From the co**se strewn small crotte covered streets of the French Revolution to the arcades and grand boulevards of modern Paris, the figure of the flâneur, or the solitary urban wanderer, has intrigued authors, poets, philosophers, and artists alike. This course will give an extensive examination of the figure of the flâneur in literature, art history, philosophy, and film from the Tableaux Paris
iens of Louis Sébastien Mercier to the Petits poèmes en prose and Le Peintre de la vie moderne of Baudelaire, from the paintings of Courbet, to the Arcades project of Walter Benjamin (other readings will include works from Rétif de la Bretonne, Balzac, Rimbaud, Zola, Colette, Apollinaire, Roubaud, and Sophie Calle. Students will live and have 2 daily meals with a French family in Paris and will speak French on a daily basis. The class will meet twice a day for two to three hours (four to five hours total) four days a week (Monday through Thursday). The first meeting will take place at CUPA in the Latin Quarter. The second meeting will take place at a specific site in Paris (a museum, the old arcades, the grand boulevards, the sewers, the grands magasins, etc.) Each day will bring us to a different area of Paris. As such the class will gain an intimate knowledge of Paris and of the literary, historical, and art-historical representations of the flâneur. In addition to a daily journal, students will be required to write a 10-page term paper. Students will also attend numerous guided museum visits and walks in the city of Paris, and theater/opera/dance performances during their stay. . In addition to the class, students will attend 4 guided visits (the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, Hôtel de ville, the Institut du monde arabe, and Versailles) and 3-4 cultural events (ballet, opera, and/or theater). Included in the program fees are a family stay (2 meals a day/five days a week; a Navigo metro pass (unlimited metro/bus use in zones 1 & 2 for the month of July); cultural excursions; supplementary international health insurance. All students will be required to purchase a cellphone or SIMS card in France and to have a French cellphone number.
