FREN 3460

Intellectuals: A French History

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2020-2021.

The concept of "intellectual" - the writer or scholar who takes a political commitment - was born in France at the end of the nineteenth century.  From the Dreyfus Affaire to the recent polemics on French "identity," passing through Vichy, the Algerian War and May 68, intellectuals established a symbiotic relationship between culture and politics, becoming a sort of national brand, object of both admiration and contempt outside of the country.  The aim of this course is to revisit some crucial moments of this history, focusing on different attempts to define the nature and function of the intellectual, from Emile Zola to Jean-Paul Sartre, from Simone de Beavoir to Michel Foucault.

When Offered Fall.

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: FREN 2310 or CASE Q++.

Distribution Category (HA-AS, ALC-AS, ETM-AS)
Language Requirement Satisfies Option 1.

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