Modern France
Hist 235
Spring 2013
Prof. Andrew Ross
Department of History
Kenyon College
Seitz House 3
E-mail: rossa@kenyon.edu
Office Hours: Tu-Th 1-3, W 2-3 and by appointment
Course Website: https://www.andrewisraelross.com/s13modernfrance
Course Description: Between 1789 and the present day, France has been governed by five republics, three monarchies, two Napoleonic empires, and one fascist regime. In the midst of this instability, what held France together? What defined the French nation? This course investigates these questions by exploring the political, social, and cultural history of France from the Revolution of 1789 to the present day. As we trace the meaning of French republicanism and citizenship, the emergence of socialism, feminism and other social movements, and the development of French imperialism, we will ask how ordinary people coped with and understood their relationship to the French nation. In particular, we will investigate how people negotiated competing claims for liberty, equality, and social order in the past two centuries.
Course Objectives: By the end of the semester, students will be able to:
• identify and understand key themes and concepts in French history
• understand and explain the relationship between intellectual, political and social trends
• critically read primary sources
• construct an original historical argument that combines secondary and primary source reading
Required Texts:
Popkin, Jeremy. A History of Modern France. 4th Edition. Boston: Pearson, 2013.
Hunt, Lynn, ed. The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1996.
Balzac, Honoré de. Père Goriot. Edited by Peter Brooks. Translated by Burton Raffel. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
Marx, Karl. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. New York: International Publishers, 1994.
Zola, Emile. Au Bonheur des Dames (The Ladies’ Delight). Translated and edited by Robin Buss. New York: Penguin, 2001.
Céline, Louis-Ferdinand. Journey to the End of the Night. Translated by Ralph Manheim. New York: New Directions, 2006.
With the exception of the textbook by Jeremy Popkin, any edition of these texts are fine to use, including those in the public domain and available on Google Books or another online repository. If you have any concerns about an edition you are using, please feel free to see me.
We will also watch two films. These are required texts for the course and must be viewed. I will attempt to schedule viewings at a time of the greatest convenience for the most people, but you will be responsible for watching the films on your own if you are unable to make the scheduled screening.
Course Format: Class will meet three times a week. Monday and Wednesday meetings will be a mix of discussion and lecture. Fridays will be entirely devoted to a discussion of the week’s assigned reading; these meetings may also include short written exercises and group work.
Course Requirements: Students are required to attend all classes and complete all assignments. Failure to complete any assignment will result in failing the entire course.
1. Attendance and Participation: Attendance in class is a requirement in order to pass this course and role will be taken everyday. You are permitted to miss three classes before your grade begins to suffer. Active participation in class discussion is expected as well.
2. Readings: Textbook readings are due on Mondays, all other readings are due on Fridays.
3. Quizzes: We will have three in-class quizzes through the course of the semester. Format will be a mix of short answer, identification, and short essay. Identification questions require you to identify a term (including the approximate date, if applicable) and the term’s significance to French history.
4. Biography: You will complete a short (2-4 page) biography of a major French or Francophone figure of your choosing. Biographies should situate your chosen figure into his or her time period, explaining his or her historical significance, in addition to basic biographical information. What were this person’s major ideas or contribution to French history? You should utilize at least three sources to compile your biography.
5. Primary Source Essay: You will also write an essay (10-12 pages) that historicizes a single long-form primary source of your choosing. By “long-form,” I mean a source of significant length, whether a novel, play, film, memoir, visual, or document collection. Your goal is to formulate an original historical argument using that source. For instance, you could use the novel Les Misérables to show how Victor Hugo used the figure of the prostitute as a symbol of larger nineteenth-century social concerns. Or, you could read Jean Monnet’s memoirs to illustrate post-WWII visions of a united Europe. This assignment should not be considered a full-fledged research paper; rather, it is an analytical essay that makes a limited claim about the relationship between one source and French history. That said, you are required to do additional research in order to properly historicize your source.
All students should plan to see me to discuss their chosen topic.
6. Take Home Final: Finally, you will complete a take home final exam that will consist of two essay questions. One will require you to utilize our readings and one will ask you to synthesize the themes of the entire semester. The exam is open book and is due at 11:30a on Tuesday, May 7. Note that this time is set by the registrar and is during our normally scheduled exam time. The take home exam should take no longer than three hours to complete.
Grade Breakdown:
Quizzes: 30%
Biography: 15%
Primary Source Essay: 25%
Final Exam: 20%
Attendance and Participation: 10%
Paperless Grading: In an effort to both save trees and improve the quality of my comments to you, your papers MUST be turned in electronically. You will do so via e-mail, with a subject heading “Modern France Essay from YOUR NAME.” Accepted file formats are .doc, and .docx. Depending on the assignment, I may convert your paper to .pdf prior to grading. I will e-mail you your paper directly after all assignments have been graded. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding this policy.
Grade Appeals: There are no grade appeals! I’m more than happy to talk to you about your grade and how you can improve your work (in fact, I highly encourage you to do so), but please do not ask me to change your grade.
Attendance Policy: Regular class attendance is required in order to pass this course. You are allowed only THREE unexcused absences before your grade suffers.
Late Assignments: All assignments are due in class the day they are listed on the syllabus. Late assignments will be deducted one grade for each day late. If I have not received your essay after four days you will automatically fail the assignment. If I never receive an assignment you will fail the course.
Contacting Me: The best way to get in touch with me is through e-mail. Please allow 24 hours for a response; if you have not heard from me in that time, do not hesitate to send another note. My office hours are at the top of this syllabus; if those times are not convenient for you I am happy to make other arrangements. I hope you will all come by my office at some point during the semester. Please check your Kenyon e-mail regularly and please be aware of materials available on the class Moodle site.
Online Resources: The course website can be found at https://www.andrewisraelross.com/s13modernfrance. There you will find a copy of the syllabus, announcements, and other resources relevant to the course, including PowerPoint slides.
Technology in the Classroom: Please feel free to use your laptops, netbooks or tablets for taking notes in class, but please refrain from checking your e-mail, Facebook, twitter, etc. while in class. Also feel free to utilize e-book editions of class texts. I must personally approve all recordings of class lectures. Such approval will only be granted in exceptional circumstances.
Plagiarism and Academic Honesty: All students must follow the College’s policies regarding academic honesty as outlined in the Kenyon College Catalog. If you have any questions regarding this issue, please consult with me before submitting work. All work for this class must be your own and down specifically for this class and all materials consulted, paraphrased and quoted must be cited.
Disabilities: If you have a hidden or visible disability that may require classroom or test accommodations, please see me privately as soon as possible during a scheduled office hour. If you have not already done so, you must register with the Coordinator of Disability Services, Erin Salva, salvae@kenyon.edu, or x5145, who is the individual responsible for coordinating accommodations and services for students with disabilities. All information and documentation of disabilities are strictly confidential. No accommodations will be granted in this course without notification from the Office of Disability Services.
Course Schedule:
Week 1: January 14 – January 18: Introductions and the Old Regime
Textbook: Chapters 1-4
Monday: Introductions
Wednesday: The Old Regime
Friday: Discussion
Secondary: Hunt, pp. 1-12; Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, trans. Stuart Gilbert (Anchor Books, 1955), Part 2, chs. 1-3, 8-9, 12 (eres).
Primary: Hunt documents 1 and 2
Week 2: January 21 – January 25: The French Revolution Part 1
Textbook: Chapters 5-7
Monday: The Origins of the French Revolution
Wednesday: From the Estates General to the Jacobins
Friday: Discussion:
Secondary: Hunt, pp. 13-31
Primary: Hunt documents 9-25
Week 3: January 28 – February 1: The French Revolution 2
Textbook: Chapters 8-9
Monday: The Revolution Abroad
Wednesday: The Radical Abroad, Continued
Friday: Discussion
Secondary: Dubois, Laurent, “Liberty’s Land,” in Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 2004), 152-170 (eres)
Primary: Hunt Documents 26-40
Week 4: February 4 – February 8
Textbook:
Monday: The Radical Revolution
Wednesday: The Radical Revolution, Continued
Friday: Quiz 1 (The French Revolution)
Begin Père Goriot (including Introduction!)
Week 5: February 11 – February 15: The Restoration and July Monarchy
Textbook: Chapters 10-13
Monday: Napoleon
Wednesday: Restoration and Revolution
Friday: Social Change and Industrializatino
Week 6: February 18 – February 22: The Revolution of 1848 and the Second Republic
Textbook: Chapters 14
Monday: Discussion: Père Goriot
Wednesday: The Revolution of 1848
Friday: The Second Republic and the Rise of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte
Biographies Due
Week 7: February 25 – March 1: Second Empire and Commune
Textbook: Chapters 15 – 16
Monday: Discussion: The Eighteenth Brumaire
Wednesday: The Second Empire
Friday: Quiz 2
Spring Break (read Au Bonheur des Dames over break)
Week 8: March 18 – March 22: The Early Third Republic
Textbook: Chapters 17-21
Monday: The Paris Commune and the Early Third Republic
Wednesday: Early Mass Culture
Friday: Discussion:
Primary: Zola, Au Bonheur des Dames
Week 9: October 24 – October 28: France and the First World War
Textbook: Chapters 23-24
Monday: France and the European Balance of Power
Wednesday: The French Experience of Total War
Friday: Discussion
Secondary: Smith, Leonard V., et al. “Mobilizing the nation and the civilians’ war,” in France and the Great War 1914-1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 42-75.
Primary: Céline, Journey to the End of the Night, pp. 1-93.
Week 10: April 1 – April 5: Interwar France
Textbook: Chapters 25-26
Monday: Empire and Anxiety
Wednesday: Discussion:
Secondary: Weber, Eugen, “A Wilderness Called Peace,” in The Hollow Years: France in the 1930s (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994), 11-25.
Primary: Céline, Journey to the End of the Night, pp. 94-203.
Friday: No Class
Week 11: April 8 – April 12: The Second World War
Textbook: Chapters 27-29
Monday: The Fall of France
Wednesday: France and the Holocaust
Friday: Discussion
Primary: The Sorrow and the Pity
Week 12: April 15 – April 19: France to 1968
Textbook: Chapters 30-32
Monday: Quiz 3
Wednesday: From Fourth to Fifth Republic
Friday: Discussion:
Primary: Feraroun, Mouloud, Journal 1955-1962: Reflections on the French-Algerian War, trans. Mary Ellen Wolf and Claude Fouillade, ed. James D. Le Sueur (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), ix-li, 11-21, 65-105, 287-315 (eres)
Week 13: April 22 – 26: 1968 and After
Textbook: Chapters 33-34
Monday: The Revolution of 1968
Wednesday: The Mitterrand Era
Friday: Discussion:
Primary: Feenberg, Andrew and Jim Freedman, When Poetry Ruled the Streets: The French Events of 1968 (New York: State University of New York Press, 2001), 81-89, 112-121, 128-145, 152-168, 171-177 (eres)
Week 14: April 29 – May 3: Contemporary Tensions
Textbook: Chapter 35-36
Monday: Immigration and France Today
Wednesday: Discussion:
Primary: La Haine
Friday: Wrap up and Review
Essay due before class
Take home final due 11:30a on Tuesday, May 7