Spring 2016 Paris Courses
174. (Un)veiling the Republic: France in the Muslim World and the Muslim World in France
While Charles Martel is said to have heroically “saved” France from invading Muslims in 732, today, France has the highest percentage of Muslims in Europe. This interdisciplinary course draws from the fields of history, political science, sociology, and international studies to examine the fraught relations between France and the Muslim world over the centuries. The class will be broken up into two sections. In the first section, it will look at France’s historical presence in the Arab world and the consequent Muslim presence in France. In the second section, it will focus on French society today and evaluate the socio-political integration process of French Muslims. Topics covered include colonization and decolonization, Islamic heritage and its clash with the French secularizing mission, and political policies on Muslims in France such as the heated issue over the veil. Students will investigate these topics from a variety of sources, ranging from historical documents and cultural criticism to journalistic and cinematic expressions. 4.0 credits. Suggested subject areas for this course: History/Political Science/Sociology
177. Documenting the Periphery: Identity and Citizenship in the “Other” Part of Paris
This interdisciplinary course will examine the socioeconomic and political disenfranchisement experienced by residents of the "other France" – a France comprised of working-class citizens often of immigrant origin and from France’s former colonies. It will introduce students to urban sociology by requiring that they focus on the particular problems experienced by social actors who live in economically and socially disfavored parts of Paris. Topics covered include urban sociological theories, de-facto segregation, poverty, crime, schooling, public policy, national identity, the negotiation of bi-culturality, and the French secularizing mission. Students will investigate these topics from a variety of sources, ranging from documentary film and photojournalism to literary and cinematic expressions. Via these sources, they will become familiar with a vibrant urban "vernacular" culture that contests issues pertaining to citizenship, racialization and representation. 4.0 credits. Suggested subject areas for this course: Urban Studies/Sociology/Comparative Literature
178. Nation and Identity in Modern France: Historical Sources and Contemporary Challenges
What is France? And who is French? These questions might seem too obvious to even need to be asked, yet in fact their answers have long been the source of much debate and controversy among historians, sociologists, political theorists, and many specialists in the humanities. This is the case in any modern country, but perhaps most of all in France, since it is France that has served since 1789 as the very model of what it is to be a nation-state, that is, a political unit purportedly built around a single, unified national culture. How such a culture comes to be unified is a complicated matter, and one rendered even more complicated by the history of colonialism in which France, like many other European powers, has been deeply implicated for centuries.
In this course we will consider some attempts by authors in a variety of fields, including political science, philosophy, and literature, ranging from the 18th century to the present day, to make sense out of the question of what it means to be French. To broach this topic, students will read from a variety of influential texts, and during class we will discuss the ideas developed in these texts, attempting to relate them to the broader questions that are guiding us, and also to relate them to our own experience in contemporary Paris. 4.0 credits. Suggested subject areas for this course: Philosophy/Political Science/History
179. Food in a Global City: An Anthropological Approach
In this course, we will seek to comprehend the general principles of social anthropology through the exploration of food as a reflection of culture. We will investigate the link between the biological, economic, and cultural aspects of human food systems, as well as how they determine the way we eat today. We will analyze the concept of “foodways”, which is a social-cultural process leading to the construction of the self, collective identities, gender, and ethnicity. And we will consider how evolution of Parisian foodways both reflects changing social environments and challenges residents’ capacity for social adaptation. To this end, we will visit traditional, open-air French markets and compare them to “ethnic” markets in the Asian and African quarters of Paris. We will evaluate French culinary history through on-site study excursions, tasting experiences, readings and discussions with food professionals. We will learn how so-called “authentic” foodways are always dynamic processes that integrate elements from different cultural encounters, ways of life and social trends. Indeed, through a study of the history of food in France and its empire - as compared to that of the United States - eating will be studied, in the words of anthropologist Marcel Mauss, as a “total social fact”. 4.0 credits. Suggested subject areas for this course: Anthropology, History, Sociology
141. Pursuing Paris: A Global City's History of Destruction and Renewal
The most visited city in the world, Paris poses this central question: just who are cities for? More than a picturesque concentration of streets and buildings, cities are historical crossroads where “the people” engender both the greatest problems yet offer all the potential solutions.
Plato equated the ideal city to that of a well-functioning body. So was Paris ever in healthy equilibrium? Rarely. Throughout its history Paris has more often been deemed gravely ill. Even today, analyses continue to differ as to the cause, the nature, and the means needed to cure all of its afflictions.
Exactly which “people” should be entrusted to repair, renew, or spare any urban space’s infrastructure and social geography? Are city-planners doctors who “first do no harm” or barber-surgeons who slash away at the skin and bones of ancient communities?
And “which people” should be catered to: kings, shopkeepers, emperors, revolutionaries, or even tourists? It seems that while everyone who comes to Paris has tried to leave his/her trace on the face of this beautiful invalid – from symbol-encrusted monuments to love-locks – some of these piercings and tattoos have been more permanently inscribed on our neighborhoods than others.
Using the body of Paris as our main text in this course, we will dissect the history of its social, political, and physical anatomy in order to rewrite our assumptions about what it takes to keep cities alive, “authentic,” and human. We will examine and discuss material ranging from scholarly texts to contemporary commentary, visit key sites around Paris, view the city and its people as interpreted through caricature, film, and song, as well as assess current news articles dealing with issues that affect the bodies of cities around the globe. 4.0 credits. Suggested subject areas: History/Urban Studies/Sociology
140. Media and Identity: Images and Realities of "the Parisian"
The night of November 13, 2015, facing a terrorist attack at the National Stadium at Saint Denis and in the heart of their city, in the 10th and the 11th arrondissements, Parisians all opened their doors to each other, and the entire world communicated its solidarity towards them with the hashtag "#PrayforParis". In the minds of Parisians, as well as the rest of the world, no matter the social, ethnic, age, or even religious difference, Paris and Parisians suffered unthinkable pain as a whole. And during the following days, Parisians seemed to have remained united and homogenous, as the fear and the sorrow of those living next to the Bataclan concert hall were reported to be similar to the feelings of those living in Saint-Denis, where the presumed leader of the terrorist attack was found and killed by the police. Was there a real unity in the reactions of Parisians to these attacks or was it a phantasmagoric hypothesis upon which the media built their news and their stories?
Questioning how the media, in their broad sense (newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, but also online media, movies, TV Shows, books and cartoons) picture the Parisian, this interdisciplinary course will examine the key role that images and representations play in the building and the transformation of an identity. Using methods and concepts stemming from political science, sociology, history, communication, literary theory, and film studies, we will try to better understand how the figure of “the Parisian" could be simultaneously so clearly defined and so difficult to grasp. 4.0 credits. Suggested subject areas: Political Science/Communications/Film
77. Survival French
Iris Brey and Claudia Fontu
Students who do not have significant university-level French language study prior to arrival are required to take a Survival French course in Paris. 1.5 UC lower-division quarter units (1.0 lower-division semester units). Graded on a P/NP basis only.
87. Survival plus Business French
(Semester Internship Program Students.) 3.0 lower-division quarter units (2 lower-division semester units).
187. Workforce Course
(Semester Internship Program Students) 6.0 quarter units (4.0 semester units).