RLFR 406(F) The Female Prison: Convents and Brothels

In this course, we will examine eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century texts in which woman's destiny is defined in terms of spatial, social, and psychological confinement in mysticism or sexuality, excluding her from marriage and society. Convents and brothels, schools that teach ambiguous sexuality, subversion, and revolt, may be more interchangeable than antithetical. Texts include Diderot's La Religieuse, Prévost's Manon Lescaut, Laclos's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Mme. de Lafayette's La Contesse de Tende, Mme. de Duras's Ourika, Maupassant's La Maison Tellier, Zola's Nana, Colette's Gigi, Beauvoir's Le Deuxième Sexe, and Kessel's Belle de Jour. Conducted in French. Requirements: several short papers, class presentations, and a longer final paper. Prerequisite: any French literature course.

Hour: DUNN