FREN 3730

Religious Violence in France and Francophone Texts

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2014-2015.

This course will examine the various forms religious violence takes on: war, massacre, pillage, and torture - and consider the symbolic meanings invested in these forms of violence in the context of the work of René Girard (La Violence et le sacré).  We will raise the question of what makes this sort of violence so intractable, and what has fostered the continuity of religious conflict over such a long span of time.  For exampe, the ceremonial or ritualistic nature of this violence seems to give it an internal justification that is not subject to laws concerning human rights.  Then, we will examine how a range of authors throughout history represent this violence in critical fashion.  A number of texts present the impossibilty of representing extreme violence, raising the question of how events can be witnessed when the witnesses are dead or traumatized by them.  How can such extreme violence be represented or explained without being justified or rationalized?  We will examine how the presentation of violence as a spectacle raises the questions of personal responsibility in the context of large scale and ongoing violence, implicating also those who observe but who do not directly participate.  We will also consider Maalouf's Les Croisades vues par les arabes (as well as his Identités meurtriès), Joinville's La Vie de Saint Louis, Thêodore Agrippa d'Aubigné's Les Tragiques, Elie Wiesel's La Nuit, Gillo Pontecorvo's La Bataille d'Algers, Jean Genet's Les Paravents, Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub's Testimony, and Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain.

When Offered Fall.

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisites: FREN 2210 or FREN 2310, FREN 3010, FREN 3050, or CASE++ placement, or permission of instructor.

Breadth Requirement (HB)
Distribution Category (CA-AS)
Language Requirement Satisfies Option 1.

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