Module FREN3401: EVOLUTION AND THE HUMAN IN FRENCH CULTURE

Department: Modern Languages and Cultures (French)

FREN3401: EVOLUTION AND THE HUMAN IN FRENCH CULTURE

Prerequisites

• French Language 2 (FREN2051) plus one or more from: FREN2011, FREN2021, FREN2031, FREN2061 OR an equivalent qualification to the satisfaction of the Chairman/Chairwoman of the Board of Studies in MLAC or his/her representative.

Corequisites

• Modern Languages, Combined Honours and all Joint and 'with' programmes: French Language 4 (FREN3041) or French Language 4 following Year Abroad (FREN3351). Other: see Chairman/Chairwoman of the Board of Studies in MLAC or his/her representative

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To explore the ways in which evolutionary biology has found expression through three hundred years of French literature, film and cultural theory;
• To facilitate ‘scientific literacy’, by using literature and film as a way of discussing key ideas in evolutionary biology (e.g., ‘nature v. nurture’, inheritance, but also attempts to read literature through science);
• To study literary and literary-theoretical criticisms of the rise to dominance of evolutionary thinking, posing the question of the role of literature and the humanities in an age of science and technology.

Content

• Topics will include:
• i) the emergence of evolutionary thinking in the philosophes of the eighteenth century (Diderot);
• ii) evolution and heredity in the nineteenth-century realist novel (Zola); and
• iii) thinking ‘posthumanism’ in 20th-21st century (Houellebecq).
• We will also look at films by Truffaut and Houellebecq (L’Enfant sauvage [1970] and La Possibilité d’une île [2008]).
• In addition to these core objects, students will engage with: key ideas in the history of evolutionary biology (Darwin, Weismann); the application of these ideas to the humanities (E. O. Wilson); and responses to them in the theoretical humanities (texts ranging from Lukács, Lévi-Strauss and Beauvoir to Foucault and Stiegler).

Learning Outcomes

• Critical knowledge of literary texts giving a flavour of three hundred years of literature;
• Knowledge of how literature has evolved in response to scientific discovery, from the 18th century to the present;
• Specific and critical knowledge of key texts, giving an overview of literary thinking about evolution;
• First-hand understanding of key ideas in the history of evolution;
• Knowledge of twentieth-century theoretical critiques of biological humanism;
• Knowledge of multiple methodological approaches to the study of culture (evolutionary psychological, Marxist, feminist and poststructuralist).

• Critical analysis and close readings of film, literature and theory;
• Ability to draw links between different academic disciplines, relating primary cultural material back to the original scientific ideas on which it draws;
• Ability to situate literary studies in relation to broader academic and public debates concerning the relationship between the sciences and humanities.

• Critical and analytical thinking;
• Essay-writing and oral presentation;
• Structuring of arguments;
• Independent learning and research.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• An overarching series of 18 lectures will map closely onto 10 seminars, split roughly equally over each of the three centuries.
• The interdisciplinary breadth and novelty of the course means that there is not an established ‘go-to’ secondary literature of the kind that lends itself to exam revision.
• Students will be called upon to read more widely and more creatively, and this suggests that the most suitable form of assessment will be one that encourages research-led learning.
• It will therefore take the form of two summative essays, in which students will be able to pursue their own lines of research, covering material from at least two different centuries (overall).
• Tutorial hours will be allotted to enable the discussion of summative essay topics.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

One seminar presentation per term.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University