The Republic and its Doubles

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

“Liberté, égalité, fraternité” — with these three words, the French motto is powerfully evocative. Born from the Revolution, France would be a nation whose commitment to justice, equality, and the universality of Human Rights constitute the bedrock of its democracy. Yet, if the revolutionary ideals have been the ideological underpinnings of the Republic for more than two centuries, France was also largely consolidated through its material investments in slavery and colonialism, a historical reality that has been consistently silenced. To what extent, then, can the fictions of universalism continue to hold in light of the past? What might it mean to bring back the imperial and racial memory of France, and think through the postcolonial stakes of its present? How might we think of race and colonialism in a country that denies the reality of both? Through a wide array of artifacts, ranging from political speeches to manifestos, paintings, movies, theoretical texts, and novels, we will explore how colonialism and race — the Republic’s “doubles” — have contributed to the development of France and French identity since the 19th century, but also how contemporary artists, authors, and activists have challenged this haunting legacy in the present. Taught in French.