French Modern Literature in Translation, 1900-1950
English 497-002; Gender 497-002
Professor Thomas Peele
Office Hours: T/Th 2:30-3:30, or by appointment
tpeele@boisestate.edu
426-3908
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Course Goals
This course expands the study of 20th century literature to include French literature in translation. You will benefit from the study of French writers as many of the British and American modernist writers that students currently study lived and worked in France. Through this course, I encourage you to consider Anglophone writers whom you have studied in the context of non-English languages and literatures and to pay close attention to literature’s cultural contexts. We will also pay close attention to queer identity as it evolves through this period. What are the cultural contexts that allow, encourage, or restrict the representation of queer identity during this period? How does the representation of queer identity affect our ideas of the word “culture” as it is used in diversity requirements and multicultural literature?

We will also consider the impact of war on literature. World Wars I and II more or less bracket this period in literature, so we will look to understand these works in relation to the larger social and political events of the epoch.

Literature doesn't exist in a vacuum. In order to get a fuller understanding of the period, I will ask you to look at movies, listen to music, and look at fashion. I encourage you to investigate other areas of culture as well, such as theater and architecture.

When ever possible, we will make connections between the cultural and political contexts of the period under investigation and our cultural and political contexts.
Required
Books		 Marcel Proust
Swann's Way
Trans. Lydia Davis
Penguin Classics, 2004		 Jean Cocteau
The Holy Terrors
(Les Enfants Terribles)
Trans. Rosamond Lehmann
New Directions, 1966		 Jean Genet
Querelle
Grove, 1994		 Andre Breton
Manifestoes of Surrealism
U of Michigan Press, 1969
Irene Nemirovsky
Suite Francaise
Vintage, 2007		 Francis Carco
Perversity
blackmask.com, 2005
Assignments and Grades
Blog Postings
10 posts for10%
Before each class period, please take a few moments to reflect, in writing, on that day's reading, and to post your reflections in our course blog. (Some people find it easier to compose their reflections in a word processor and the copy them into the blog.) We will rely heavily on the blog on days that we cannot meet as a class.

You won't need to summarize the text; instead, as you write your responses, discuss what, specifically, interested you about the reading. What do you have questions about? Where are you confused? What are your thoughts on other students' comments? We'll use the blog to help us guide our class discussions, and please, feel free to add links and videos to your post.

You will receive credit for no more than 2 posts per author. If you'd like to post more than twice, that's fine, but only two of your posts will be graded. Everyone is required to start with Proust; you'll have to comment on at least four other others to fulfill this assignment. Finally, you must complete all 10 posts to receive any credit for this assignment.

Please keep in mind the difference between a main post, which should be fairly substantial, and a response to another student's post, which might be substantial but which might instead be quite brief. We will also be "meeting" online twice (3/18 and 3/20); your posts for those class meetings will count as part of this assignment.
Collaborative Essays and Presentations (2) Essays: 10% each
Presentations: 10% each
For this assignment, you will work with one or two class members. You will conduct research on your subject, then write up and present your results to the class. There are two parts,then, to this assignment:

Written assignment. Each student will complete his or her brief (5-10 page) research essay. As evidence for your argument, I'd like for you to include three external references: one from a subscription database, one from an independant Web site with an .edu suffix, and one other of your choice. You must work on one text from the beginning of the semester and one text from the end of the semester.

Presentation. You will rewrite the essay into a presentation format and use presentation software such as PowerPoint, Open Office, or Google Presentations. You're invited, in fact, to use the presentation medium that you think best fits your subject. How might you conceptualize your presentation as a short movie? What's the most effective way to reach your audience? You should use the presentation opportunity to present your findings, but keep in mind that you may not be able to present every detail of your essay. You'll most likely have to narrow down your essay and to present, with the help of useful visual elements, the most important ideas. After you give the presentation, you'll need to give me the presentation document.

Collaboration. Ideally, you and your partner(s) will collaborate with each other on this project. You can address any aspect of the text that interests you. You and your partners can work on the same subject or on different, complementary subjects. I realize, however, that group members do not always contribute the same amount of work to group projects, so each group member will receive individual grades. You should under no circumstances complete work for another group member.

Proposal
5%
In the proposal, briefly introduce the book(s) you have chosen for your final project and briefly describe why you have chosen it. The book must have been written in French between (roughly) 1900 and 1950. You need to get my approval on your choice, so make sure you let me know what you've chosen before you start your Proposal.
Final Research Essay (10 - 20 pages)
30%
For the final project, I strongly encourage you to present your work on a digital platform such as blogger or pbwiki. The digital platform allows you much greater flexibility. It also gives you the opportunity to include visual elements in your document, including movies. Bill Schnupp, a graduate student at Boise State, created this blog for his final assignment.

For this research essay, I expect to see citataions from all of the following resources:

  • online databases from Albertson's Library
  • a professional site dedicated to your topic
  • a directory
  • Alberston's Library catalog
  • a citation embedded within an essay you read on your subject

We'll talk more about these resources as the semester progresses. Please use MLA's guidelines for writing and citing research papers, and please use it carefully. The library has multiple copies available.

Final Presentation
15%
Follow the presentation guidelines, above.
Grade Scale
97-100 A+ 77-79 C+
93-96 A 73-76 C
90-92 A- 70-72 C-
87-89 B+ 67-69 D+
83-86 B 63-66 D
80-82 B- 60-62 D-
59 and below F
Attendance You can miss up to 4 class periods without penalty. After that, I will lower your final grade by one unit (i.e., A to A-) for each class period you miss. Customary and excessive lateness will be counted as an absence, so please let me know if you have a scheduled conflict that will keep you from getting to class on time.
Cell Phones Please turn them off. Let me know if you have an emergency and you need to leave your phone on.
Plagiarism Plagiarism very rarely occurs in my classes, and I've never seen an instance of it in an upper-division course. Please know, however, that if I discover that you have copied a source without attribution you will receive a 0 for that assignment. University policy also allows me to give you an F for the course and to initiate expulsion proceedings.
Extra Credit There are three opportunities for earning extra credit. For each extra credit event you attend, I will increase your final grade by 1 percentage point. That might not sound like much, but 1 percentage point can make the difference between a B+ (87) and an A- (90). In order to earn extra credit, I must see you at both the beginning and end of the event.
Changes to the Schedule While I will make every attempt to leave the syllabus as it is, it is sometimes necessary to make changes. In the event that I make changes to the syllabus, they will be posted on the Bb course site.