Penser les objets. Renforcement grammatical et introduction à l’analyse littéraire

This course aims to enhance oral and writing skills of the French language through advanced grammar review. This course offers an opportunity to review grammar fundamentals and practice more complex structures, such as subjunctive, conditional, and future perfect.

The course will illustrate grammar rules through a wide sample of authentic materials (literary, journalistic, and historical texts, essays, films, advertisements, etc.), carefully chosen to survey 20th and 21st century French and Francophone cultural history.

The course aims to make learning grammar more interesting and interactive by focusing on materials that describe French iconic cultural objects, such as wine, perfume, bread, Marcel Duchamp’s Fontaine, and Matisse’s La Trahison des images. The second part of the course will explore people’s relationship with objects through class discussions, film screening, and the reading of Georges Perec’s Les Choses.

By the end of the course, students will have a more nuanced command of the French language and a better understanding of the French culture.