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FALL 2008 
Contact:    ROMANCE and CLASSICAL STUDIES    
Academic Year Abroad Office    Shatzel  Hall 102     (419) 372-8053   
 ayafran@bgsu.edu

FREN 101: Elementary French 1 [4 credits]
Instructor: Staff

Beginning oral-aural study; attention to grammar. Four class periods and scheduled oral practice each week. Applicable to the humanities and arts and international perspective general education requirements.

FREN 102: Elementary French 2 [4 credits]
Instructor: Staff

FREN 101 continued. Four class periods and scheduled oral practice each week. Prerequisites: FREN 101 or one year of French in high school. Applicable to the humanities and arts and international perspective general education requirements.

FREN 201: Intermediate French 1 [3 credits]
Instructor: Staff

Grammar review; development of the four skills. Three class periods and laboratory practice each week. Prerequisite: FREN 102 or two years of French in high school. Applicable to the humanities and arts and international perspective general education requirements.

FREN 202: Intermediate French 2 [3 credits]
Instructor: Dr. D. Houk Schocket, Staff

FREN 201 is continued. Three class periods and scheduled laboratory each week. Cannot be taken for credit if credit for FREN 212 has been received. Cannot be taken concurrently with FREN 212. Prerequisite: FREN 201 or three years of French in high school. Applicable to the humanities and arts and international perspective general education requirements.

FREN 212: Reading French [3 credits]
Instructor: Staff

This course will teach students the knowledge, strategies, and techniques for reading French at the intermediate level. Readings in French; class conducted in English. Prerequisite: FREN 201 or three years of high school French. Does not count as prerequisite for 300-level class. Applicable to the humanities and arts and international perspective general education requirements.

FREN 220: Language and Culture through Community Living [2 credits/Grading system: satisfactory/unsatisfactory]
Instructor: Dr. M. Harsh   

This course for French House residents is designed to improve conversational French and cultural awareness about French-speaking countries. Prerequisite: must be a French House resident. May be repeated up to 8 hours.
                                 
                 "Cybervoyage"                                       
As the French House is one of Bowling Green State University’s Living-Learning Communities, FREN 220 is designed to strengthen and ensure the learning, which occurs in this unique setting. Throughout their residency, residents of the French House practice and promote the French language and the awareness of all Francophone cultures through activities emphasizing divers cultural phenomena. These activities are organized around virtual exploration, a “cybervoyage.”  Each resident is responsible for the discovery and exploration of one Francophone country or region of the world, which she shares with the French House and the BGSU campus communities through organized activities such as:  cultural discussions, cultural dinners, etc. At the end of the term, the residents bring their “cybervoyage” findings together in a collective travel log/scrapbook. Participation in house activities is required to earn a grade of Satisfactory. 
 Interested in la Maison Française?       Check out our website:  http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/roml/frenchstudies/frenhous.html
 

 FREN 222: French Culture [3 credits]   
Instructor: Ms. H. Gabel


Does this man represent French culture to you? If you want to know why he shouldn't, then this course is for you. In French 222, we will focus on the problem of Franco-American relations within a variety of contexts: cultural, historical, political, economic, social, etc. We will discuss various contributors to Franco-American cooperation (harmony) and conflict (discord), both currently and historically, both individually and collectively. We will also explore the impact of mass media, major international events, and changing power structures on each society's perception of the other. The goal of this course is to help students develop a more sophisticated understanding of the United States' relationship with France, beyond the simplified version often portrayed by some media sources and propagated by common stereotypes. By the end of this course, students will have considered this complex relationship from multiple perspectives and will have acquired knowledge helpful in shaping their arguments.

Readings and class in English. Does not fulfill language requirements or count toward the major or minor in French. Applicable to the humanities and arts and international perspective general education requirements.

 FREN 356: Skills for Oral Proficiency [3 credits]
Instructor: Ms. H. Gabel  
                                          
In this course, you will focus primarily on improving your spoken French, in particular your fluidity and communicative ability. You will learn conversation strategies and practice language structures in order to improve accuracy in French, with special emphasis given to thematic vocabulary development. You will become more at ease listening to authentic conversational French and reacting appropriately to what you hear. You will practice oral discussion prompted by a variety of media (see below). You will achieve greater ease of expression and be able to discuss a wide range of topics.

Subject matter for the course will be drawn from various aspects of contemporary French-speaking cultures. In addition to the textbook, we will work with French language sources from the Internet, magazines, newspapers, videos and handouts.  Classes will be conducted exclusively in French.  Prerequisite: FREN 202 or four years of high school French.

FREN 357: Skills for Effective Writing [3 credits]
Instructor: Dr. D. Houk Schocket   
                             
The main focus of this course is to help students become more proficient in their written expression in French, while continuing to develop conversation, reading, and listening skills.  It includes a grammar review that especially targets structures that will help students write more complex sentences, as well as work with techniques and expressions to help students write more authentically and with increased sophistication.  Writing is a multi-stage process in which students revise their compositions several times, improving their French by learning to correct their own errors and by receiving feedback from both peers and the instructor.  We read a variety of literary and cultural texts and study a film as a basis for class discussions and writing assignments. Prerequisite : FREN 202 or 4 years of French in high school.

FREN 366: Introduction to Francophone Literature [3 credits]
Instructor: Dr. B. Guenther       
                                                                 
In this course, students can expect to explore a wide range of literary texts associated with the term, la francophonie. We will study the adoption and diverse transformations of the French language and culture in works drawn from the Caribbean, the Maghreb [in particular, Algeria and Morocco], West Africa, and Quebec. Works by Césaire, Condé, Sebbar, and Lalonde, among others, will permit us to analyze key political issues (for instance, colonialism, decolonization, gender) as well as how different genres (narrative, theatre, poetry, and film) reinforce and/or problematize such concerns. Prerequisites: FREN 356 and 357, or permission of instructor.

FREN 373: Introduction to French Civilization [3 credits]
Instructor: Dr. M. Harsh

Nicolas Sarkozy—prochain président de la République? —qui vient de lancer son nouveau slogan: « Imaginons la France d’après »

The emphasis will be on France today. Among the topics that we’ll be studying: social issues and cultural life (mariage and the family, religions, immigration, education); institutions of the Fifth Republic, elections and contemporary political parties; France in the European Union. Our classroom is the Language Learning Center, where we’ll spend a large part of the course reading the French press online and listening to French radio. Prerequisites: FREN 356 and FREN 357, or permission of instructor.

 FREN 466/FREN 550: French/Francophone Surrealism [3 credits]
Instructor: Dr. M. Harsh

 In her 1999 study of the Surrealist movement, Ruth Brandon notes that the adjective "surreal," which leaps so readily to mind as a definition of "the disjunctions, the bizarre concatenations, the dreamlike illogic ..." of the past century, had not found common usage until the French avant-garde literary and artistic movement headed by André Breton defined it.  Basing their research on a "super-reality" that they believed dwelled in the subconscious mind and had been largely unexploited by earlier writers and artists, Breton and his followers chose the word that Brandon believes "perhaps more than any other, defines our time."[1]

At the beginning of the twentieth century, with political trouble brewing in various corners of the world, bizarre events that defied description became everyday occurrences providing writers with phenomena to portray that required different techniques than they had previously employed on a regular basis.  The emerging field of psychoanalysis revealed fresh approaches for describing and explaining human mental and physical phenomena.  Later, at mid-century, reports of revolutionary wars for independence in the former French colonies and the ensuing struggles of minority races and women for human rights in these locales were similarly rife with allusions to the "surreality" of life experience.  In this course, we will examine the literary production of several authors from three geographic regions—the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the province of Quebec—comparing their concerns and techniques with those of the early Surrealists, in order to document the enduring capacity of surrealist practice to express human experience in postcolonial and postmodern eras. May be repeated if topic is different. Prerequisite: FREN 366 or by permission of instructor

FREN 601: Teaching College French [3 credits]
Instructor: Dr. B. Fonseca-Greber

• Students will develop an awareness of who they are and who they are becoming as teachers by reflecting on their own pedagogical practice and that of others.
• Students will demonstrate informed pedagogical choices—and an understanding of what informs those choices—as they teach in a variety of common methods.
• Students will design pedagogical activities for engaging the individual learner and assessing student learning.
• Students will demonstrate their ability to evaluate pedagogical materials.
• Students will showcase their teaching experience and pedagogical growth.

FREN 632: Critical Approaches to Literature: Literary and Cultural Theory [3 credits]
Instructor: Dr. B. Guenther

This course will explore the relevance of theoretical approaches to the study of literature and culture.
The double emphasis of the course is: to introduce students to major theoretical trends [structuralism; deconstruction; psychoanalytic theory; historiography; film studies; gender studies; post-colonialism] through the analysis of critical texts by, among others, Roland Barthes, Gérard Genette, Michel Foucault, Pierre Nora; and to encourage the practical application of theoretical methods to literary and cultural texts (including film).

Students can expect to play an active role in exploring the different critical methods and ideologies through oral and written assignments.


FREN 699: Thesis Research [1-12 credits]
Instructor: Dr. D. Schocket

Credit for thesis study. Enrollment in excess of six hours acceptable for Plan I master's degree, but no more than six hours creditable toward degree; minimum acceptable total for degree is three hours. Graded S/U.

Interested in Study Abroad in France, Quebec,  Burkina-Faso ?
Click Link to find out more:    http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/roml/frenchstudies/frenuaya.html  

SPRING 2008
  

FREN 101: Elementary French 1   (4 credits)    Instructor: Staff
Beginning oral-aural study; attention to grammar. Four class periods and scheduled oral practice each week. Applicable to the humanities and arts and international perspective general education requirements.

FREN 102: Elementary French 2   (4 credits)    Instructor: Staff
FREN 101 continued. Four class periods and scheduled oral practice each week. Prerequisites: FREN 101 or one year of French in high school. Applicable to the humanities and arts and international perspective general education requirements.

FREN 201: Intermediate French 1   (3 credits)   Instructor: Staff
Grammar review; development of the four skills. Three class periods and laboratory practice each week. Prerequisite: FREN 102 or two years of French in high school. Applicable to the humanities and arts and international perspective general education requirements.

FREN 202: Intermediate French 2  (3 credits)    Instructor: Staff
FREN 201 continued. Three class periods and scheduled laboratory each week. Cannot be taken for credit if credit for FREN 212 has been received. Cannot be taken concurrently with FREN 212. Prerequisite: FREN 201 or three years of French in high school. Applicable to the humanities and arts and international perspective general education requirements.

FREN 212: Reading French  (3 Credits)  Instructor: Staff
This course will teach students the knowledge, strategies, and techniques for reading French at the intermediate level. Readings in French; class conducted in English. Prerequisite: FREN 201 or three years of high school French. Does not count as prerequisite for 300-level class. Applicable to the humanities and arts
and international perspective general education requirements.

FREN 220: Language and Culture through Community Living  (2 credits)  [Grading system: satisfactory/unsatisfactory]    Instructor: M. A. Harsh

                                    
                                                                                                                 "Cybervoyage"
This course for French House residents is designed to improve conversational French and cultural awareness about French-speaking countries. Prerequisite: must be a French House resident. May be repeated up to 8 hours.
As the French House is one of Bowling Green State University’s Living-Learning Communities, FREN 220 is designed to strengthen and ensure the learning, which occurs in this unique setting. Throughout their residency, residents of the French House practice and promote the French language and the awareness of all Francophone cultures through activities emphasizing diverse cultural phenomena. These activities are organized around virtual exploration, a “cyber-voyage.” Each resident is responsible for the discovery and exploration of one Francophone country or region of the world, which she shares with the French House and the BGSU campus communities through organized activities such as: cultural discussions, cultural dinners, etc. At the end of the term, the residents bring their “cyber-voyage” findings together in a collective travel log/scrapbook. Participation in house activities is required to earn a grade of Satisfactory.  Check out our web site: http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/rocs/frenchhouse/index.html

FREN 222: French Culture  (3 credits )  Instructor: Ms. H. Gabel

FREN 300: Preparation for Study in France and Burkina-Faso (1 credit)   Instructor: C. Whipple
Limited to participants in AYA/France-Burkina Faso (year, semester,summer) programs. Readings and discussions to encourage and facilitate student preparation for upcoming study abroad experience. Course conducted during last six weeks of spring semester, following program application deadline. Does not count toward French major or minor. conducted in English. Graded S/U.

FREN 356: Skills for Oral Proficiency  (3 Credits)  Instructor: M. A. Harsh
French 356 is designed to build upon your acquired language skills with a special emphasis on oral proficiency. We will concentrate on your oral expression as well as your comprehension of spoken French. Using multimedia resources such as television programs, radio interviews, discussions, movies, songs, etc.—all originating from the Francophone world—you will quickly become more at ease listening to authentic French and reacting appropriately to what you hear. You will become familiar with the various linguistic levels associated with oral production within different social milieus. For instance, you will learn that much like in English—the manner you choose to speak to the president of an international company will not be the same as that used to address a good friend.

Pronunciation practice and vocabulary acquisition will aid in making you more comfortable with your spoken French. Topics of discussion will run the gamut of conversational instances: you will learn the proper words and formulations involved in expressing yourself in everyday life situations (ordering at a café, making plans with friends, answering the phone, etc.); but also, those encountered in the more exceptional circumstances (professional interview, debates, etc.). French 356 will lead to a more profound level of acquisition and appreciation of the language through the discovery of its rhythms, subtleties, and its imagery. For example, what do you think the illustrated idiomatic expression above means?

(Hint: the corresponding English expression is illustrated below).

FREN 357: Skills for Effective Writing  (3 Credits)   Instructor: Ms. Heather Gabel

The main focus of this course is to help students become more proficient in their written expression in French, while continuing to develop conversation,reading, and listening skills. It includes a grammar review that especially targets structures that will help students write more complex sentences, as well as work with techniques and expressions to help students write more authentically and with increased sophistication. Writing is a multi-stage process in which students revise their compositions several times, improving their French by learning to correct their own errors and by receiving feedback from both peers and the instructor. We read a variety of literary and cultural texts and study a film as a basis for class discussions and writing assignments.
Prerequisite : FREN 202 or 4 years of French in high school.

 FREN 363: Introduction to French Literature  (3 Credits)  Instructor: Dr. D. Schocket
As an introductory course, its contents will serve as a general survey of the literary production in France of the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Our focus will be on the study of canonical authors of French literary history as they express themselves through chosen literary genres. Prerequisite: French 356 or 357, or by permission of instructor.

Course Objectives :
The general course objectives include:

• The exploration of the major literary movements and the key literary genres of the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
• The recognition of the interdependency of Literature, History, Culture, Language and Self, as it reveals itself in the literary texts of the
  late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
• The development and appreciation of reading strategies key to literary analysis.
• The improvement and enrichment of one’s oral and written expression of his or her own ideas and interpretations. Prerequisites: FREN 356 and 357, or permission of instructor.
                                                                                               

FREN 376: Introduction to Francophone Civilization  (3 Credits)  Instructor: Dr. O. Zongo
Cross-century study of historical, social, cultural, and economic aspects of French-speaking world outside France through political, social, intellectual, and artistic texts.  Prerequisite: FREN 356 and 357, or permission of instructor.

 FREN 395: Les Lieux de memoire: Cityscape and Cultural Memory   Instructor: Dr. B. Guenther
(taught in English, for freshmen & sophomores)   

 SPRING BREAKAWAY IN QUEBEC CITY, SPRING BREAK 2007
    

The two images attempt to capture the “The Great Conquest,” the traumatic battle of the Plains of Abraham (1763) and dramatic turning-point when France ceded its control over the province of Quebec (and, ultimately, North America) to Great Britain. Whose perspective has been selected in each of these paintings?

The course on Quebec’s “Realms [Places] of Memory” [FREN 395] will explore the multiple ways in which events and figures key to Quebec’s history have been represented. Whose account of the past has won out and shaped the memory of current Quebeckers? How can one analyze and explain the effect of these different representations of the past, including the significance of the different images reproduced here? Does Quebec’s cultural history allow us to understand how our own national past, American or other, has been pieced together?

Students in this course will be analyzing various media (historical accounts, film, images, virtual museums) and, most importantly, will be spending Spring Break 2008 (February 29 - March 8)  in Montreal and Quebec City  in order to analyze the cultural memories to be explored in the two cities. Several stipends available.

Quebec Spring Breakaway: Update

Registration Information
Breakaway Participants who attend all scheduled activities and complete course work will receive 2 credits for the week abroad; the third credit is earned through class, which meets once a week on Mondays (12:30-1:20) during the semester. No previous knowledge of French is required; the course counts toward a Canadian Studies minor but not toward a French major or minor, since the language of instruction is English.

Application Information: By 12/3/2007: $100; Balance by 1/14/2008. If you don’t own a passport yet, you should begin applying for one now. Questions? Contact Dr. Beatrice Guenther, Shatzel 215

bguenth@bgnet.bgsu.edu or 372-8069

 FREN 395 (M002): French Workshop: La Petite Ecole (1 credit) Instructor: Dr. B. Guenther & Mme Lilia BentaiebFor advanced students in French: Participate in a community-outreach program that will give you the opportunity to work with first- and second-graders in the Bowling Green School District. First 4-5 weeks: Hands-on practice sessions with Early Childhood Education specialists at the M. A. level to help with lesson-planning; February 9-Mach 22: one-hour team-taught sessions per week with a small group of first- and/or second-graders to teach beginning French and French/Francophone culture in a playful atmosphere.
If you’re interested, please contact Dr. Beatrice Guenther, Shatzel 215 bguenth@bgnet.bgsu.edu or 372-8069.

FREN 451: Advanced Conversation and Composition  (3 credits)    Instructor: Dr. B. Guenther

In this advanced course on oral and written expression in French, students can expect to improve their linguistic skills through the analysis of short 20^th- and 21^st-century texts highlighting different genres and stylistic strategies (as in works by Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Philippe Delerm, and Raymond Queneau). The course also includes the study of contemporary journalistic pieces and film. Prequisite: French 356 or 357.

FREN 455: French Applied Linguistics  (3 credits)  Instructor Dr. B. Fonseca-Greber

This course introduces students to the linguistic features of French, including comparisons between French and other languages, to the changing nature of language, and to key differences in varieties of French. It also encourages students to accommodate for gaps in their own knowledge of French and to seek opportunities to learn about varieties of French by becoming autonomous learners. Prerequisites: FREN 353, FREN 356, and FREN 357.

FREN 458/538: Career French  (3 credits)    Instructor: Dr. Robert Berg
Textbook: R. Berg, Parlons affaires! Initiation au français économique et commercial, 2nd edition (Thomson/Heinle) An introduction to business and commercial French. The course will prepare you for the exam leading to the DFA-1 (diplôme du français des affaires, premier degré), sponsored by the Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie de Paris. BGSU is a centre d’examens, and the exam is given in April on campus. The exam is an option, not a course requirement.

The approach, resolutely practical throughout, is especially so in Modules 1 and 3, which emphasize the acquisition of skills: writing your résumé, job interviews, business letters. We’ll meet in the Language Learning Center, where we will be exploring together relevant web sites. Prerequisite: French 356 or 357.  FREN 466/550: Le Quebec et la quete d'identite [Topics in Francophone LIterature]  (3 credits)    Instructor: Dr. B. Guenther How does a nation invent itself? What is the place of nationalism in the 21st century? This course will focus on the concept of national identity, as it has evolved in Quebec from its “beginnings” to the present through literary and cultural texts. We will focus in particular on the “Conquest” (1763) and the Révolution Tranquille, the sixties and their aftermath. The final section of the course will allow us to explore the newer trends in the province, especially the literary contributions and challenges represented by the diverse immigrant groups. We will study the intersections of national identity and multiculturalism using film, literature, and the media; students will be expected to use the Internet to track recent political and contemporary developments in Quebec. [Texts to be read: Marie-Claire Blais’ Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel; Michel Tremblay, Les Belles-Soeurs; Jacques Poulins Volkswagen Blues; Ying Chen’s Les Lettres chinoises; Marco Micone, Le figuier enchanté.]  The course is taught in French.  Prerequisite: French 366.

FREN 473/550: Des Marges au centre:l'impact de l'immigration sur la politique, les arts et la langue française  (3 credits)  Instructor: M. A. Harsh

In this course we will be exploring the effect that Twentieth Century immigration into France has had upon French culture.  What sort of public policies and private ideals were affected by the flow of “outsiders” into the nation?  What political and social problems arose as immigrants came up against the dominant culture?  The majority population tends to think of immigration in terms of the problematic.  By contrast, let us also examine the diversity and richness that new residents from other lands have contributed to the French language and to the arts in the last half of the Twentieth Century.

The students in this course will become familiar with French immigration policies and how they have been administered during the past century.  Through reading and internet research they will inform themselves about the difficulties that majority and minority populations experience as they adjust to a global society.  They will confront through literature and film the problems that immigrant populations have faced as they have strived to construct new hybrid identities and have sought to integrate themselves into French society.  Finally, participants in the class will reflect upon the cultural changes and contributions that have occurred in France as the result of population migration from the margins of the former French empire to its center.

 FREN 630: Seminar French Language Studies (3 Credits)   Instructor: Dr. B. Fonseca-Greber
Advanced studies in French language, including historical, grammatical, stylistic, and linguistic approaches, as well as translation. Recent topics have included: History of the French language.

 FREN 699: Thesis Research  (1-12 credits)   Instructor: Dr. D. Schocket
Credit for thesis study. Enrollment in excess of six hours acceptable for Plan I master's degree, but no more than six hours creditable toward degree; minimum acceptable total for degree is three hours. Graded S/U.

 FREN 699: Thesis Research  [1-12 credits]  Instructor: Dr. D. Schocket
Credit for thesis study. Enrollment in excess of six hours acceptable for Plan I master's degree, but no more than six hours creditable toward degree; minimum acceptable total for degree is three hours. Graded S/U.