New French Courses

FRNC 3701: L’Acadie/Acadia: Translating Literature and Culture
Instructor: Dr. Richard Marchand
Frnc 3701 is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Acadian culture, its history, language and literature (in the original and in translation). The course will include historical material (Naomi Griffiths – Contexts of Acadian History 1686-1784) revealing both English and French Colonial attitudes and the realities of the Acadian “nation” through the ages. The literary investigation will follow with a focus on poetry (Reves Inachevees – Unfinished Dreams: contemporary Poetry of Acadia), drama (Maillet – La Sagouine) and the novel (Maillet Pelagie la Charette), in the original texts but with English translations for support, although the classroom discussions will be primarily in French. We will also look at the difficulties of translation when what might be called “regional works” are involved.

FRNC 3703: Innovation & Variation in French/Francophone Literature
Instructor: Dr. Bernard Mulo Farenkia
The course will look at forms and functions of innovative language usages (e.g. code-switching, semantic shift, loan word, calquing) and regional variations in the works of some contemporary French / francophone writers (e.g. Ahmadou Kourouma, Yves Viollier, Mongo Beti, Camara Laye, Patrice Nganang, Ferdinand Oyono, Joseph Zobel, etc.). We will further discuss translation difficulties of “regional language usages” and comment on some translation techniques adopted in the English versions of the original texts.