins by examining the dynamics of the early twentieth-century novel, through the study of Thérèse Desqueyroux (1927), paying particular attention to issues concerning narrative voice, perspective, and authority, concentrating on the often problematic but productive investigation of such issues. It then considers political commitment in prose fiction in the mid-twentieth century in Le Sang des autres (1945) before examining the interaction of prose narrative and film, memory and the treatment of time, in Marguerite Duras's and Alain Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour. We will then examine the experimental crime fiction of Sébastien Japrisot in L’Eté meurtrier (1977), studying points of continuity between popular fiction and 'high brow' culture. The unit concludes with a look at how current French fiction promotes 'trash literature', simultaneously criticising and colluding with the erotic and commercial tastes of consumerist culture through the study of Plateforme (2001).
Aims:
Successful students will:
Normally one lecture hour and one seminar hour per week across one teaching block (22 contact hours), often with student presentations. In units with a smaller number of students the lecture hour may be replaced by a second seminar or a workshop. Units involving film may require students to view films outside the timetabled contact hours.
A written assignment of 2000 words and a two hour exam (50% each)