Courses > 2018 Fall

Electives

CIMS 301 - WOMEN, FILM & SOCIETY SINCE 1944

FREN 301 | GSWS 301
401 | SEM | Michelle Richman | TR 12-1:30pm | WILL 516

This course provides an overview of the condition of women in France since 1944. Documents, philosophical tracts, and fictional works complement the main corpus of films. They first question how the dramatic social, economic and political mutations of the “Thirty Glorious” postwar years impacted women’s lives. Marguerite Duras, Simone de Beauvoir, Françoise Sagan, Dominique Aury, and Jean-Luc Godard provided controversial--- sometimes scandalous--- responses. Collectively, they challenged longstanding myths regarding love and sexuality, work and family, thereby preparing an appreciation of the contemporary films by Agnès Varda, Abdellatif Kechiche and François Ozon. The latter offer nuanced explorations of the inner lives of women in the post-women’s lib period, when the battles over legalized contraception, abortion and same-sex marriage have been won. Our survey is completed by the most recent film, “Bande de filles,” which shatters taboos on representation of race. Ultimately, we consider how the respective critiques of entrenched assumptions about women garnered over the semester resonate in the present #me too moment. CONDUCTED ENTIRELY IN FRENCH. Required: Two 200-level courses or more.