Fall 2019

Colonial Cultures: Images of the French Colonial Empire

Listed in: French, as FREN-340

Faculty

Laure A. Katsaros (Section 01)

Description

In the early years of the twentieth century, the French Colonial Empire stretched from Algiers to Antananarivo and from Hanoi to Cayenne. The Maghreb, French West Africa, French Equatorial Africa, the Indo-Chinese peninsula, and Madagascar all lived under French rule. This course will analyze the creation and dissemination of “colonial cultures” in the wake of French imperialism. From the early nineteenth century on, military conquest went hand in hand with the production of a diverse and wide-ranging colonial imaginary. Schoolbooks, colonial exhibitions, natural history museums, visual artefacts ranging from paintings to advertisements, literary works, songs, and films inspired by “Greater France” proliferated in French culture. Drawing from selected case studies, we will explore the many forms taken by the French colonial imagination. We will also examine critiques of colonialism, as well as strategies and modalities of resistance to the colonial imaginary. Conducted in French.

Requisite: One of the following—FREN 207, 208 or the equivalent. Fall semester: Professor Katsaros.

Keywords

Attention to Issues of Class, Attention to Issues of Gender and Sexuality, Attention to Issues of Race, Attention to Writing, Languages Other Than English

Offerings

2022-23: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2017, Fall 2019