FREN 285

Sex, Philosophy, and Politics: Revolutionary Literature in Translation

TuTh 9:30-10:45am, Dey Hall 209, Prof. Jessica Tanner (jltanner@email.unc.edu)

In this course, we will explore 18th- and early 19th-century French literature in the context of revolution: the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, and the other transformations—philosophical, political, social, cultural, literary—that take place during the period. Defying the genre definitions familiar to modern readers, Enlightenment texts blur the boundaries between philosophy, politics, fiction, theater, history, science, pornography, and art. Accordingly, we will take an interdisciplinary approach to 18th-century French “literature” and philosophy, examining a range of texts and cultural objects from the period (as well as recent films) as we consider the following questions: is the French revolution a sexual revolution? What is the relationship between sex, knowledge, and power? How should we understand the interplay between Enlightenment ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity and contemporary practices (e.g., enslavement, colonialism, gender and class inequalities) that controvert those ideals? How do we read pre-revolutionary works without retrospectively imposing a narrative of causality, whereby all roads and all texts lead to revolution? How do marginalized writers from the late 18th and early 19th centuries engage with the contradictions and promises of the Enlightenment and the Revolution? And finally, what is the relevance of thinking about Enlightenment and Revolutionary thought today?

*Taught in English. Counts for the FREN minor / major.

GenEd: PH, NA.

Previously Offered: