Conflicts, Crisis and Identities in the Francophone Context

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• - the relationships between trauma and the cultural and historical contexts of contemporary France and the French-speaking world.
• Having successfully completed the module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of: - the representation of memory and identity in twentieth and twenty-first century French and Francophone films and literature - the similarities and dissimilarities between these cultures and societies and your own.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Apply knowledge, understanding and analysis critically to different topics.
• Engage with subject matter and opinion in both breadth and depth
• Analyse and discuss questions; evaluate different critical perspectives and use them to inform your approach to literary or cinematic works.
• Define, present and exemplify concepts.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Explore a variety of learning resources, including the library.
• Take notes and keeping records
• Adhere to guidelines and deadlines
• Plan and organise your learning through self-management
• Produce writing in appropriate genres and to required conventions, including referencing and identification

In this module you will explore how film makers and writers have set out to remember both national and personal traumas and the accompanying effects on collective and individual identities. In this way, you will reflect on how seismic events such as the Second World War or the Algerian scarred both the national psyche and individual lives in the French and Francophone contexts. Some of the issues that you will consider might include: whether film and writing can contribute to the healing of psychic wounds; or the ethical issues about who has the right to display the suffering of others and who should be able to see it. The lectures will set out the socio-political and cultural contexts of the films and texts. Students will then prepare for the seminar with guided reading.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include

• twice-weekly seminars (with occasional lectures); seminars will normally consist of a presentation by a student or students, followed by class discussion.
• one-to-one consultations with the tutor (in person or by email) for those wishing to discuss their progress or to raise specific issues.
• film screenings

Learning activities include

• preparation of seminar presentations, individually or in pairs
• class discussion
• independent study
• essay writing

Resources & Reading list

General Resources

General Resource. Film

Caché. Film

General Resource. Film

Textbooks

Marguerite Duras (1960). Hiroshima mon amour.

Roland Barthes (1980). La Chambre claire.

Ernaux, Annie, and Marc Marie (2006). L’Usage de la photo.

Assessment strategy

Assessments designed to provide informal, on-module feedback

feed-back on presentations undertaken individually or as a small-group activity;

email contact or meetings with tutor to deal with your queries and concerns.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External