Self and Society in Contemporary French Fiction

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

To what extent does society determine our sense of self and our ability to act? Life, after all, is a rather universal thing: we have responsibilities to fulfill, families to take care of, and jobs to do. Yet, we do not all experience life the same way, given that we do not all face the same constraints. For many, freedom of choice feels like an illusion, as if everything had already been decided before one’s birth. Is there such a thing, then, as “social determinism”? Are we ever free to change the course of our existence, and what would it take to do so? In this class, we will explore how the more normative dimensions of society — class, gender, and race in particular — shape our lives through works of contemporary French fiction, films, and sociological essays. Together, we will ask: how might “writing the self” ultimately capture the complexity of a life — one’s own, and that of others? Taught in French.