French Orientalisms

This subject is not offered in 2012.

2 contact hours/week, 8 additional hours/week. Total of 10 hours per week.

Admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth-year honors in French.

None

None

None

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Description, Subject Objectives, Generic Skills and Assessment Requirements of this entry.The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the Disability Liaison Unit website: http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability/

This course explores major developments in French representations of the Orient of the last 150 years from a new millennium perspective. The Exotic beckons and seduces, inspiring desire and stimulating the imagination, yet fictional accounts can be construed as complicit with totalitarian regimes. The authors treated in the course, including Pierre Loti, Paul Claudel, Victor Segalen, Andre Malraux, Marguerite Duras, and Roland Barthes, each experienced a deep dissatisfaction with modern European values, followed by a turn toward the East. However, due to different class, gender, and personal backgrounds, they entertained diverse and complex relationships to (post)colonial ideology, which they both served and subverted at the same time. By examining techniques of representation and the authors' ambiguous constructions of the Orient, the course challenges the dichotomy that is frequently drawn between the Western colonial Self and the Eastern exotic Other. New fictional and critical texts take us into the era of the post-exotic.

• Demonstrate in-depth knowledge of a particular topic in French culture or linguistics.
• Demonstrate the ability to analyse, and to report on their reading in a manner appropriate to the methodology adopted.

A 30-minute class paper of 1500 words 35% (written version due 1 week after presentation), a 2500-word essay 45% (due 1 week after the end of semester), and brief presentations on key issues for discussion (using net resources) totaling 1000 words 20% (due at regular intervals during the semester).

This subject has the following hurdle requirements:

• Regular participation in tutorials is required with a minimum of 75% attendance.
• All pieces of written work must be submitted to pass this subject.

Assessment submitted late without an approved extension will be penalised at 10% per day and in-class tasks missed without approval will not be marked.

A subject reader will be available for purchase from the University Bookshop.

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.