WGSS 224
Sexuality and Seduction in Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century France Spring 2014
Division II Exploring Diversity Initiative
Cross-listed RLFR 224
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

In 1857, both Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal were put on trial for sexual indecency and “crimes against public morality.” In 1868, Le Figaro attacked Zola’s novel Thérèse Raquin as “putrid literature” for its depiction of adultery, murder, and scandalous sexuality in nineteenth-century Paris. A century later, Gide, Colette, and Duras continued to shock French readers with their extraordinary novels on male and female homosexuality, inter-generational lovers, and bi-racial relationships. In this course, we will examine a wide range of issues on eroticism and sexuality in nineteenth- and twentieth- century French literature, including marriage and adultery, seduction and desire, love and betrayal, prostitution and fetishism, gay and lesbian identity, cross-dressing and gender representation, exoticism and colonial (s)exploitation. Readings to include novels, shorts stories, and poems by Chateaubriand, Constant, Duras, Balzac, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Zola, Maupassant, Barbey d’Aurevilly, Gide, Proust, Colette, Duras, and Guibert. Conducted in French.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 20
Expected: 20
Class#: 3806
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: active class participation, two short papers, an oral presentation, and a final paper
Prerequisites: RLFR 106 or 107; another 200-level course such as RLFR 201, 202, 203; or by placement test; or by permission of the instructor
Enrollment Preferences: French majors and certificate students; Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies majors; Comparative Literature majors and those with compelling justification for admission
Distributions: Division II Exploring Diversity Initiative
Notes: meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under RLFR; meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under WGSS
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
RLFR 224 Division I WGSS 224 Division II

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