Reading Cultures in French (211-0-20)

Topic

On connait la chanson!

Instructors

Eric Essono Tsimi
847/467-5637
Crowe 2-140, 1860 S Campus Drive
Office Hours: https://calendly.com/tsimi
Éric Essono Tsimi is an associate professor, novelist, playwright, and political activist. He holds a PhD in French Civilization and Cultural Studies from the University of Virginia, which he received in 2019, and a European doctorate awarded in joint supervision by Université Grenoble Alpes, France, and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, in 2017. His forthcoming publications, both scheduled for Fall 2026, include the monograph L’auteur face à l’IA, to be published by the academic press of Université Grenoble Alpes, and the detective novel New Bell de nuit, to be published by Lettres Mouchetées in Congo.

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-329: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

Interdit d'interdire ? Scandale, liberté et culture en France studies French cultures through the public life of scandal: what shocks, who is allowed to provoke, who is treated as excessive, and how cultural objects are reread over time. The course moves across media and periods: censored theater; literary trials; Black Parisian journals and salons; May 68 posters and slogans; feminist manifestos; one week on chanson and celebrity provocation; banlieue fiction and cinema; decolonial arts debates; and contemporary #MeToo writing.
Materials include Molière or Beaumarchais; Flaubert or Baudelaire trial materials; Paulette and Jane Nardal; Léon-Gontran Damas; May 68 visual culture; Ferré, Gainsbourg, and Sardou; Faïza Guène or Houda Benyamina; Amandine Gay or Alice Diop; Gisèle Sapiro; and Vanessa Springora.
Assignments include three short knowledge checks, an in-class midterm, oral presentations, and a final creative or cultural intervention with an individual critical reflection. Conducted in French.

Registration Requirements

Prerequisite: FRENCH 202-0, AP score of 5, or consent of instructor.
No additional permission number is required beyond the catalog prerequisite unless enrollment management later requires one.

Learning Objectives

By the end of the course, students will be able to:
- analyze literary, visual, sonic, cinematic, and media objects in French using appropriate vocabulary of form, reception, performance, authorship, and public controversy;
- explain how scandal emerges through relations among artwork, audience, institution, law, media, and historical context;
- compare cultural conflicts across periods and media, including censorship, public morality, colonial memory, gender, race, class, authorship, and consent;
- situate French and Francophone voices, including Black Atlantic/Caribbean and Maghrebi/postcolonial perspectives, within debates about public culture and belonging;
- present close cultural readings orally and in writing in French;
- design an ethical creative intervention that translates course concepts into a public-facing cultural form.

Class Materials (Required)

Required books:
- Gisèle Sapiro, Peut-on dissocier l'oeuvre de l'auteur ? Édition augmentée. Points Essais, 2024. ISBN/EAN: 979-10-414-1950-0.
- Leïla Cukierman, Gerty Dambury, Françoise Vergès, eds., Décolonisons les arts ! L'Arche, 2018. ISBN: 978-2-85181-945-1.
Additional required readings, images, songs, clips, and films will be posted on Canvas or made available through the library.

Class Materials (Suggested)

Suggested hard-copy editions for optional/additional readings:
- Jean-Claude Bologne, Histoire du scandale. Albin Michel, 2018. ISBN: 978-2-226-32658-4.
- Vanessa Springora, Le Consentement. Le Livre de Poche, 2021. ISBN: 978-2-253-10156-7.

Class Notes

This course is conducted in French.
Students should expect a wide range of media: theater, legal documents, posters, songs, film, documentary, television, manifestos, essays, and memoir.
Some materials involve sexuality, racism, colonial memory, censorship, and public controversy; class discussion will treat them through close cultural analysis.
The course is designed as a Reading Cultures course, not as a course primarily on music. Chanson and singers will be addressed in one focused unit on voice, persona, and provocation.

Class Attributes

Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
Global Perspectives on Power, Justice, and Equity

Enrollment Requirements

Enrollment Requirements: Reserved for French Majors & Minors.