Module FREN2091: REVOLUTIONARY WORKS IN FRENCH POLITICS

Department: Modern Languages and Cultures (French)

FREN2091: REVOLUTIONARY WORKS IN FRENCH POLITICS

Prerequisites

• French Language 1 (FREN1011) OR an equivalent qualification to the satisfaction of the Chairman/Chairwoman of the Board of Studies in MLAC or or his/her representative.

Corequisites

• Modern European Languages, Combined Honours and all Joint and 'with' programmes: French Language 2 (FREN2051). Other: see Chairman/Chairwoman of the Board of Studies in MLAC or his/her representative.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None

Aims

• The political history of France is famously unstable, punctuated by civil wars, revolutions and other moments of near-collapse. The history of these events has been dramatically shaped by a long tradition of political contestation that cuts to the heart of the ways in which the French have thought about the central questions of politics: How should we be governed? Why should we be governed? What do we mean by liberté, égalité, fraternité? Who is included in the body politic?
• The aim of this module is to engage with turning points in French political history through the writings on political thought that informed them. Students will study the foundational ideas of French politics in context, and also consider the ways in which fundamental political ideas like anarchism, socialism and democracy, tolerance and freedom, transcend the circumstances that occasioned them.
• Analysing their enduring ability to transform our understanding of contemporary political debates will both broaden and deepen students’ grasp of what politics consists in.

Content

• Although prescribed texts will very over time, and depending on teaching availability, the module will incorporate works relating to a range of events right across France’s political history, including, for instance, the 16th-century wars of religion, the revolutions of 1789 and 1848, the Algerian War (1954-62) and the uprisings of 1871 and May ’68 and their aftermath. Recurrent themes will include the legitimacy of political authority, the status of individual rights, ideology and the exercise of power.
• The following gives an indicative range of possible texts for inclusion. Individual texts could be replaced from time to time by other works by the same authors, or by works from authors of a similar style or period.
• 1. A dossier of medieval materials, incorporating sections on ethics and political organization in medieval encyclopedias (e.g. Brunetto Latini), Christine de Pizan on the body politic, and crusading ideology and ideas about domestic governance in Joinville's Vie de Saint Louis.
• 2. Étienne de la Boétie (1574) Discours de la servitude volontaire.
• 3. J-J Rousseau (1755) Discours sur l’origine de l’inégalité or Voltaire (1763) Traité sur la tolerance.
• 4. Louise Michel (1887) ‘L’Ère nouvelle’, Karl Marx (1871) The Civil War in France, Peter Kropotkin (1892) La Conquête du pain.
• 5. Simone de Beauvoir (1949) Le Deuxième Sexe
• 6. Frantz Fanon (1961) Les Damnés de la terre
• 7. Michel Foucault (1975) Punir et surveiller or (1976) L’Histoire de la sexualité, 1: La Volonté de savoir.
• 8. A contemporary work such as Jacques Rancière’s Aux bords de la politique (1990), Mehdi Belhaj Kacem’s La Psychose française (2005) or Bernard Stiegler’s Télécratie contre la démocratie (2005).

Learning Outcomes

• Student will develop:
• Knowledge of major events in the history of French politics;
• Specific and critical knowledge of key texts and ideas across the history of French politics;
• Understanding of how political events are informed by thought, and how thought is informed by its historical and material contexts;
• Understanding of how historical ideas continue to inform contemporary political debates;
• Knowledge of key concepts and methodological approaches (Marxism, feminism, discourse analysis) to political, literary and cultural studies.

• By the end of this module, students should have improved:
• Critical analysis and close readings of political-philosophical texts;
• Ability to draw links between different periods in French history;
• Ability to situate textual studies in relation to broader political debates.

• By the end of this module, students should have improved:
• Critical and analytical thinking;
• Essay-writing, commentary and oral communication skills;
• Structuring of arguments;
• Independent learning and research;
• The ability to discuss topical or general issues with fluency;
• The ability to seek out and identify appropriate sources of evidence and information.
• Ability to produce summative work in the target language.

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

• Teaching will take the form of 20 weekly lectures across terms 1 and 2, with a revision session in term 3, plus a fortnightly seminar.
• Teaching will be spread over five set texts, with four lectures and two seminars on each.
• Students will complete two summative essay assignments and, to assess students' ability to put studied texts into dialogue with one another, there will also be an end-of-year comparative exam, comprising 50% of the final mark
• Teaching will be in a combination of English and French

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

One short presentation per student 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