Spring 23 French Class on Paris in Media!
Open gallery
From Émile Zola’s 19th-century novels to Netflix’s series Emily in Paris, Paris has long seemed a mythical place as much as a real, living city.
This course examines some of the various depictions of Paris in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. At one point considered “the capital of modernity,” does Paris now risk being turned into a museum forever yearning for its past? Is Paris still the romantic “City of Light,” or has it become a modern version of a medieval castle, with the rich enjoying the good life within its gates, while the poor are both literally and figuratively marginalized on the periphery of the city? How have patterns of immigration from France’s former colonial empire shaped notions of national identity? Drawing on literary texts (including works by 2022 Nobel Prize winner Annie Ernaux and 2014 Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano), paintings, photographs, and films, and supplemented by critical and historical studies, we will examine both the evolving life of the city itself and its second, symbolic life, with particular attention to the diversity of contemporary postcolonial Paris. Paris is both a city and a symbol, and this course will be accordingly a history not merely of what Paris is, but also of what Paris means to Parisians, provincials, and foreign visitors alike.
This course is taught in English, although students are welcome to read the primary texts in French.
There is no prerequisite, and the course is open to all students.
