Cancelled
Queer French (in English)
FRE2109.02
Course Description
Summary
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). We will also look at the sodomitical subculture of eighteenth-century Paris as well as the contemporary ballroom scene.
Learning Outcomes
- This course will sharpen your skills as readers and critics of a variety of literary genres.
Discussions and assignments will demand careful, close reading of texts as well as
analysis and interpretation. We will also probe the social and intellectual background of
the works studied. At the end of the course, students will:
1.) Understand, situate, evaluate, and critique various types of discourse used to write
sexuality within multiple contexts.
2.) Understand how sexual and gender identity intersect with nationality, race,
ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic class in the context of French and
Francophone literature.