Courses

French 569: Critical Approaches to Literature and Culture: French and Francophone Perspectives

Credits: 3

Requisite: graduate/professional standing

Instructor: Joshua Armstrong

Schedule: Mondays, 2:25 pm to 4:55 pm

Description du cours:

Une introduction aux approches critiques avancées de l’analyse des textes (surtout littéraires). Ce cours fournit à l’étudiant(e) un lexique et des concepts de base pour l’analyse académique des textes. Il propose aussi un survol des courants critiques les plus influents, approches qui servent à déchiffrer des textes aussi bien que des instances culturelles. L’étudiant(e) lira un échantillon des essais les plus marquants de la théorie littéraire.

Objectifs d’apprentissage:

Ce cours a pour objectifs principaux :

• de transmettre à l’étudiant(e) des stratégies interprétatives et une terminologie critique qu’il/elle pourra utiliser dans ses propres travaux de recherche

• de développer une approche plus analytique et conceptuelle de la littérature
• de mettre la littérature en rapport avec un ensemble de discours issus des sciences humaines, en particulier dans le champ intellectuel français (structuralisme, poststructuralisme, épistémologie, phénoménologie, critique postcoloniale, féminisme, écocritique)

• de donner à l’étudiant(e), par des travaux pratiques, divers exemples concrets d’utilisation du discours critique, susceptibles d’être appliqués dans ses propres travaux

French 672: Topic – AI Simulations and Literary Fictions*

Credits: 3

Requisite: Graduate/professional standing

Instructor: Jan Miernowski

Schedule: Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:30 pm to 3:45 pm

Theme: AI Simulations and Literary Fictions
Short Description:
The goal of the seminar is to study the differences between AI simulations and literary fictions.

Computer games immerse us in virtual reality, while films and novels transport us into fictional worlds projected on movie screens and described on printed pages. Generative AI converses with us in the same natural language that fictional characters use when engaging in dialogue in a novel. Besides the obvious differences in media technology – for instance, the difference between a computer screen and a theatrical stage – are there any distinct inherent features and modes of reception that differentiate machine-generated simulations from fictions staged by humans in their works of art?
To answer this question, we will read novelists, philosophers, and playwriters, watch feature movies and listen to podcasts by AI designers. We will look under the hood of Large Language Models and dissect narrative techniques of literary, theatrical, and cinematographic fiction,
trying to understand how both computers as well as books create imaginary worlds that stimulate human bodies and minds.

Method:
Like any seminar, FR 672/461 will consist mainly in discussions of texts and video materials prepared in advance of the class meetings.
During the last part of the semester students will be invited to work on their individual (or team) Research Projects. These projects may take the form of research papers or experiments with different electronic and artistic media. The results of Research Projects will be shared among participants of the seminar for peer review.

Graduate students (FR 672) and upper-undergraduate students (FR 461) will work as one, closely integrated learning community. However graduate students (FR 672) may be asked to perform tasks that will satisfy their specific training needs, such as: short additional readings of more challenging theoretical texts; short presentations of these readings to the entire class; additional requirements placed on the research project to fulfill the standards of graduate work. In FR 672/461 graduate students will have the opportunity to satisfy the Middle Ages/16th/17thc. or the Francophonie/20th-21st c. breath requirements.

Plan (tentative):
please note that all readings will be assigned in manageable fragments and available as a printed booklet to be purchased by the students.

Semaine 1 (4 sept.): Introduction

–  Appupen, Laurent Daudet, Dream Machine, ou comment j’ai failli vendre mon âme à l’intelligence artificielle, (2023) [bande dessinée]

Semaine 2 (9-11 sept.) : information et signification
– Terrence J. Seynowski, ChatGPT and the Future of AI. The Deep Language Revolution (2024).
– Guillaume de Lorris, Jean de Meun, Roman de la rose (1230-1280)

Semaine 3 (16-18 sept.) : fabrication et affabulation
– Jean de Montreuil ; Christine de Pizan, « Querelle du Roman de la rose » (XVe s.)
– Nancy Huston, L’espèce fabulatrice (2008)

•  [ lecture supplémentaire : Henri Bergson, Évolution créatrice (1907)

Semaine 4 (23-25 sept.): calcul et pensée
– Marc Alizart, Informatique céleste (2017)
– Pascal Chabot, ChatBot le Robot (2016)

•  [ lecture supplémentaire : Alan Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, (1950)

Semaine 5 (30 sept.- 2 oct.): probabilité et possibilité (1)
– Rabelais, Gargantua (1534)
– Leibniz, Théodicée (1710)

• [ lecture supplémentaire : Bender, Emily, et als, “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” (2021)

Semaine 6 (7-9 oct.) : probabilité et possibilité (2)
– Alexander Weinstein “The Cartographers” (2016) and Jorge Borges “On Exactitude in Science”(1960)
– Consultations on the Research Projects

Semaine 7 (14-16 oct.) : le corps et l’âme (1)
– Montaigne, « De l’exercice », in Essais (1580-1595)
– Jérémy Clapin, J’ai perdu mon corps (2019) [film]

• [ lecture supplémentaire : Thomas Metzinger, The Ego Tunnel. The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self, (2009)

Semaine 8 (21-23 oct.) : le corps et l’âme (2)
– René Descartes, Méditations métaphysiques (1641)
– Spike Jonze, Her (2013) [film]

• [ lecture supplémentaire : Thomas Metzinger, “Artificial Suffering : An Argument on Global Moratorium on Synthetic Phenomenology” (2021)

Semaine 9 (28-30 oct.) : personne et personnage (1)
– Denis Diderot, Le Paradoxe du comédien (1773-1777)
– Benjamin Ree, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (2024) [film]

• [ lecture supplémentaire : Robert Speamann, , Persons. The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’, (2006).

Semaine 10 (4-6 nov.) : personne et personnage (2)
– Pierre Nicole, Traité de la comédie (1667)
– Expériences avec Replika [chatbot]

• [ lecture supplémentaire : Leszek Kołakowski, God Owes Us Nothing (1995)

Semaine 11 (11-13 nov.) : illusion et perception
– Pierre Corneille, Illusion comique (1635)
– David J. Chalmers, Reality +. Virtual Worlds and Problems of Philosophy (2022)

• [ lecture supplémentaire : Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la perception (1945)

Semaine 12 (18-20 nov.) : virtualité et réalité
– Antonin Artaud, Théâtre de la cruauté (1932)
– Gilles Deleuze, Différence et répétition (1968)

• [ lecture supplémentaire : David J. Chalmers, Reality +. Virtual Worlds and Problems of Philosophy (2022)

Semaine 13 (25 nov.): Consultations sur les présentations des projets de recherche

Semaine 14 (2-4 dec.): Présentations des projets de recherche

Semaine 15 (9 dec.): Conclusion

Selected bibliography:

• Alizart, Marc, Informatique céleste, Paris, Puf, 2017.
• Andler, Daniel, Intelligence artificielle, intelligence humaine : la double énigme, Paris, Gallimard, 2023.
• Appupen, Laurent Daudet, Dream Machine, ou comment j’ai failli vendre mon âme à l’intelligence artificielle, Paris, Flammarion, 2023.
• Artaud, Antonin, Œuvres, ed. Évelyne Grossman, Paris, Gallimard, 2004.
• Bartra, Roger, Shamans and Robots. On Ritual, the Placebo Effect ad Artificial Consciousness, Minneapolis-London, U. of Minnesota Press, 2024.
• Baudrillard, Jean, Simalacra and Simulation, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1994.
• Bender, Emily, et als, “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?,” FAccT ’21, March 3–10, 2021, Virtual Event, Canada, ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-8309-7/21/03. https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445922
• Bergson, Henri, Évolution créatrice [1907], in Œuvres, Paris, Livre de poche, 2015.
• Brock, Stuart and Anthony Everett (eds.), Fictional Objects, Oxford, Oxford UP, 2015.
• Brooker, Charlie, Be Right Back, 2013.
• Chabot, Pascal, ChatBot le Robot. Drame philosophique en quatre questions et cinq actes, Paris, Puf, 2016.
• Chalmers, David, Reality +. Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy, Norton, New York, 2022.
• Chalmers, David, The Conscious Mind. In Search of Fundamental Theory, Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Changeux, Jean-Pierre, and Paul Ricoeur, What Makes Us Think? Princeton, Princeton UP, 2000 [1998].
• Chiang, Ted, Stories of Your Life, Vintage Books, New York, 2022.
• Christian, Brian, The Alignment Problem. Machine Learning and Human Values, New York, W. W. Norton, 2020.
• Christian, Brian, The Most Human Human. What Artificial Intelleigence Teaches Us About Being Alive? New York, Anchor Books, 2011.
• Coleman, Flynn, A Human Algorithm. How Artificial Intelligence Is Redefining Who We Are, Berkeley, CA, Couterpoint, 2019.
• Deleuze, Gilles, Différence et Répétition, Paris, PUF, 1968.
• Deleuze, Gilles, Logique du sens, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1969.
• Devlin, Kate, Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018.
• Ferraris, Maurizio, Âme et iPad, Montréal, Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2014 [2011 for the Italian original]
• Ferraris, Maurizio, Where Are You? An Ontology of the Cell Phone, New York, Fordham UP, 2014 [original Italian edition 2009].
• Garland, Alex, Ex Machina, 2015.
• Gibson, James, J., The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979.
• Harari, Yuval Noah, Nexus. A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, New York, Random House, 2024.
• Jonze, Spike, Her, 2013.
• Jonze, Spike, I’m here, 2010.
• Lavocat, Françoise, Fait et Fiction. Pour une frontière, Paris, Seuil, 2016.
• Ludlow, Peter et als (ed.), There is Something About Mary. Essays on Phenomenal Consciousness and Frank Jackson’s Knowledge Argument, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2004.
• Harrison, Jordan, Marjorie Prime, New York, Theatre Communication Group, 2016.
• Malabou, Catherine, Métaphormphoses de l’intelligence. Que faire de leur cerveau bleu?, Paris, PUF, 2017.
• Massimini, Marcello and Giulio Tononi, Sizing Up Consciousness. Towards an Objective Measure of the Capacity for Experience, Oxford, Oxford Universiy Press, 2013.
• Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Phénoménologie de la perception, Paris, Gallimard, 1945.
• Metzinger, Thomas, The Ego Tunnel. The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self, New York, 2009.
• Miernowski, Jan, Laughing on the Brink of Humanity: An Exercise in Epihumanism, SUNY Press, 2024.
• Miller, Arthur, I., The Artist in the Machine. The world of AI-Powered Creativity, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2019.
• Minsky, Marvin, The Emotion Machine. Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind, New York, London, Toronto, Simon and Schuster, 2007.
• Moravec, Hans, Robot. Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, New York-Oxford, Oxford UP, 1999.
• Nass, Clifford, and Corina Yen, The Man Who Lied to His Laptop, New York, Penguin, 2012.
• Nicole, Pierre, Traité de la comédie et autres pièces d’un procès du théâtre, éd. Laurent Thirouin, Paris, Champion, 1998.
• O’Gieblyn, Meghan, God, Human, Animal, Machine. Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning, New York, Doubleday, 2021.
• O’Neill, Kevin, Internet Afterlife. Virtual Salvation in the 21st Century, Santa BarbaraDenver, Praeger, 2016.
• Parmentier, Marc, Archives du virtuel, Paris, Vrin, 2023.
• Parsons, Thomas D., Cyberpsychology of the Brain. The Interaction of Neuroscience and Affective Computing, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017.
• Picard, Rosalind W., Affective Computing, Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press, 1997.
• Riva, Massimo, Shadow Plays. Virtual Realities in an Analogue World, Stanford U. Press, 2022.
• Ronen, Ruth, Possible Worlds in Literary Theory, Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 1994.
• Schaeffer, Jean-Marie, Pourquoi la fiction ? Paris, Seuil, 1999.
• Seynowski, Terrence J., ChatGPT and the Future of AI. The Deep Language Revolution, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2024.
• Seynowski, Terrence J., The Deep Learning Revolution, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2018.
• Simondon, Gilbert, Du Mode d’existence des objets techniques, Paris, Aubier, 1958 and
  2012.
• Soni, Jimmy and Rob Goodman, A Mind at Play. How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age, Simon and Shuster, New York, 2017.
• Speamann, Robert, Persons. The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’, Oxford, Oxford UP, 2006.
• Stoppard, Tom, The Hard Problem. A Play, New York, Grove Press, 2015.
• Vallor, Shannon, The AI Mirror. How to Reclaim our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking, Oxford, Oxford UP, 2024.
• Thirouin, Laurent, L’aveuglement salutaire. Le réquisitoire contre le théâtre dans la France classique, Paris, Champion, 2007.
• Thompson, Erica, Escape from Model Land. How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It, Basic Books, New York, 2022.
• Turing, A. M., “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Mind, 236 (59), 1950, p. 433- 460.
• Zanin, Enrica, “La vraisemblance: un argument contre le théâtre ?” Littératures classiques, 99 (2019), p. 25-27.

*Meets with French 461

French 820: College Teaching of French

Credits: 3 credits

Requisite: graduate/professional standing

Instructor:  Heather Allen

Schedule: Fridays, 10:00 am to 12:00 pm

Description:

French 820 / Italian 821 is designed to help elementary- and intermediate-level language instructors understand key concepts of communicative, literacy-oriented teaching. Readings, reflections, class discussions and activities, and course assessments seek to integrate theoretical and practical elements of language teaching and to facilitate course participants becoming more confident in designing instructional materials.

*Meets with Italian 821

Foundational Italian Language Courses

101 – 102 – 203 – 204

Credits: 4 each

Requisite: Follows the sequence (101, 102, 203, 204). Students must have previous course completed to move onto the next course or must place into a course.

Instructor: TBD

Language of Instruction: Italian

Italian 230: Modern Italian Culture

Credits: 3

Requisite: Italian 204 or Italian 205 (or Italian 202 prior to Summer 2025)

Instructor: Stefania Buccini

Language of Instruction: Italian

Italian 311: Advanced Italian Language

Credits: 3

Requisite: Italian 204 or Italian 205

Instructor: TBD

Language of Instruction: Italian

Italian 321: Studies in Italian Literature and Culture I

Credits: 3

Requisite: Italian 204 or Italian 205

Instructor: Loren Eadie

Language of Instruction: Italian

Italian 365: Machiavelli and His World*

Credits: 3

Requisite: Satisfied Communications A requirement

Instructor: Kristin Phillips-Court

Language of Instruction: English

*Crosslisted with Lit Trans, ILS and Poli Sci.

Lit Trans 248: National Identity in the Global World: The Italian Case – FIG ONLY

Credits: 3

Requisite: None

Instructor: Ernesto Livorni

Language of Instruction: English

Lit Trans 254: In Translation: Lit of Modern Italy-Existentialism, Fascism, Resistance

Credits: 3

Requisite: Sophomore standing

Instructor: Patrick Rumble

Language of Instruction: English

Lit Trans 255: Black Death and Medieval Life Through Boccaccio’s Decameron

Credits: 3

Requisite: Sophomore standing

Instructor: Jelena Todorovic

Language of Instruction: English

Italian 659: Dante’s Divine Commedia

Credits: 3

Requisite: Graduate/professional standing

Instructor: Jelena Todorovic 

Schedule: Thursdays, 2:25 pm to 4:55 pm

Description:

This is a discussion-based course that will investigate thoroughly a selection from Dante’s masterpiece, the Divine Comedy. From close readings of the selected cantos, we will branch out to discuss the literary, historical, political, social, and theological contexts behind this text.

Italian 741: The 17th Century and Arcadia

Credits: 3

Requisite: Graduate/professional standing

Instructor: Stefania Buccini

Schedule: Tuesdays, 2:25 pm to 4:55 pm

Description:

This course offers an immersive, in-depth exploration of 17th-century poetry and narrative, tracing the evolution of literary forms, themes, and stylistic innovations that characterized the period. Through a close study of both celebrated and lesser-known works, students will gain insight into the cultural, intellectual, and historical forces that shaped the era’s poets and storytellers, uncovering the diverse range of influences that defined Baroque literature and beyond.

Italian 821: Issues in Methods of Teaching French and Italian

Credits: 1-3 credits

Requisite: Graduate/professional standing

Instructor: Loren Eadie

Schedule: Fridays, 10:00 am to 12:00 pm

Description:

French 820 / Italian 821 is designed to help elementary- and intermediate-level language instructors understand key concepts of communicative, literacy-oriented teaching. Readings, reflections, class discussions and activities, and course assessments seek to integrate theoretical and practical elements of language teaching and to facilitate course participants becoming more confident in designing instructional materials.

Italian 951: Seminar-Studies in Italian Literature

Credits: 3

Requisite: Graduate/professional standing

Instructor: Patrick Rumble

Schedule: Mondays, 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Topic: “The Political Cinema of Italy.”