BA History and French

This course focuses on the cultural representation of racial identity and power relations in the French and Francophone world, during the colonial and post-colonial periods. Introductory lectures and seminars present the history of French  colonisation and theorize the key concepts of ‘Race’, ‘Blackness’, ‘Otherness’, ‘mimicry’ and ‘imperial gaze’, discussing theories of racial representation and stereotyping. Subsequent sessions are devoted to the analysis of the set texts, which range across literature, stage performance and cinema. These are; the novel Ourika by Claire de Duras (1823), with the first Black heroine of French literature; the stage and film performances of the African-American dancer Josephine Baker (1927-35); and two works by the Senegalese author and filmmaker Ousmane Sembène: his short story ‘La Noire de…' (1962) and its 1966 film adaptation.  

This unit is available as free choice with knowledge of the target language.

• to familiarise students with the French and Belgian history of colonisation ; 

• to introduce students to the discipline of Cultural Studies in order to enable the analysis of literary, visual and audio-visual artwork; 

• to provide an overview of the different issues of cultural representation with specific reference to the perception of racial ‘difference’ in a colonial and post-colonial context;  

• to provide students with key concepts (‘identity’, ‘race’, ‘exoticism’, ‘blackness’…);  

• to encourage and enable students to verbalise and intellectualise their emotional response to ‘racist’, ‘anti-racist’ and ‘anti-colonial’ cultural production; 

• to equip students with intellectual and analytical tools to consider the racially-grounded production of literature, film, and performance.  

Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of some of the major aspects of racial identity and (post-)colonial power relations in French and Francophone culture and society, during the twentieth century.  

Contextualise, analyze and discuss literary, visual and audio-visual material in a structured fashion; apply critically terminology and conceptual frameworks derived from Cultural Studies (‘identity’, ‘stereotype’, ‘representation’…).  

Demonstrate the ability to carry out individual research for coursework essays, and express ideas and arguments coherently and convincingly in time-limited constraints, using an appropriate level of academic writing and exemplification. 

Demonstrate powers of analysis; manage word-count effectively when writing coursework; manage time effectively when writing in exam conditions; participate in seminars; work as part of a group; assess the relevance of existing literature through independent research; seek advice and feedback and develop confidence. 

Theoretical Discussion - 20%

Draft Essay Plan - Formative 

Individual Essay - 80%

Set texts (subject to change): 

The novel Ourika, by Claire de Duras (available as a PDF on Blackboard) 

Two films with Josephine Baker, made available to students: Zou Zou (dir. M. Allégret, 1934) and Princesse Tam Tam (dir. E. Gréville, 1935).  

Sembène, Ousmane, ‘La Noire de…’, in Voltaïque (Paris: Présence Africaine, 1962), pp. 157–84 (Digitised short story available via Blackboard) 

La Noire de… (film by Ousmane Sembène, 1966), made available to students. 

Secondary Readings: 

Aldrich, Robert. Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996) 

Boittin, Jennifer Anne. ‘Black in France. The Language and Politics of Race in the Late Third Republic’, French Politics, Culture and Society, 27 (2), 2009, 22-46 

Evans, Martin. Empire and Culture: The French Experience, 1830-1940 (Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) 

Fanon, Frantz. Peau noire, masques blancs (Paris: Le Seuil, 1952) 

Hall, Stuart. ‘The Spectacle of the “Other”’, in Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. by Stuart Hall (London: Sage, 2001), 223-90