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Course Info for FREN - 247 - 01, Spring 2025
Class number: 2748 Title: Race and Empire Department: Language and Culture Studies
Career: Undergraduate Component: Seminar Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: No Grading Basis: Regular Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 19 Current enrollment: 9 Available seats: 10
Start date: Tuesday, January 21, 2025 End date: Friday, May 9, 2025 Mode of Instruction: In Person
Schedule: TR: 9:25AM-10:40AM, 115V - 103 Instructor(s): Bouchakour, Walid
Prerequisite(s): Prerequisite: C- or better in French 241 or equivalent, or permission of instructor
Distribution Requirement: Meets Humanities and Global Requirements
Course Description:
What does it mean to study an imperial language in a time of unfinished decolonization? What role have literature, cinema, and the arts played in anti-imperial struggles and liberation movements across the French-speaking world? How is the emergence of French as a global language related to France's status as a (neo-)colonial power? This course focuses on decolonial approaches to the French-language literatures and cultures of Africa and the Caribbean as well as their diasporas. It provides an introduction to the long, ongoing histories of French slavery, colonization, and their afterlives. Through literary texts, film, works of art, and historical documents, students will grapple with unresolved questions related to historical memory, colonial violence, and reparations. Course conducted in French.