Basic Themes in French Literature and Culture
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this French-language course on how childhood has been imagined in French and francophone culture since the eighteenth century. Readings and screenings trace the shift toward sentimental family life and cover writers such as Pagnol, Proust, Sarraute, and Laye, alongside filmmaker Truffaut and songwriters Brel and Barbara. The course asks why the Marseillaise addresses itself to the nation's children and uses that question to open discussion of literature, film, and song as records of changing ideas about childhood, family, and national identity. Materials include the syllabus, reading and viewing lists, and assignments used in MIT's Global Studies and Languages curriculum, taught entirely in French for students building advanced language and cultural analysis skills. No video lectures are included, but the course provides a full set of primary texts and structured writing assignments for independent study.