Paris l autre: a city in history, film

FREN3419OC: Paris l’autre: A City in History, Film and Fiction, 3 credits
Instructor Thomas Dodman, Associate Professor of French, Columbia University. Taught in French.

This intensive, five-week class explores lived experiences and ficFonal representaFons of Paris
in the Nineteenth and TwenFeth Centuries. Behind the hackneyed moFf of the city of love, Paris
is also the quintessenFal capital of modernity, the site of countless urban imaginaries to
discover in books, on the screen, or at a café table. The city has a rich revoluFonary heritage
and is home to innumerable upstarts and immigrants who came to the capital to “make it” (or
not). Every street is also a site of memory (and forgeRng), where the most mundane aspects of
everyday life coexist with dreams and nightmares of urban renewal. Each week we will explore
these different facets to the city, its people and built environment through historical lectures,
novels by Victor Hugo and Virgine Despentes, films by Jean-Luc Godard and Ladj Ly, as well as
visits to museums, landmarks, and an arFst studios or a subway seat from which to observe
Parisian life with Patrick Modiano and Annie Ernaux.

To enroll in this course, you must apply to the Columbia Summer in Paris: French Immersion Track program through the Center for Undergraduate Global Engagement (UGE).  Global Learning Scholarships available.  Tuition charges apply. 

Please note the program dates are different from the Summer Session Terms. Visit the UGE website for the start and end dates for the Columbia in Summer in Paris program. Please email uge@columbia.edu with any questions you may have.