FFS 232 - The Modern Age

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2021/22a: The Worlds of Madame Bovary. Censored by the government on moral and religious grounds, Flaubert’s 1857 novel Madame Bovary is considered today to be an important document for reading modernity in France, a rich example of the conflicts surrounding the feminine in the nineteenth century, and a “master text” of French literature. The novel is also relevant to contemporary questions of material culture, desire and the feminine, the individual and society, and literary production. Taking Madame Bovary as our central focus, we read Flaubert’s masterpiece in conjunction with some of the novels, images, and texts from the everyday press that informed the culture that produced its heroine and that she fictitiously and famously consumed. The principles of simultaneous readings and the juxtaposition of genres that organize this course offer a unique perspective into both what Emma Bovary read and the influence of mass culture on the production of the literary. We also consider how Emma’s readings and character persist into the twentieth century by taking up some later incarnations of this novel in both film and text. This class serves as both an exploration of narrative forms and an introduction to the practice of interdisciplinary cultural analysis. Susan Hiner.

Prerequisite(s): FFS 212 or the equivalent, or permission of the instructor.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS