LITR 017FD. First Year Seminar: The French Philosophical Novel

(Cross-listed as FREN 017D)
From the eighteenth century to the present day, French literature has a rich tradition of authors who are at once novelists and philosophers. From the Enlightenment tales of Voltaire and Diderot, to the materialist metaphysics underlying Balzac’s Realism, to the existentialist works of Sartre and Beauvoir, to the relational ontology of Glissant’s postcolonial literary universe, several of the central figures of French letters have turned to the novel both as a platform for showcasing their philosophical systems and as a vessel to give shape and meaning to these very systems. The following course proposes to study the interdependence between the novelistic and philosophical enterprises of these authors in order to explore fundamental questions tied to knowledge, identity, and justice. Authors include: Voltaire, Diderot, Balzac, Gide, Camus, Sartre, Beauvoir, Glissant.

(Conducted in English. Texts in Translation.)
Humanities.
1 credit.
Eligible for FREN
Spring 2023. Robison.
Fall 2023. Robison.
Catalog chapter: Modern Languages and Literatures: Literatures in Translation
Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/modern-languages-literatures/courses-taught-english-0

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