J'accuse! La littérature et le cinéma face au réel

In this course we will study works from modern French and Francophone literature and cinema that make society their subject—to investigate, document, critique and/or protest. Taking our cue from the sharp portraits Baudelaire’s prose poems and Maupassant’s short stories offer of the social contradictions and inequities of 19th century France, we will then consider a range of 20th century texts and films—by Césaire, de Beauvoir, Ionesco, Sarraute, Salvayre, Bon, Diome, Kaplan, Sinha, Sebbar, Cantet, Sissako, Dardenne, Quintane—that narrate and denounce our unequal, neoliberal, violent world. Taught in French.