RLFR 316
Paris on Fire: Incendiary Voices from the City of Light (1830-2005)
Spring 2010
Division I
Cross-listed
WGST 315
This is not the current course catalog
Class Details
During the 1830s, Balzac described Paris as a “surprising assemblage of movements, machines, and ideas, a city of one hundred thousand novels, the head of the world,” but also characterized the French capital as a “land of contrasts,” a “monstrous wonder,” a “moral sewer.” Similarly, writers from Hugo to Zola have simultaneously celebrated Parisian elegance and condemned the appalling misery of Paris’s urban poor. Since 1889, Paris has been fĂȘted as the “City of Light” for its Enlightenment legacy, its Eiffel Tower modernity, and its luminous urban energy, captured in countless paintings, photographs, and film. However, Paris is also the historical site of revolution, resistance, and riots. From revolutionary revolt (1830, 1848, 1871), to wartime resistance (1870, 1914-18, 1940-44), to reformist and race riots (1968 and 2005), Paris has repetitively sparked with incendiary passion and political protest. As fires raged during the recent riots in 2005, many heard the echo of Hitler’s ominous 1944 question, “Is Paris burning?” and asked: why was Paris burning again at the dawn of the twenty-first century? To answer this question, we will examine the social, political, and literary landscape of Paris during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from urbanization and modernization, to occupation and liberation, to immigration and globalization. Readings to include poetry, short stories, and novels by Hugo, Balzac, Baudelaire, Maupassant, Verne, Zola, Apollinaire, Colette, Duras, Perec, Rochefort, and Charef. Films to include works by Clair, Truffaut, Godard, Minnelli, ClĂ©ment, Lelouch, Luhrmann, Kassovitz, Besson, and Jeunet. Conducted in French.
The Class:
Format: seminar
Limit: 20
Expected: 20
Class#: 3329
Grading: yes pass/fail option, yes fifth course option
Limit: 20
Expected: 20
Class#: 3329
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:
French 201, 202, 203 or permission of instructor
Enrollment Preferences:
French, Comparative Literature, and Women's and Gender Studies majors, and those with compelling justification for admission
Unit Notes:
formerly RLFR 214
Distributions:
Division I
Notes:
meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under RLFR; meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under WGST
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
RLFR 316 Division I WGST 315 Division II
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
RLFR 316 Division I WGST 315 Division II
Attributes:
INST - Urbanizing World Electives
Class Grid
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HEADERS
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RLFR 316 - 01 (S) SEM Paris On Fire
RLFR 316 - 01 (S) SEM Paris On FireDivision IMR 2:35 pm - 3:50 pm
North Acacdemic Building 2403329
Megamenu Social