FRN3803

Paris and modern life

(ART)

Brian Nelson

6 points + 3 hours per week + Second semester + Clayton + Prerequisites: FRN2020 or FRN2080

Synopsis: This interdisciplinary unit, ranging across literature, painting and social history, will study symbolic representations of Paris in 19th-century writing (Baudelaire and Zola), painting (Manet, Degas) and photography; it will relate these representations to their historical contexts (the growth and metamorphoses of the city, the "redevelopment" of Paris by Haussmann, the birth of the cultures of leisure and consumerism); it will examine the emergence of urban figures such as the *flaneur*, the dandy and the prostitute; and it will explore the analytical perspectives offered by the cultural theories of Walter Benjamin.

Assessment: Class presentation (1000 words): 25% + Essay (2000 words): 45% + Two *explications de texte* (750 words each): 30%