FRN2706

Representing Paris: Literature and Visual Culture (6 points)

(ARTS)

Leader:

Offered:
Clayton Second semester 2004 (Day)

Synopsis: This interdisciplinary unit, ranging across literature, painting, photography, fashion and social history, will study symbolic representations of Paris in 19th-century writing (Baudelaire, Zola), painting (Manet, Degas), and early 20th- century photography (Atget, Brassai, Cartier-Bresson); it will relate these representations to their historical contexts (the growth and metamorphosis 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: Essay (3,000 words): 60% + Test (1.5 hours, 1,500 words equivalent): 40%

Contact Hours: 1 x 1-hour lecture and 1 x 2-hour seminar per week

Prerequisites: A first year level unit in French Studies, Visual Culture, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Drama and Theatre Studies, or English.

Prohibitions: FRN3706