Class Schedule for Winter 2024

This survey class will introduce students to major authors and text of Francophone World including Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, Quebec, Caribbean, and France. French is spoken widely on the continent of Africa and while the number of speakers continues to grow, understanding the complicated history driving this ongoing linguistic influence allows us to develop a cultural fluency that is indispensable in Africa and Europe alike. This course seeks to improve students’ proficiency in speaking, reading, writing, and listening through the discussion of images, short stories, excerpts of novels, and films that address the relationship between France and several of its former colonies, notably in West Africa, from colonial times to the present. Though we will begin with an introduction into French colonialism through the study of images and propaganda portraying the colonies, we will soon shift our focus to readings and films that address this relationship from an African perspective.  The course will progress geographically from Caribbean to Sub-Saharan Africa, from North Africa to Quebec, from Southeast Asian to France. Activities will include small group work, two peer edited compositions, and class discussion. There will be one class presentation, one midterm formal assessments of writing proficiency and one final paper. Themes explored include colonialism, education, African culture, migration, and cultural identity. The course is organized around readings of selected literary works. Represented francophone authors may include Aimé Césaire, Ousmane Sembène, Mariama Bâ, Assia Djebar, Albert Camus, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Gabrielle Roy, Léopold Sedar Senghor, Pham Duy Khiêm, and Myriam Warner-Vieyra. Students will explore and analyze the concept of identity in these francophone selections through guided discussion in French and extensive work in second-language writing.