| |
Apr 12, 2026
|
|
|
|
|
FFS 355 - Cross Currents in French Culture Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)
Topic for 2026/27a: True Crime: French Fiction and the Fait Divers. The popularity of true crime podcasts, gangster films, police procedurals, legal dramas, and detective fiction attests to our collective fascination with fictional narratives that concern criminality and the law. This course examines French-language literature and cinema’s longstanding obsession with true crime or, in French, the fait divers. Through the study of texts, films, and documents inspired by true crime cases, students have the opportunity to consider major 20th and 21st-century literary movements and genres such as existentialism, surrealism, postcolonial literature and detective fiction. All the while, we analyze questions of gender, race and class in relation to crime to consider how dominant ideas about criminality shape discourses about identity and belonging. Authors may include André Gide, Jean Genet, Marguerite Duras, and Alice Diop. Anne Brancky.
Prerequisite(s): Two units above FFS 212 or permission of the instructor.
One 2-hour period.
Course Format: CLS
Add to Portfolio (opens a new window)
|
|