Spring 2026 Courses
for meeting times and locations please consult yale course search
GROUP A: LANGUAGE COURSES (L1-L5)
Conducted entirely in French
GROUP A: LANGUAGE COURSES (L1-L5)
Conducted entirely in French
fren 1200: elementary and intermediate french ii
Continuation of FREN 1100. Open only to students who took FREN 1100 (L1) at Yale.
Please note: FREN 1100 and FREN 1210 are only offered in the Fall.
french 1300: intermediate and advanced french i
The first half of a two-term sequence designed to develop students’ proficiency in the four language skill areas. Prepares students for further work in literary, language, and cultural studies, as well as for nonacademic use of French. Oral communication skills, writing practice, vocabulary expansion, and a comprehensive review of fundamental grammatical structures are integrated with the study of short stories, novels, and films.
french 1400: intermediate and advanced french ii
The second half of a two-term sequence designed to develop students’ proficiency in the four language skill areas. Introduction of more complex grammatical structures. Films and other authentic media accompany literary readings from throughout the francophone world, culminating with the reading of a longer novel and in-class presentation of student research projects.
french 1450: intensive intermediate and advanced french
An accelerated course that covers in one term the material taught in FREN 130 and 140. Emphasis on speaking, writing, and the conversion of grammatical knowledge into reading competence.
french 1500: advanced language practice
An advanced language course intended to improve students’ comprehension of spoken and written French as well as their speaking and writing skills. Modern fiction and nonfiction texts familiarize students with idiomatic French. Special attention to grammar review and vocabulary acquisition.
GROUP B & C: ADVANCED AND LITERATURE COURSES IN FRENCH
Gateway courses
fren 1600: advanced conversation through culture, film, and media (Constance Sherak)
Intensive oral practice designed to further skills in listening comprehension, speaking, and reading through the use of videos, films, fiction, and articles. Emphasis on contemporary French and francophone cultures. Prerequisites: FREN 1500, or a satisfactory placement test score, or with permission of the course director. May be taken concurrently with or after FREN 1700. Conducted in French.
fren 1700: introduction to the study of literature in french (lauren pinzka)
Introduction to close reading and analysis of literary texts written in French. Works by authors such as Marie de France, Molière, Balzac, Hugo, Baudelaire, Duras, Proust, and Genet. Conducted in French.
Advanced Language Courses
fren 1820: Advanced Writing Workshop (ramla bédoui)
An advanced writing course for students who wish to work intensively on perfecting their written French. Frequent compositions of varying lengths, including creative writing, rédactions (compositions on concrete topics), and dissertations (critical essays). Recommended for prospective majors.
Conducted entirely in French. After FREN 1500 or higher, or a satisfactory placement test score. May be taken after courses in the 2000–4999 range.
fren 1840: business french: communication and culture (léo tertrain)
An advanced language course emphasizing verbal communication and culture. Designed to foster the acquisition of the linguistic and cultural skills required to evolve within a French business environment. Discussions, in-class activities and group projects in simulated professional situations. Topics such as the liberalization of the French economy, trading in the European Union, new forms of business organizations, globalization are explored through a business textbook, articles, video clips, radio shows, films, documentaries, and excerpts from essays and literary texts. Conducted in French.
General Fields Courses
fren 3001: Home Alone in Contemporary French Literature (morgane cadieu)
How do we inhabit space alone? How do writers portray home-loving protagonists? In this seminar, we read twenty-first-century fictions of confinement that represent various forms of isolation, whether temporary or permanent, constrained or self-imposed, gloomy or gleeful, indoors or outdoors. Novels depict housesitting, house moves, retreats in cabins, suburban hoardings, lockdowns in boats and spaceships, or even the experience of finding yourself accidentally trapped in a workplace restroom over the weekend. We examine our relationship to spaces, objects, bodies, and technologies, as well as the forms of attention generated by seclusion, from daydreaming to tracking. This is not a course on Covid quarantine, although our discussions will resonate with the memory of stay-at-home orders. The seminar doubles as an introduction to contemporary literature. Students learn how to acquire information on authors and novels in the absence of canonical criticism. The corpus includes some books written by established authors and many books from younger, lesser-known, but noteworthy voices. Taught in French.
fren 3012: intermediate literary translation (nichole Gleisner)
This course will focus on translating contemporary literature by exploring concerns of writers and translators working in the French and Francophone field today. Each week, students will translate an excerpt from a wide variety of texts written in French: prose, poetry, graphic novels, YA, science fiction, long-form journalism. We will also read and craft literary criticism, paying special attention to reviews of books in translation as we seek to understand and define the role of the translator in our current day. How does literary criticism complement the work of translation? In what ways is the current mode of approaching translations in reviews lacking? How can we develop criteria to evaluate works in translation that acknowledge the role of the translator ? How do these activities – both translating and reviewing – enrich scholarly communities, webs of thought, networks of writers, students’ own ways of approaching and understanding a text? Students will translate and workshop selections each week as well as undertake the translation of a significant portion (25-35 pages) of a contemporary text of their own.
fren 3090: Fictions of Consumer Society(morgane cadieu)
The seminar examines literary and cinematic versions of the consumer society—from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century—by discussing: the aesthetics of everyday life; the representation of stores, supermarkets, and malls in rural and urban settings; consumerism and colonization; mythologies, commodities, and gender norms; labor and waste; and the attention to objects (still life, window displays). Works by Danticat, Ernaux, Houellebecq, NDiaye, Perec, Reza, and Zola. Films by Demy, Godard, Tati, and Varda. Short theoretical excerpts by Baudrillard, Barthes, and Moudileno. No knowledge of French required.
Special Topics Courses
fren 3190: Montaigne Beyond Skepticism: Learning to Read the “Essais” (dominique brancher)
Que sais-je? What do I know? This is Montaigne’s motto, engraved on a medal in 1576 at the writer’s request. At the crossroad of disciplines, this seminar explores how Michel de Montaigne develops a philosophy of doubt by literary means. We see that he does not naively or theoretically subscribe to the skeptical tradition, but rather proposes a practical and singular use of a non-judgmental attitude in the writing of Les Essais—the early modern masterpiece of the French literature of the self. We read essays on topics such as: idleness, education, eroticism, imagination. These texts are coupled with short, theoretical excerpts (Sextus Empiricus, Diogène Laërce, Henri Estienne). Readings and discussion in French.
fren 3680: Reasoning with Voltaire (pierre saint-amand)
An investigation of the French Enlightenment through its principal representative philosopher, Voltaire. An examination of Voltaire’s preoccupations, including philosophy, religion, tolerance, freedom, and human rights. Readings include Voltaire’s contes, major plays, entries from the Dictionnaire philosophique, treatises, and pamphlets. Conducted entirely in French.
fren 4180: The Old French Fable and Fabliaux (r. howard bloch)
This seminar is designed to acquaint the student with the Fables of Marie de France and a substantial portion of the 170 fabliaux. We also consider the relevant secondary literature, the historical, cultural, social, religious, and critical background of the animal and the verse comic tales, which lie at the root core of didactic and of humorous and realistic literature in English, Italian, German, and Spanish. Both the Fables and the fabliaux are to be read in English, in the translations of Harriet Spiegel and Nathaniel Dubin. Both books, available at the World Language Center, contain the Old French originals and the translated texts