Violence, Tolerance, Resistance: French Literature Around the Age of Enlightenment

In this course we will explore how different genres of French & Francophone literature from the 16th-19th centuries debate the sociopolitical contexts of their times: the status of women, religious coexistence, the transatlantic slave trade, the French Revolution, and the French Empire. Through texts like the first French novel, Honoré d’Urfé’s L’Astrée and Haitian General Toussaint L’Ouverture’s Mémoires, we will learn to analyze literary representations of violence, tolerance, and resistance, and to channel our analysis into academic writing. By the end of this course, we will know how to analyze a variety of literary genres, write advanced academic essays in French, and consider different historical approaches to conflict.