FR2005 Socio-Political Issues of Contemporary France in Fiction and Translation

Terms: 1 and 2 

Convenor: Dr Ruth Cruickshank 

Assessment:

Formative assignment:  translation and commentary.

Summative assessment: 10-minute Presentation: 10%; Essay: 30%,1500-2000 words; Exam:60%, 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Overview

This course explores four contemporary French novels which, in different ways, deal with three important issues in post-2000 French society: class, gender and ethnicity. Honing skills in translation as well as in cultural awareness and literary appreciation, we will read some recent, critically-acclaimed but popular and accessible literary texts to understand key aspects of contemporary French society and to gain experience of the different characteristics of vernacular language spoken in France.

Set Texts (taught in this order):

Faïza Guène, Kiffe kiffe demain (Paris: Livre de Poche 2005)

Nicolas Fargues, Tu verras (Paris: Folio 2012)

Delphine de Vigan, No et moi (Paris: Livre de Poche, 2009)

Edouard Louis, En finir avec Eddy Bellegueule (Paris: Seuil,‎ 2014) 

Secondary Literature: General, Theoretical, Introductory

A sample of the secondary background is below, and many more resources are available on Moodle. Whilst they are not compulsory, you will enhance your ability to enjoy the course and respond to the questions raised in it as well as to research essay questions and to revise for the examination.

Luc Bronner, La loi du ghetto : Enquête sur les banlieues françaises (Calmann-Lévy, Paris: 2010)

Laurent Cailly and Vanier Martin (dir.), La France: Une géographie urbaine (Paris, Armand Colin: 2010)

Mustafa Dikeç, Badlands of the Republic: Space, Politics and Urban Policy (Oxford: Wiley, 2007)

Beth S. Epstein, Collective Terms: Race, Culture and Community in a State-Planned City in France, Modern and Contemporary France (2012), Vol.20, No.1.

Christina Horvath, ‘Peripheral palimpsests: Competing layers of memory and commemoration in contemporary banlieue narratives’, Francosphères, 3(2), pp. 187–200

Anna-Louise Milne, ‘The Singular banlieue’, L'Esprit créateur, 2010, 50:3, pp. 53-69 

Matthew Moran, The Republic and the Riots: Exploring Urban Violence in French Suburbs (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2012).

Todd Shephard, The Invention of Decolonization: the Algerian War the Remaking of

Loic Wacquant, Urban outcasts: a comparative sociology of advanced marginality (Cambridge, Polity: 2008)