Word, Text and Ritual in Modern and Contemporary French Narrative (P02366)

? Credit Points : 20 ? SCQF Level : 11 ? Acronym : LLC-P-P02366

The writers associated with the nouveau roman and their successors have had not only a significant impact internationally on the development of metafiction and on critical discourse on the relationship between narrative and referentiality, but have also attracted the interest of those working - as critics, theorists and practitioners - on the relationship between word and image, on the dynamics of intertextual and visual allusion, on the interaction between diverse national cultures and between different cultural levels, and on the tension between centre and periphery in French culture. Late twentieth and early twentieth-century French fiction is also characterised by a sustained exploration of the processes by which meaning is created not only in the text, but also in the referential world, in particular through various ritual practices, symbols and objects and through deviation from or transgression of ritual codes. This course will examine the dynamics of the relationship between narrative, visual and plastic artworks and ritual in a selection of texts by some of the most prominent writers working in France in the late twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first century.

Entry Requirements

? This course is not accepting further student enrolments.

? This course is not available to visting students.

Subject Areas

Home subject area

European Languages and Cultures - Common Courses, (School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures, Schedule G)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : Postgraduate

? Delivery Period : To be arranged/Unknown

? Contact Teaching Time : 2 hour(s) per week for 10 weeks

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, the students should be able to demonstrate:

- a good understanding of the principal thematic and formal preoccupations of the selected authors
- a good understanding of the ways in which the exploitation of visual resources allows the authors to explore a number of broader themes relating to perception, memory, sexuality and identity
- a good understanding of the interaction between ritual, document, art and architecture in the selected texts
- a good understanding of the ways in which the authors explore and exploit the visual properties of typographical layout and the non-linear potential of the texts' structures
- a good understanding of the relationship between the exploration of the text/image interaction and the experimental and metafictional aspects of the selected texts
- the ability to apply and to exploit to critical advantage pertinent theoretical models.