Façons d'aimer: Discourses of Sexuality in Early Modern France

This course will examine both the connections and tensions among the legal, literary, philosophical, medical, and religious discourses of sexuality in early modern France. Topics such as Neoplatonism, erotomania, one-gender theory, conjugal love, cuckoldry, impotence, sodomy, and tribadism will be studied in their historical, social, and literary contexts. In addition to primary sources (selections from edicts, essays, treatises) and secondary readings (theoretical and critical), literary texts by Rabelais, Ronsard, Labé, Montaigne, Viau, Molière, Choisy, among many others. Class discussions in English or French, depending on preparation of students. Enrollment limited to graduate students or advanced undergraduates (with instructor’s permission only).