The invention of french theory: a history of transatlantic intellectual life since 1945

Seminars: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

In the decades following the Second World War, a cluster of extraordinary French thinkers were widely translated and read in American universities. Their works were soon labeled as "French Theory." Why would sharing the same nationality make authors such as Lacan, Cixous, Derrida, Foucault or Debord, ambassadors of a specifically "French" theory? The course will explore the maze of transatlantic intellectual debates since 1945 and the heyday of French existentialism. We will study the debates on communism, decolonization, neo‐liberalism, gender, youth culture and mass media. This course is taught in English.

Sessions will be divided between

Final grade will be determined from the three types of required exercises:

Choose oral presentation topics in SES #1

Individual research paper plan due in SES #7

Video project due in SES #11

The following table indicates which topics, readings, and questions were covered during each class session. For the full citations of the assigned readings, please see the Readings page.

René Margritte, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (1929)

René Magritte, "Les deux mystères" (1966)

Michel Foucault, "This is Not a Pipe" (1968)

Albert Camus, "Reflection on the Guillotine" (1957)

Alice Kaplan, The Collaborator Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach (2000)

Question: Is death penalty worse than life sentence and why?

Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is Humanism (1946)

Guy Debord, Society of Spectacle (1967)

Movie: Jean-Luc Godard, Pierrot le Fou (1965)

Question: Is entertainment the new "opium of the people?"

Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972)

Michel Foucault, The Will to Knowledge (1976)

Question: If you had to stage a revolution, what would you do first?

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1975)

Movie: Jacques Audiard, Un prophète (2009)

Question: Is surveillance desirable in a democracy?

Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1957)

Visit: Museum of Fine Arts

Discussion with Professor Helen Drake, Loughborough University

Robert Schuman, "Declaration May 9, 1950".

Jacques Lacan, The Language of the Self (1968)

Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition. A Report on Knowledge (1979).

Question: Do you think migrants have to speak French to become French citizens?

Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (1979).

Movie: Agnès Jaoui. Le gout des autres (2000)

Question: Do you consider yourself educated and why?

Didier Eribon, Insult and the Making of the Gay Self (1999)

Question: Is surrogacy against women's rights?

Maurice Blanchot, The Unavowable Community (1983)

Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (1967)

Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952)

Movie: Abdel, Kechiche, L'Esquive (2004)

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