French 1000A
Unlocking French Regions

Offered in English

Prerequisites: none

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Course Description:

Land of wine and good food for some; a perfect place to go camping and bicycling for others; the longest ski-resort network awaits your next winter amusements if you like snowboarding or the most traditional forms of cross-country ski; the land of museums or the place to go sailing; regions where you can experience cave painting, Celtic sites, roman theaters still in use, SPA cities, walk in medieval neighborhoods, admire classical, baroque churches and cathedrals with labyrinths and glasswork, listen to church organs built with long tubes resounding around columns and through you, etc. You may plan to go eat a pretzel and drink a beer in front of the Strasbourg cathedral in France. Many people are content with a three-hour walk along the tax paths along the shores of Antibes, but you may plan a three-day walk in Corsica, others visit the Normandy sites of WWI or WWII.

The son of the previous Western University president wanted to bicycle in the Landes in June-July, and he wanted to join a group of cyclist so that he would not have to plan the meals and the logistics and he would be part of a secure and accompanied peloton; a young student from Peru wanted to land in Nice, so that she could go from Nice to Cannes with the yearly marathon; go to Cannes and see the usual shore walk, hop on a boat and go swim at Ste Marguerite island; you may organise your own tour, selecting your season and your set of activities to help visualise it for your classmates. Your Midterm is in-class and your final is a take-home given to you 3 weeks ahead of time and due on the last day of class.

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Goals: Apart from the ones you will determine for yourself, as you visit France virtually, you will understand the emotions and traditional practices that motivate what you taste and see in French regions (why wines may taste so different for instance); how you can live adventures in its waterways, mountains, and bicycle routes ; get information and see where so many Canadians engaged their lives in WWI and WWII—where they are honored with what type of monuments; where you could go and ski next winter and what treats to expect or seek; establish a deeper familiarity with France’s monuments, so that you better understand its history, how culture is shaped, and how invaders and politicians used their symbolic powers; which museums offer what type of experience where you can see how commerce sometimes defines politics and even the arts (leisure time paid for the Impressionists and the commerce of clothing for Marie-Antoinette’s portraits); how landscapes and plants retain a “memory” of French people; how prehistoric humans (and some human relatives) lived the land and left traces of their hands in their paintings; how the Romans who defeated the Celtic tribes left traces of their passage such as theaters still in use today; where the druids practiced ancient religions and left dolmens and other structures standing on the land in Britany; where and how medieval people erected cathedrals still active to date, and where you can hear their gigantic organs at free concerts; how French landscape and cityscape defined poetry and visual arts; understand how tours, journeys, migrations, transports, tourism came to be and whose footsteps you follow when you travel in France.

How you are graded: Presence and participation (10 questionnaires due right after class) 40%; Midterm 40% (in class); Take home exam 20% (resembles the in-class questionnaires).

Material: Great Courses, by John Greene and a few others—shown in class. Texts provided on your OWL site

Auditing is not permitted.