Undergraduate Course: Recognition Struggles in Contemporary France (ELCF10075)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course engages with the different recognition struggles that have emerged since decolonisation in contemporary France. It focuses on the struggles of ethnic minorities (Afro-descendant, Jewish, North African) to achieve political recognition for different histories of trauma, including slavery, colonisation and the Holocaust. |
| Course description |
'Recognition Struggles in Contemporary France' investigates the socio-political struggles of ethnic minorities and their attempts to achieve State recognition and reparation for the different histories of trauma affecting their communities. The course examines how France's historical involvement in 'crimes against humanity' (including slavery, colonialism and the Holocaust) continues to impact negatively upon Afro-descendant, Jewish and North African minority groups. It engages with issues such as: identity formation and shifting ideas on national identity; immigration and integration; memory and trauma theory; social justice and societal racism; political activism and minority voice. A wide variety of primary sources, including political documents, memory laws, film documentaries, newspaper reports and political speeches, will be used to provide students with an in-depth knowledge of the historical traumas that connect the past to the present, the wide variety of social responses to the impact of trauma, and the multiple theoretical approaches that can be taken to 'repair' the past.
Course content: Students will be provided with an excellent theoretical grounding in theories relating to recognition and identity struggles, memory and trauma, and social justice theory. These will then be applied through different case studies focusing on particular histories of trauma, their effects on different ethnic minority groups and how these groups have mobilised to achieve political recognition. Three to four case studies will be investigated, inviting comparisons between the State's treatment of different ethnic groups and their struggles to achieve State recognition. Examples include: Afro-descendants living in the outer-mer and the metropole, and the history of slavery; Jewish communities and the history of deportation linked to the Holocaust; North African communities and their role in the First and Second World Wars.
Student learning experience: This is a seminar-based course that will provide a dossier of primary source texts and documentary film screenings, accompanied by recommended theoretical texts and secondary reading. Each week, the lecturer will provide a short presentation, following by workshop-based discussions based on the set texts and the students' wider reading. Students' learning and understanding will be tested through an oral presentation, a dissertation and an exam.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students must be able to read, write and speak French and English up to the required academic level for an honours-level course |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2016/17, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 22,
Summative Assessment Hours 1.5,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
172 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
60 %,
Coursework
40 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
One 2,000 word essay (40%) and one 90 minute exam (60%) |
| Feedback |
In-class feedback and active learning: due to the seminar/tutorial-based nature of this course, each contact hour will provide opportunity for class discussion and feedback on the development of ideas and comprehension.
Formative assessment feedback: students will be designing (under supervision) their own essay topics based on open thematic titles relating to the course content. Each student will have the opportunity for formative assessment by submitting a proposal prior to gaining approval for their selected title.
Continuous/formative feedback and class work/peer review: informal oral presentations will act as preparation for the formally-assessed oral presentation at the end of the course. Feedback will be received in class (on a weekly basis) and in writing (following the submission of formative and summative assessments). Students will not only be encouraged to provide each other with feedback during class, but also to seek further individual feedback through face-to-face meetings with the course convenor.
Responding to feedback: prior to the submission of their summative assessments, students will be expected to reflect upon, and demonstrate how they have acted upon, the feedback they have received in their formative assessments, e.g. by providing a short paragraph about how they have addressed particular concerns.
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| Exam Information |
| Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Hours & Minutes |
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| Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May) | | 1:30 | |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate an understanding of key histories of trauma, including slavery, the Holocaust and colonialism, and how they have affected ethnic minorities living within contemporary France
- Demonstrate familiarity with the recommended primary and secondary material relating to particular histories of trauma and legal, political and social responses to those histories
- Engage with and interpret layers of meaning within individual texts and between groups of texts.
- Demonstrate the acquisition of certain transferable skills, including ability to criticise, evaluate and interpret evidence, to consider a problem from a number of different perspectives, to accommodate ambiguity and advance reasonable conjectures, to argue cogently and effectively
- Develop effective communication, presentation and interaction skills across a range of media
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Reading List
Examples of primary sources:
Films/documentaries: Pascal Blanchard and Juan Gélas, Noirs de France (2012); Antoine Léonard-Maestrati and Michel Reinette, L'Avenir est ailleurs (2013); Rachid Bouchareb, Indigènes (2006)
Memory laws: loi Gayssot (1990) 'tendant à réprimer tout acte raciste, antisémite ou xénophobe'; loi Jospin (2000) 'instituant une mesure de réparation pour les orphelins dont les parents ont été victimes de persécutions antisémites'; loi Taubira (2001) 'tendant à la reconnaissance de la traite et de l'esclavage en tant que crime contre l'humanité'; loi 23 février (2005) 'portant reconnaissance de la Nation et contribution nationale en faveur des Français rapatriés'
Extracts of parliamentary debates relating to the above laws from the Assemblée Nationale website (http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/debats/)
Newspaper reports relating to debates on France's 'memory war' and the above laws (2005-2006) from mainstream national presses (Libération, Le Monde, Le Figaro)
Examples of secondary sources:
Blanchard, Pascal, and Isabelle Veyrat-Masson (des.), Les guerres de mémoires: La France et son histoire, enjeux politiques, controverses historiques, stratégies médiatiques (Paris: La Découverte, 2010)
Hargreaves, Alec G., Multi-Ethnic France: Immigration, Politics, Culture and Society, 2nd edn (New York: Routledge, 2007)
Hobson, Barbara (ed), Recognition Struggles and Social Movements: Contested Identities, Agency and Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003)
Honneth, Axel, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995)
LaCapra, Dominick, History and Memory after Auschwitz (New York: Cornell University Press, 1998)
Michel, Johann, Gouverner les mémoires: Les politique mémorielles en France (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2010)
Ndiaye, Pap, La Condition Noire: Essai Sur Une Minorite Francaise (Paris: Gallimard, 2009)
Ricoeur, Paul, La Mémoire, l'Histoire, l'Oubli Poche (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 2000)
Rothberg, Michel (ed.), Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization (California: Stanford University Press, 2009) |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
As a result of studying the course, students will benefit from the development of different personal and professional attributes and skills, including:
Generic cognitive skills:
Critically identify, define, conceptualise and analyse complex/professional problems and issues.
Offer professional insights, interpretations and solutions to problems and issues.
Demonstrate some originality and creativity in dealing with professional issues.
Critically review and consolidate knowledge, skills, practices and thinking in a subject/discipline/sector.
Make judgements where data/information is limited or comes from a range of sources.
Communication skills:
Use a wide range of routine skills and some advanced and specialised skills in support of established practices in a subject/discipline/sector
Present or convey, formally and informally, information about specialised topics to informed audiences.
Communicate with peers, senior colleagues and specialists on a professional level.
Autonomy, Accountability and Working with Others:
Exercise autonomy and initiative in professional/equivalent activities.
Exercise significant managerial responsibility for the work of others and for a range of resources.
Practise in ways that show awareness of own and others' roles and responsibilities.
Work, under guidance, in a peer relationship with specialist practitioners.
Work with others to bring about change, development and/or new thinking. |
| Keywords | minority identity,memory,slavery,Holocaust,recognition,social justice |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Nicola Frith
Tel: (0131 6)50 8967
Email: Nicola.Frith@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Elsie Gach
Tel: (0131 6)50 8421
Email: Elsie.Gach@ed.ac.uk |
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