Fall 2024

French 3303 – French Composition and Conversation  
Professor: Dr. Moira DiMauro-Jackson, md11@txstate.edu

Description: The focus of this course is to give you ample practice in speaking and writing in French through analyzing, making, and responding to arguments in a wide range of topics in current French society and culture. You will improve your written style, deepen your understanding of authentic French texts, and increase your ability to understand spoken French. You will also improve your grammatical accuracy, enlarge your vocabulary, and acquire more ease and confidence speaking French, in a friendly environment. The topics we will discuss are certain to trigger ideas and interest, and you will acquire the skills to express your own opinion on them in French.

French 3341 – Advanced Grammar in French  
Professor: Dr. Peter Golato, pgolato@txstate.edu

Description: Does jargon such as groupe, proposition, conjonction, accord, etc. make you experience fight or flight? Well, bid that fear adieu! By this course’s end you’ll be very familiar with these and many other descriptive grammatical terms. Along the way, we’ll slay some old grammatical dragons – looking at you, accord du participe passé – while also taking the names of some new ones (how would one say “however difficult it might be…”?). You’ll go from jargon to j’adore - and let's be honest, what could be cooler than impressing your fellow Francophile friends with your impeccable grasp of French past participle agreement?  
 

French 4350C – French Directors’ Series  
Professor: Dr. Jennifer Forrest, jf05@txstate.edu

Description: This course plunges into the magical and fantastic world of director René Clair. Clair’s career spans the entire classic period of French film, 1920-1960. I will focus on key films from the four important stages of this long and illustrious career: the playful experimental (Dadaist) films of the 1920s employing a multitude of optical devices, camera movement, and crazy stories; the truly innovative early sound films – he set the standard of what a filmmaker could do with sound (and image); the decade spent in Hollywood working with great stars like Marlene Dietrich and Robert Donat, 1935-1945 (he even did a delightful Agatha Christie mystery!); and his triumphant return to France after the war. No serious budding film scholar or critic can consider their education complete without having studied Clair’s films. No fan of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960’s New Wave films can consider their understanding of Godard’s innovations complete without a sound knowledge of Clair’s body of work. Taught in English.

French 4370 – Civilization  
Professor: Dr. Jennifer Forrest, jf05@txstate.edu

Description: This course will examine the exciting culture of technological advancement in 19th-century France through…  
•    the rise of the press and print publication with industrialized printing techniques (the second revolution of the book!)  
•    the creation of the locomotive and railways (changing notions of time and space!)  
•    the harnessing and implementation of electricity (ZAP!)  
•    the reign and celebration of technology in the Galerie des machines at the expositions universelles de Paris or Paris World’s Fair (oooooh!)  
•    the architecture of the industrial era (glass and iron, so modern!)  
•    the century’s fascination with technological progress, and so much more!