God Religion in Post-Rev Fr

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This seminar is designed to examine a particular aspect of nineteenth-century French intellectual and religious history--the evolution of the idea of God--through literature. Drawing from novels, stories, and essays by Stendhal, Flaubert, Lamennais, Barbey d'Aurevilly and Zola, we will consider how these writings represent questions of God, religion, and sacred order. We will also focus on the relationship between literature and the secularization of French culture and on the author figure as representative of and substitute for God. Theoretical works will sometimes be used to situate the primary readings within a critical context. This course fulfills the upper-division post-1800 literature requirement for the French major.