French

This course explores the major questions raised by the ambition of today's literature to render justice, as well as the risks of public and even legal contestation to which it is exposed. By browsing works that have given rise to a public debate, scandal, or even lawsuit, and exposing the terms of the controversy and its stakes (the difference between fiction and testimony, the rights of the characters in the face of romantic or family settling of accounts, the limits of the representable, the debates on cultural appropriation, the traumatic risks of reading, the search for transgression, new forms of censorship, etc.), this course introduces contemporary literature in its liveliest and most political form. It also returns to major societal issues (the rise of populism, social crises, the Me Too affair, contemporary family recompositions, debates on postcolonialism, racialism, etc.) from an original angle: that of the story of fiction.

This workshop for advanced level students (C1 and C2) offers a framework, space, and means to approach creative writing in French. In a relaxed environment, the workshop provides an opportunity to discover authors in touch with the current world, express sensitivity, and exchange ideas about French literature, particularly contemporary literature. The workshop consists of exploring various authors and genres to find one’s personal style and voice in French; story writing; cinematographic, theatrical, radio, and poetic writing. Linguistically, students develop the ability to characterize, in writing, the multiple descriptions (places, characters, emotions) contained in their productions; orally contextualize and justify the choices made in their writing; question texts and authors with delicacy and subtlety; and express feelings. The workshop provides an opportunity to reflect on one’s relationship to writing (pleasure, anxiety, necessity) as well as one’s relationship to writing in a language that is not one’s mother tongue (frustrations, freedom of expression).