FREN 3430

Francophone Travel Literature

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2014-2015.

If traveling and travel journals are not a new phenomenon, their popularity has considerably increased, and travel literature has taken new forms with the development of new technologies such as travel blogs. Since when do people travel and write about their travels?  What do they write about their journeys, and for whom?  What is at stake in such literature?  This course is an "Invitation to the Voyage" (Baudelaire) in all of its forms (including initiation trips, road trips, business trips, exploration trips, leisure trips, spiritual journeys or journeys without purpose) and to the exploration of its literary implications.  Through readings of travel journals and fictions based on journeys, this course questions the relationships between traveling and writing.  It will trace back travel literature from the 16th century (J. Cartier) to recent publications (S. Tesson), via the generation of "Bourlingueurs" at the end of the 19th century (Cendrars, Segalen).  Alongside this "journey" through centuries of Francophone literature, a particular attention will be given to the 18th century (Bougainville, Montesquieu, Voltaire) and, in the 19th century, to the birth of orientalism.  In the 20th century, the course will question more particularly the relationships between travels and migrations.  Alongside the literary material, the course will also cover a large variety of media (blogs, essays, movies, songs, paintings and photography in particular) in order to study the extent to which literature contributes to the experience of traveling, as well as how travel influences writing practices.

When Offered Spring.

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: FREN 2310 or CASE Q++.

Breadth Requirement (HB)
Distribution Category (LA-AS)
Language Requirement Satisfies Option 1.

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