| Contemporary French society is strongly rooted in its
past. In this course students will explore France's historical and cultural
past in order to understand the complex and contradictory reality of its
present. The emphasis will be on the features that make contemporary France
so seemingly paradoxical:
- -- the variety of its local and historical traditions and its artistic
expression versus its political centralization
- -- its inclination to libertinism versus its moralistic religious
conventions
- -- its institutionalization of rebellion versus its longing for conformity,
law, and order
- -- its official status as "the eldest daughter of the Catholic
Church" versus its actual status as "the most de-christianized
country in Western Europe."
- As they come to understand French society, students will capture the
nature of the difference between the French people of today and their
American counterparts.
- Students will be introduced to the social and historical context of
French art and architecture from medieval times to the end of the nineteenth
century
- They will analyze paintings, sculptures, and architecture,
- They will also discuss films on such topics as Jeanne d'Arc, Louis
XIV, and the French Revolution of 1789.
This course is Web based. It prepares students for individualoral presentations
in in class.
All material is on line or in the Ciruti lab. It includes;
- A comparison of romanesque and gothic art: Art
Religieux Medieval by Nicole Vaget and Kristy Dyer
- A history of civil architecture of the Renaissance castles of the
Loire Valley:
Les chateaux du Val de Loire in Supercard by Nicole Vaget and Ivy
Tillmand
- A vidéo on Napoléon Bonaparte
by Nicole Vaget and André Palluel-Guillard
- The Film
La prise du pouvoir par Louis XIV by
Rossellini
- CD-Roms: Le Louvre, La peinture du Louvre,
L'Art roman, La Lumière gothique, Jeanne d'Arc, histoire et vie
quotidienne au moyen âge, Les châteaux de la Loire, Louis
XIV et Versailles, Le XVIIIème siècle, Le Romantisme,
Le musée d'Orsay
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