HISTORY 101

Family, Community, and Class

 

Mr. Schwartz

Spring 2001

Office Hours:

206 Skinner Hall

 

Tues. & Thurs., 4-5 and by appointment

Telephone: x2465

 

E-Mail: rschwart

Speaking Mentor:  Kristina Gross   kmgross@mtholyoke.edu

 

 

Books available for purchase at the College Book Store:
 
Simone de Beauvoir, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (Harper Collins pb)
Gillian Tindall, Célistine (Henry Holt) 
Edward Berenson, The Trail of Madame Caillaux (U. of California pb)
 
Course Booklet
The course booklett contains additional readings which are indicated in the syllabus by (CB). It is available in the History Department, 309 Skinner; a fee will be charged to offset the cost of duplication of this packet and miscellaneous photocopying during the semester.
 
Books on reserve in the Library
J. L. Flandrin, Families in Former Times
B. Smith, Changing Lives. Women in European History Since 1700
Gillian Tindall, Célistine
Edward Berenson, The Trail of Madame Caillaux
Michael Mitterauer and Reinhard Sieder, The European Family
Beatrice Gottlieb, The Family in the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age
Mark Traugott, The French Worker Autobiographies from the Early Industrial Era
 

Course Requirements

1.       Attendance at all classes, team meetings, and required films
2.       Teamwork and collaboration
3.       Informed participation in class discussions and in regular postings on the class web forum
4.       Several oral presentations in class
5.       Several short reports/essays
 
Evaluations:
  1. Self evaluation
  2. Peer evaluation by one’s team members
  3. Instructor evaluation
Final Grade:
  1. Self and peer evaluation  10%
  2. Team performance  20 %
  3. Individual performance 70 %
 
Course Compact:
            This lays out the principles and expectations of the course as well as guidelines for participation and collaboration.  Everyone needs to read it carefully and register he agreement by her signature.
 
Course Web Site: (for copies of the syllabus, handouts, etc.)
www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist101/home.htm

 

I.  Family, Community, and Gender in Rural France of the Eighteenth Century

Jan. 30

 

Differing Views of Men, Women, and Community Life by Eighteenth-Century Observers

Pierre Jean-Baptise Le Grand d’Aussy: Voyage d’Auvergne [Voyage in the Auvergne, an account of a voyage by a bourgeois traveler], published in 1788.

F. Y. Bernard [1752-1842], Mémoires d’un Nonagenaire [Memoirs of a Ninety-Year Old, reminiscences of a bourgeois priest who lived in the area about which he wrote.], published ca. 1840.

 

The Peasant Patriarch as Hero

Feg. 1

Bonnie Smith, "Eighteenth-Century Worlds" in her Changing Lives, chap 1, especially pp. 6-26; (CB)

Daniel Roche, “Peasant France and Merchant France,”chapter 4 in : his France in the Enlightenment (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999) (CB)

Rétif de la Bretonne, My Father's Life (CP), introduction, books 1-3;.

Feb. 6

D.G. Carlton, “Happy Families: (1) The Age of Innocence; (2) The New Eve” and Town and Country” in his New Images of the Natural (CB)

Feb. 8

Rétif de la Bretonne, My Father's Life, Book 4 and Ploughman's Wife

Feb. 13

Mark Poster, “Patriarchy and Sexuality: Rétif and the Peasant Family,” The Eighteenth Century 25 (1984): 217-240 (CB)

Feb. 15

E. Le Roy Ladurie, "Rétif de la Bretonne as a Social Anthropologist:  Rural Burgundy in the Eighteenth-Century" (CB)

R.M. Schwartz, “The Peasant as Hero:  Rousseau, Restif de la Bretonne, and the Representation of Rustic Virtues” (CB)

II.  History in Fiction:  Representations of Rural Life by Honoré de Balzac and George Sand

Feb. 20

Balzac, selections from The Peasants (ca. 1844) (CB)

Feb. 22

Film—“Impromptu”

Feb. 27

George Sand, The Devil’s Pool (1848) (CB)

Mar. 1

George Sand, The Devil’s Pool

Mar. 6

George Sand, The Devil’s Pool

III.  Reconstructing the Lives of Ordinary People:  Célestine (1844-1933) and Others

Mar. 8

Tindall, Cëlestine, Part I: The Making of a World

Mar. 13

Tindall, Cëlestine, Part II: The Cheerful Day

Mar. 15

Tindall, Cëlestine, Part III: A Time for Reaping

BREAK

 

Mar. 27

Working with Census Records

Mar. 29

Working with Census Records

Apr. 10

Working with Census Records

IV.  The Bourgeoisie and the New Woman

Apr. 12

B. G. Smith, "The New Woman" in her Changing Lives, chap. 8 (CB)

Apr. 17

Berenson, Trial of Madame Caillaux, Prologue and chaps. 1-2

Apr. 19

Berenson, Trial of Madame Caillaux, chaps. 3-4

Apr. 24

Berenson, Trial of Madame Caillaux, chaps. 5-6 and Epilogue

Apr. 26

Simone de Beauvoir, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter), pp. 7-14 (birth and early childhood); 64-70 (impact of World War I), 105-115 (puberty and changing views of parents), 134-141 (consciousness of her social class), 158-163 (girl’s school),

May 1

Simone de Beauvoir, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter), 186-189 (social attitudes on higher education for young women); 198-202 (higher education, father’s attitude, her future to include work), 313-15 (practice teaching, thoughts on womanhood, herself), 358-66 (the beginning of her friendship with Jean-Paul Satre).  [Zaza was Beauvoir’s closest friend; Heraud was an early friend and romantic interest at the Ecole Normale; “Beaver” was the nickname he gave her to signify her gregariousness]

May 3

Final Reflections, Final Presentations

May 8

Final Reflections, Final Presentations