| Unit name | French Cultures in Context |
|---|---|
| Unit code | FREN10030 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | C/4 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Professor. Hurcombe |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
None |
| School/department | Department of French |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
Why is this unit important?
This unit takes you on a journey from the seemingly familiar surroundings of everyday France to a more complex and enriched understanding of the key debates and issues which have defined French and Francophone identities over the centuries. Using source material in French (also available in translation for ab-initio students), it focuses on figures and places that seem easily recognisable to many students and scholars of France and explores the networks of often competing ideas and values that have shaped who or what they are perceived to be today. It thus lays the foundation for the study of a range of optional units in Years 2 and 4 that explore culture, history and politics in France and the Francophone world and supports your study of the French language.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
Figures studied may include: the celebrity, the presidential persona, the intellectual or the activist. Places may comprise: the classroom, institutions (such as museums or the Académie Française), a particular region (such as the Midi), the café or the restaurant. In this way, the unit will introduce you to the history of a broad range of ideas and debates surrounding issues such as social class, gender, race, colonial legacies and histories, national and regional identity, themes with which you will also engage in other units studied throughout your degree programme. The unit will also provide you with training in group presentations and academic writing as well as equipping you with a range of language, research and independent-study skills that you will deploy across the rest of your degree programme.
An overview of content
The unit will be structured around the study of figures and places with which some of you may already be familiar through the study of French GCSE or A level or knowledge of France. Five figures or places will be studied in total, with two weeks dedicated to each. Each two-week module will gradually deconstruct and defamiliarize the familiar. For example, a two-week module on the presidential persona could start with an official portrait of a President of the Fifth Republic. A range of media will then be used to expose points of continuity and rupture between the presidential persona, the emperor/Bonapartism, and ancient-regime monarchy. A two-week module on the classroom might examine its role in inculcating Republican values, but also consider it as a site of radical resistance, particularly in the context of the university system.
How will students, personally, be different as a result of the unit
Your understanding of particular figures and places, which may have appeared familiar through previous study or personal experience, will be complicated through this approach. More generally, the approach will teach you how to look beneath surface appearances and to identify and challenge your own givens and assumptions. You will develop a critical eye that is informed by a range of approaches drawn from cultural studies and Modern Languages as a wide-ranging discipline; you will be attuned to ask further questions concerning class, gender, and colonial legacies, for example, when studying other aspects of French and Francophone cultures throughout your degree programme.
Learning Outcomes
By studying this unit, you will be able to:
You will be taught through a weekly lecture and a weekly seminar plus an asynchronous tutor presentation relating to study skills. The first interactive lecture in any two-week module will introduce the subject; the second will explore the subject in greater detail and develop one of the key broader approaches drawn from cultural studies. Seminars will involve group discussion around a range of media to allow for greater in-depth study of and reflection upon particular ideas and debates. The asynchronous study-skills lectures will support you with your formative and summative assessments. The unit will subsequently equip you with general research, independent study, academic writing, and presentation skills that will be all further refined over the degree programme as you learn with growing authority and confidence to build evidence-based arguments which draw upon a broad cultural knowledge.
Tasks which help you learn and prepare you for summative tasks (formative):
You will work with other students to contribute to a single Wiki related to one of the unit’s fortnightly modules. Working in small groups, you will complete a 250-word literature review to help you learn how to evaluate and summarise secondary academic sources, a skill that you will also need to use in both summative forms of assessment.
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
1 x 10-minute group podcast (25%), testing ILOs 1-4
1 x 2000-word essay (75%), testing ILOs 1-4
When assessment does not go to plan
If you are unable to undertake either assessment or are required to be re-assessed following submission, you will normally be asked to complete the necessary work during the Summer Reassessment Period. In these cases, an individual recorded presentation may be requested in place of the first summative assessment. You will not be permitted to repeat topics of study from any previously submitted work on the unit.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. FREN10030).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
