First-Year Seminar

What do the valleys of West Virginia have to do with the boulevards of Paris? What threads connect the Haitian Revolution to the French theater or the Harlem Renaissance? In what ways does rap music chart a triangular route from New York to Paris to North Africa, Martinique, or Haiti? These represent a small sample of the historical traces and trajectories of Afro-descended people in France. In this course, we will engage with works that transport us from the era of the Haitian Revolution to the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, illustrating concepts of diaspora in the Francophone world. We will also examine ideas of home, exile, and return in fiction, poetry, politics, rap, and visual art through the lens of Black studies. Taught in English. This course is for first-year, non-transfer students only.
Course Attributes: EN H; FYS; BU Hum; AS HUM; AS LCD; FA HUM; AR HUM

First-Year Seminar

FRENCH 247

Section 01