An Exploration of French Chanson in the 20 th Century

Transcription

1 FRENCH CLASS#1300 DR. BOURDERIONNET An Exploration of French Chanson in the 20 th Century If you have heard of Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf, you know that the French take their chanson seriously. Do you know that Piaf is considered one of the last representatives of a genre of chanson that emerged in the late 19 th century? Do you know that chanson incorporated jazz music very early on and with such success that a number of songs now part of the American standard repertoire were actually composed in France? This course proposes to explore many aspects of French popular music throughout the twentieth century and beyond, with a particular focus on the transformations of the genre of chanson over time. We will look at the significance of chanson from a variety of perspectives: historical (wars, labor movements, decolonization, youth movement, etc.) cultural (evolution of the way people shared and experienced songs: cabaret, phonogram, radio, concert halls, video, internet) and literary (the relationship between chanson and the French literary tradition and movements). We will listen to a selection of songs, each week. The lyrics will be made available in pdf format via moodle. Students will be responsible for finding the song recordings on Youtube (or on the UNO media server if so directed). We will also read a selection of articles and chapters from books in French or English (see bibliography below) that will be made available by pdf (either on Moodle or on electronic reserve at the library). Lectures (all in French) will be posted on Moodle once a week. Twice during the summer session, students will be asked to respond in French to assigned material and questions via a discussion forum on Moodle. There will be a mid-session exam (after four weeks of class) and a final exam at the end of the session. Students will not have to purchase any books for this course but they will be required to pay exam fees ($20 to Proctor U services per test) for online testing. Selected bibliography: Brunschwig, Chantal; Calvet, Louis-Jean; Klein, Jean-Claude. Cent ans de chanson française. Paris: Seuil 1981 Calvet, Louis-Jean. Chanson et société. Paris: Payot, 1981 Cantaloube-Ferrieu, Lucienne. Chanson et poésie des années 30 aux années 60: Trenet, Brassens, Ferré... ou les "enfants naturels" du surréalisme. Paris: Nizet, 1981 Conway, Kelly. Chanteuse in the city: the realist singer in French film. Berkley: UCP, 2004 Grimbert, Philippe. Psychanalyse de la chanson. Paris: Hachette, 1996 Hawkins, Peter. Chanson. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000 Hennion, Antoine. Les professionnels du disque: une sociologie des variétés. Paris: Métailié, 1981 Looseley, David. Popular music in contemporary France. Oxford: Berg 2003 Ory, Pacal. L aventure culturelle française Paris: Flammarion, 1989 Stovall, Tyler. Paris Noir. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1996 Szendy, Peter. Tubes. La philosophie dans le juke-box. Minuit, Yonnet, Paul. Jeux, modes et masses: la société française et le moderne Paris: Gallimard, 1985

2 DIRECTED STUDY DR. JULIANA STARR FRENCH CLASS # 1301 This course is restricted: special departmental permission is required to enroll. Only students in need of it to fulfill a special requirement or to complete their degree will be allowed to enroll. Subjects treated in recent times: Current events in France through readings of the media; The legend of Tristan and Iseut in Medieval French Literature, Balzac et Flaubert, etc

3 COMPARATIVE ROMANCE CULTURES: LOVE AND VIOLENCE ROML Class #1517 Dr. Eliza Ghil THIS COURSE CAN BE TAKEN TWICE FOR A MAXIMUM OF SIX CREDITS This course, conducted in English, explores the thematic and stylistic relations between love and violence in early modern Romance cultures. Our study will take us in time from the 12 th to the 17 th centuries, and in space from Occitania (medieval southern France) to northern France, Italy, and ultimately, Spain. We will follow several directions of inquiry: 1) lyrical imagery, i.e., metaphors of captivity, hunting and war as used by the lover to articulate the intensity of his devotion, e.g. by the troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn (active ), and by the trouvère Thibaut de Champagne ( ); 2) narrative plots, e.g., in the lai ( short narrative ) by Marie de France ( Guigemar ) in which the lover knight wages war and spreads violence as part of his second nature (the author was active in the 1180 s); 3) the lyrico-narrative shaping of a contemporary incident by Dante Alighieri in his Inferno Canto V, i.e., the story of Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta ( L Inferno is part I of La Divina Commedia, authored at the beginning of the 14 th century); 4) the poetical reshaping of Biblical myths of sex and violence, e.g., in a sonnet from the Spanish Golden Age by Lope de Vega ( ). Readings will be taken from bilingual editions: the students will be responsible for reading the English translations while the professor will refer to the original of the bilingual editions in her lectures. REQUIREMENTS: participation in English in the Discussion Board, two written assignments, a mid-term exam and a final exam (to be written in English). BIBLIOGRAPHY: (note: everything will be posted on Moodle except for Dante and Marie de France): I. Primary Texts 1. Frederick Goldin, Lyrics of the Troubadours and the Trouvères. New York: Anchor / Doubleday, 1973 (several short poems to be posted on Moodle). 2. Marie de France, Guigemar, in The Lays of. ISBN Dante Alighieri, The Inferno. A new verse translation by Robert Pinsky, Bilingual edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998 ISBN Angel Flores, ed., Spanish Poetry: A Dual Language Anthology, 16-th to 20-th centuries. Mineola, NY: Dover Publishing, Inc., 1998 (several poems from the Spanish Golden Age including Lope s sonnet will be posted on Moodle). II. Secondary Sources Prefaces and other commentaries authored by the editors of the above-mentioned editions.

4 SPANISH : STUDIES IN SPANISH LITERATURE: COLONIAL SPANISH-AMERICAN LITERATURE (From the Discovery until Independence) Class #1527 Prof. Manuel García Castellón This course, conducted in Spanish, will familiarize the student with Colonial Latin American texts such as Christopher Columbus Diario de navegación and Cartas del descubrimiento, and notable chronicles such as Bernal Díaz del Castillo s Verdadera Historia, Hernán Cortés Cartas de Relación, Cabeza de Vaca s Naufragios, and Inca Garcilaso s Comentarios Reales. We will also read critical essays of the period such as Bartolomé de las Casas Brevissima relación de la destrucción de las Yndias and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz s autobiographical Epistola a Sor Filotea. As for poetry, we will discover Alonso de Ercilla s memorable Araucana, as well as Sor Juana s feminist redondillas. Other than primary sources, the student will read a series of related critical articles posted on Moodle as Course Documents, mostly in postcolonial interpretation. Requirements: weekly readings, with corresponding questionnaires and comments, and a final paper of pages including bibliography, in MLA format. Textbook: Raquel Chang-Rodríguez: Aquí, ninfas del Sur, venid ligeras. Latest ed. ISBN: Available at the Tulane Latin American Library, call number: PQ 7084.A

5 DIRECTED STUDY DR. MANUEL GARCÍA CASTELLÓN SPAN CLASS #1533 This course is restricted: special departmental permission is required to enroll. Only students in need of it to fulfill a special requirement will be allowed to enroll. This course will be taught in Spanish. Topics in recent semesters: Golden Age Literature including Cervantes; early Spanish Civilization; Readings on women writers fiction, etc.