Spring 2017

Worldliness and Otherworldliness

Listed in: French, as FREN-339

Formerly listed as: FREN-39

Faculty

Rosalina M. de la Carrera (Section 01)

Description

Many eighteenth-century writers imagined and invented other, better societies. To attenuate their criticisms of the social, political, and religious structures of the ancien régime, they had recourse to the viewpoint of fictional "outsiders" who arrive in France as if for the first time and describe what they see in minute and telling detail. We will analyze the role that these "other" worlds and the "otherworldly" point of view played in the development of eighteenth-century thought and literature, as well as some of the repercussions that these questions have had in twentieth-century thought. Readings will include Montesquieu's Lettres persanes, Rousseau's Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité, Diderot's Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville, and Madame de Graffigny's Lettres d'une Péruvienne, as well as Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents and a selection of essays by Claude Lévi-Strauss. Conducted in French.

Requisite: One of the following--FREN 207, 208, 311, or equivalent. Spring semester. Professor de la Carrera.

FREN 339 - L/D

Section 01
M 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM CHAP 101
W 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM CHAP 101
F 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM CHAP 101

ISBN Title Publisher Author(s) Comment Book Store Price
Histoire du chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut Paris: Larousse, 2008 Abbe Prevost It is important to buy the exact editions of the books indicated on this list (verify using the “ISBN”). Amherst Books TBD
Lettres persanes Paris: Larousse, 2011 Montesquieu Amherst Books TBD
Lettres d'une Peruvienne New York: Modern Language Association, 1993 Francois de Graffigny Amherst Books TBD
Discours sur l'origine de l'inegalite Paris: Nathan, 2009 Jean-Jacques Rousseau Amherst Books TBD
Voyage autour du monde Paris: Larousse, 2010 Louis-Antoine de Bougainville Amherst Books TBD
Supplement au Voage de Bougainville Paris: Gallimard, 2016 Denis Diderot Amherst Books TBD
Civilization and its Discontents New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010 Sigmund Freud Amherst Books TBD

These books are available locally at Amherst Books.

Offerings

Other years: Offered in Spring 2008, Fall 2009, Spring 2012, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2023