Nancy C. Mellerski   Professor of French and Film Studies Dickinson College Carlisle, PA  17013 Tel:  717 245-1248 Fax:  717 245-1456 E-mail:  mellersk@dickinson.edu

IF YOU ARE SEEKING INFORMATION ON THE 2008 NEH SUMMER SEMINAR FOR SCHOOLTEACHERS, CLICK HERE:

Spring 2008
SCHEDULE

French 245 Contemporary French Society. This course introduces students to the culture and society of France through the study of a number of different aspects of French life. Printed and video "texts" for the course will acquaint you with the major social, political, economic, and cultural forces that structure life in France today. Our approach will be a thematic, not a historical one, although whenever necessary we will open a "window on history" to seek to explain how the French past has inevitably shaped the present. We will draw on a variety of disciplines (history, sociology, anthropology, economics, political science) and their interrelations in order to acquire a certain familiarity with the nature of French "identities" today and the forces that are challenging those identities. We will cover such topics as Americanization, France's place in Europe, issues of immigration and integration, and regionalism.

French 363 Cinema and Society. This course explores Francophone cinema of the past two decades as it focuses on contemporary social and economic realities in France. We consider issues of marginality and difference, in particular immigration, integration, social exclusion, the world of work, and sexuality. In addition, we study the context within which this new social and political awareness in French film-making emerges--its influences and antecedents in relation to post-war French film history, as well as its significance in the wider socio-political context of France since the early 1980s.

I also serve as Chair of the French and Italian Department, and contribute frequently to the programs in Film Studies, American Studies, and Women's Studies.

For information on some of my other courses, please click on the following links:

French 230:  Communication in Context

French 358:  Contemporary Fiction and Film

French 365:  Seminar: Remembering Vichy

French 245: La culture française contemporaine

Freshman Seminar: A Silver Mirror: American Myth, American Film

French 363/History 313:  Postwar France

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