2020-21 Academic Catalog

The idea of the Seven Deadly Sins (the source of all vices) captured the medieval western imagination and continues to inspire diverse writers, artists, filmmakers, and graphic novelists to the present day. Through La Fontaine’s fables, Maupassant’s Carmen (and Bizet’s eponymous opera), the African tales of Amadou Koumba, Camus’s The Stranger, and Julie Mazoh’s graphic novel, Blue is the Warmest Color, this course explores literary and filmic representations of such vices as pride, envy, and lust. Interrogating the presence and power of these categories in both historical and contemporary culture, the course also develops students’ skills in analysis, writing, and discussion in French. Prerequisite: French 204 or equivalent