Spring 2026 Course Search

Insider Perspectives on the Francophone World II — FRE4224.01

Instructor: Noëlle Rouxel-Cubberly
Days & Time: MO,WE,TH 8:30am-9:50am
Credits: 5

Viewed from the outside, the French-speaking world offers enticing images of beauty, pleasure, and freedom. From the inside, however, it is a complicated, often contradictory world where implicit codes and values shape the most basic aspects of daily life. This course will give you an insiderʹs perspective on a cultural and communicative system whose ideas, customs, and belief systems are surprisingly different from your own.

Cinéma-monde — FRE4154.01

Instructor: Noëlle Rouxel-Cubberly
Days & Time: MO,TH 10:00am-11:50am
Credits: 4

In this course, films are used as textbooks to learn the French language and explore the French-speaking world. In order to hone their language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), students will listen to selected film dialogues to improve their listening comprehension, read and analyze excerpts from scenarios and reviews to strengthen their understanding of syntax and widen their vocabulary, mimic the pronunciation of actors and write on film to improve their spoken and written French.

Modern Guitar — MIN4224.01

Instructor: Hui Cox
Days & Time:
Credits: 2

Modern Guitar is a one on one private lesson.  Occasionally if two students are about the same level the class will accommodate two students at a time.

It is expected that a firm grasp of all the concepts taught in Beginning and Intermediate Guitar are fully understood.

If you haven’t taken these classes you would have to audition to receive the instructors permission to demonstrate skills.

Mouvements — FRE4610.01

Instructor: Stephen Shapiro
Days & Time: MO,TH 10:00am-11:50am
Credits: 4

This course will examine movement–travel, migration, and transition–in the French-speaking world. We’ll examine the travel tale as philosophical form (Candide), the sonnet, Orientalism, the graphic novels of Marjane Satrapi, films of Josephine Baker, queer movement in the work of Abdellah Taïa, the North Atlantic Triangle (Maboula Soumahoro), and the gender transition of Océan. Students will write a variety of critical and creative texts, make individual and group presentations, and develop their reading skills. Conducted in French. Intermediate-high level.

French Comedy — FRE4811.01

Instructor: Stephen Shapiro
Days & Time: MO 3:40pm-5:30pm & WE 4:10pm-6:00pm
Credits: 4

This course will examine the comic in French theatre, literature, politics, and film in order to answer a deceptively simple question: What makes us laugh? In theoretical readings we will consider whether laughter is a universal, cross-cultural function. Additionally, we will look at special, sub-genres of the comic, such as satire and parody, in order to question the relationship between comic genres and the real world. Does comedy seek to change the world or does it merely want to point to its foibles? Is it a progressive or conservative mode?

The F-Word: Confronting Fascism in a World on Fire — POL4259.01

Instructor: John Hultgren
Days & Time: MO,TH 10:00am-11:50am
Credits: 4

In the United States, recent years have witnessed an upsurge in right-wing organizing and violence, culminating in the 2021 insurrection at the United States Capitol that sought to overturn the legitimate results of a democratic election. This is not a uniquely American problem. Across much of the globe, political parties organized around hyper-nationalism have gained steam, in some cases mobilized through charismatic leaders wrapping their hateful politics in faux-populist rhetoric.

Intermediate Ear Training — MTH4284.01

Instructor: Joseph Alpar
Days & Time: MO,TH 1:40pm-3:30pm
Credits: 4

In this course, students will develop skills in aural perception, learning to visualize, sing, and notate music through melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic exercises. Students will learn to identify key signatures, intervals, 7th chords, triads, key relationships, common cadences and phrase structures, larger forms, tempo markings, and more.

The Politics of Immigration — POL2259.01

Instructor: John Hultgren
Days & Time: WE 10:00am-11:50am
Credits: 2

The U.N. estimates that there are 281 international migrants in the world, a number that has grown precipitously over the past half century and shows little sign of dissipating. Over the same time period, anti-immigrant parties and leaders have sprung up across much of the world, with visions of national revitalization contingent upon militarized borders and mass deportations. How might we understand the complex and contradictory forces that give rise to such a reality?

Queer French (in English) — FRE2109.02

Instructor: Stephen Shapiro
Days & Time: MO,TH 1:40pm-3:30pm
Credits: 2

In this course, we will examine French culture’s engagement with questions of sexuality and gender, with a focus on authors, artists, theorists, and others who have questioned ideas of normative sexuality from the Middle Ages through the 21st century. Authors and texts to be studied may include Marie de France, Gabrielle d’Estrées et l'une de ses soeurs, Montaigne, l’Abbé de Choisy, Charles Perrault (La Belle au bois dormant), le Chevalier d’Eon, Virginie Despentes, Paul Preciado, Wendy Delorme, Abdellah Taïa, Edouard Louis, Bambi (Sebastian Lifshitz), and Parole de King (Chriss Lag).