Spring Semester

Black Paris

French 597A, CMLIT597A, HIST597A

Thursday, 1 to 3:45, 7A Sparks

 

This interdisciplinary graduate seminar focuses on the history of African, Caribbean, and African-American people in Paris.  It includes both the role of the city within the writing, art, and thought of the African diaspora as well as the impact of ParisÕs black population on French cultural and political life from the 18th century to the present.   The seminar is open to graduate students from any field as well as to undergraduate students in the Schreyer Honors College.  The only pre-requisite is a reading knowledge of French.

 

Co-taught by professors of French and Francophone Studies, Comparative Literature, and History, and drawing on the expertise of visiting scholars from France and this country, the seminar will introduce students to major issues in transnational writing, art, music, and thought; colonial and post-colonial history and theory; integration, citizenship,  and identity; histories of slavery, abolitionism, and revolution; theories of race and colonialism; cosmopolitanism, pan-Africanism, Negritude, and crˇolitˇ; migration during World War I and World War II, and developments in jazz and modernist literature.

 

For more information, contact Profs. Jennifer Boittin, jab808@psu.edu, Jonathan Eburne, jpe11@psu.edu, or Thomas Hale, tah@psu.edu

 

The Black Paris Interdisciplinary Graduate Seminar is sponsored by the Departmeant of French and Francophone Studies, the Department of Comparative Literature, the Department of History, the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, and the Cultural Service of the French Embassy.