Spring 2009 Advance Course Information

This information effective for spring 2009. Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.

French Literature

[ LTFR-152 ]

152: Texts and Contexts/230 Studies in Literary and Cultural History

Instructor: Carla Freccero
Phone: 9-3342 (office), 9-1924 (messages)
E-mail: freccero@ucsc.edu

Class Meetings: Tu Th 12 noon -1:45 p.m.

Course Description

Les Animaux

This course examines works on human and non-human animal life in the French tradition trans-historically in a variety of genres: philosophy, short story, poetry, essays, and science. Texts to be studied range from Marie de France's poems about human-animal transformations and Montaigne's eloquent defense of non-human animal intelligence and feeling, to the satirical verse of La Fontaine and the animal-as-machine philosophy of René Descartes, to the strange and wonderful world of insects in Henri Fabre, to current fiction, the ethological interventions of Vinciane Despret, and Jacques Derrida's philosophical meditations of the animal as other. The course is conducted in French, but graduate students may write their papers in English.

1e semaine: théorie de la vie animale

2e semaine: les animaux aux moyen-âge (Marie de France)

3e semaine: le moyen-age

4e semaine: des nouveaux mondes: l’animal et la nature (Jean de Léry)

5e semaine: la Renaissance des animax? (Montaigne)

6e semaine: la “science” de la vie (Descartes, La Fontaine)

7e semaine: la vie étrange des insectes (Fabre)

8e semaine: le silence des animaux

9e semaine: les animaux que (donc) nous sommes (Derrida)

10e semaine: Derrida

Devoirs:

• 3 essais de 3 à 5 pages
• questions dirigées sur les lectures
• participation active en classe

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