Sumários

Proust - Un amour de Swann

30 Setembro 2025, 17:00 • Chiara Nifosi

Introduction to Marcel Proust and À la recherche du temps perdu. "Un amour de Swann" within the larger project of Proust's novel. Social context: the "salon bourgeois" and the Verdurin club; the social discourse about art.

Paris and modernity

25 Setembro 2025, 17:00 • Chiara Nifosi

Reading and commentary of Ch. Baudelaire, “À une passante” (from Les Fleurs du Mal, 1861); P. Reverdy, “Réalité des ombres” (from Poèmes en prose, 1915); M. Jacob, “La rue Ravignan” and “Écrivez vos mémoires” (from Le Cornet à dés, 1917 and Derniers poèmes en vers et en prose, 1945).

The topos of the "passante" and its connections to modernity. The photography of Eugène Atget and early 20th-century Paris. Atget in the texts of R. Desnos and P. MacOrlan.

Modernism in France

23 Setembro 2025, 17:00 • Chiara Nifosi

Introduction to French modernism. The use of the words "moderne" and "modernité" in previous historical contexts: "la quérelle des anciens et des modernes", Baudelaire's definition of modernity in The Painter of Modern Life. Possible definitions of modernism (quotes from the Tate Modern website and from the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Global vs local modernism(s), an unresolved tension in contemporary modernist studies. French vs Anglo-centered modernism. Modernism vs avant-garde.

Historical contextualization

18 Setembro 2025, 17:00 • Chiara Nifosi

Historical contextualization. The political spectrum and the rise of nationalist movements (L'Action française). France as a colonial empire. The social context of the Belle Époque: demographic stagnation, the phenomenon of immigration and its social and political repercussions, education, the industry of entertainment. Intellectual tendencies in early 20th-century France: rationalism vs spiritualism, modernism as a response to the crisis of Catholic faith in late 19th century.

Course introduction

16 Setembro 2025, 17:00 • Chiara Nifosi

Introduction to course objectives and assessment. The assessment will consist in class attendance and participation, an oral presentation on Week 10 (November 18 and 20), and a final in-class exam (date: January 8, 2026).

1913: a central year in the history of French arts and literature; historical contextualization (modernization and urbanization); the crisis of the Republic (Boulangisme and the Affaire Dreyfus).