Module Information
Course Delivery
| Delivery Type | Delivery length / details |
|---|---|
| Seminar | 4 x 1 Hour Seminars |
| Lecture | 10 x 1 Hour Lectures |
Assessment
| Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
|---|---|---|
| Semester Assessment | Attendance and participation in class discussions (5%), in-class oral presentation (10%) | 15% |
| Semester Assessment | End of term oral examination (ca 10/15 minutes) based on an artistic artifact (text extract, painting, film scene, piece of music, etc.) | 35% |
| Semester Assessment | Essay or dossier (1,500-2000) | 50% |
| Supplementary Assessment | Resubmit or resit failed elements and/or make good any missing elements | 100% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
1. Understand the aesthetic, cultural and ideological context of a given artistic work, and develop a personal interpretation of its meaning and value.
2. Conduct research in the field of literature, history of art and film studies, locating source information and secondary literatures; critical reading of secondary literature.
3. Show a good awareness of the relationship between the different art forms within the same artistic movement and be able to provide an in-depth overview of the French cultural movements of the 20th c.
4. Express key ideas clearly both in speaking and writing through the medium of English.
Aims
The aim of this module is to study the diverse intellectual, cultural and artistic movements of the twentieth century in France and explain their influence worldwide. A variety of art forms like literature, painting, cinema, music, comics, etc. will be examined and called upon to achieve a global and in-depth understanding of French civilization in that century.
The objective of the module is thus to provide the students with a thorough and broader historical knowledge, but also to endow them with critical interpretative tools and analyzing skills related to these art forms, as means to build a critically well-informed discourse about their own social environment and the world in general.
Module aims:
Providing students with background knowledge, analytical and critical skills in order to develop better informed and more original interpretations of cultural artistic artifacts such as texts, films, paintings, pieces of music or any other means of expression considered as relevant to the period studied.
Brief description
This module, mainly taught in French, but flexible as far as the language used is concerned and open to debates in English, will approach the various forms of artistic artefacts as products of intellectual tendencies, ideologies and subversive movements of the French twentieth century. A large part of the content will be devoted to the iconography of the time. The students will be asked to engage actively with the different representative process of these movements. Through lectures, seminars, presentations and dossiers, they will be made more aware of and assimilate what forms a large part of their own cultural inheritance. It will then allow them to establish links with their own artistic and ideologically post-modern contemporaneity.
Content
Session 1. Presentation of the course / Introduction
Block I. L'Entre-deux-guerres
Sess. 2. Lecture: The socio-historical context of the 20's. Marxism, Freudism, Pacifism.
Sess. 3. Seminar: Dadaism, Surrealism, the writers and the poets, Breton, Apollinaire, Soupault, Eluard, Aragon.
Sess. 4. Seminar: Painters and Cineastes, Dali, Ersnt, Chagal, Chirico, Bunuel.
Sess. 5. Presentations.
Block II. La Libération
Sess. 6. Lecture: The impact of the Second World War on intellectuals and artists.
Sess. 7. Seminar: Existentialism and the College of Sociologie, Sartre, Camus, Bataille.
Sess. 8. Seminar: "Le Nouveau Roman" and " La Nouvelle Vague". Robbe-Grillet, Duras, Simon, Sarraute, Godard, Truffaut, Malle.
Sess. 9. Presentations.
Block III. Mai 68
Sess. 10. Lecture: The cultural revolution of the 60's, the New French Theory and the dawn of Post-modernism.
Sess. 11. Seminar: Barthes, Tel Quel, Structuralism and Situationism.
Sess. 12. Seminar: Subversion in the arts, "B.D." "Actuel", "Hara-Kiri" and "Charlie Hebdo"
Sess.13. Presentations.
Sess. 14. Round-up discussion. Conclusion
Module Skills
| Skills Type | Skills details |
|---|---|
| Application of Number | |
| Communication | Development of clear and accurate expression in speaking and writing. |
| Improving own Learning and Performance | The essay assignment is based on independent research with consultation possibilities with the module convener. The quality of the independent thinking and depth of newly acquired knowledge will be assessed in both essay and presentation and the student will be expected to provide a high level of self-reflection |
| Information Technology | Power point can be used in presentation. Only resources are widely available on the taught topics. |
| Personal Development and Career planning | A certain amount of transferable skills is built in the coursework |
| Problem solving | Students have to identify and chose artistic artifacts; they need to develop criteria to assess the relevance of the chosen material to the course |
| Research skills | Students have to perform independent research in preparation for their essays, including localizing source material |
| Subject Specific Skills | The study and interpretation of iconography or film extracts require skills different from the analysis of a text. |
| Team work |
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 5