Instructors:

Dr. Beatrice Arduini, French and Italian Studies

email: barduini@uw.edu

office hours: from 06/21 to 07/02 on Mondays and Wednesdays between 10am and 11am (see Calendar for Zoom link) and by appointment. Please email me in advance to schedule a meeting.

Dr. Florentina Dedu-Constantin, French and Italian Studies

email: fdconst@uw.edu

office hours: from 07/06 to 07/21 on Mondays and Wednesdays between 12pm and 1 pm (see Calendar

for Zoom link) and by appointment throughout A-term (email me).

Page Contents:

Description
Meetings
Modules
Materials
Organization of course
Grade breakdown
Important notes

Description.

This introductory course will give you useful insight into how the histories, languages, and cultures of the many countries where French and Italian are spoken have contributed to contemporary global politics, debates, and culture.

Designed for UW students at the beginning of their college careers or looking to fulfill an elective, it assumes no prior knowledge and is taught entirely in English. However we hope it will inspire you to continue your studies with us, either by taking language courses or enrolling in one of our other courses taught in English - or both!

Students will complete two modules per week, each one prepared by a professor in French or Italian, and featuring an idea or object, which they find particularly interesting and which they will help you to understand better. For example, you might find yourself exploring what is so French about the political ideal of "universalism", thinking about accents and dialects and linguistic discrimination, learning about a sixteenth-century Italian edition of Dante held at the UW Special Collections, wondering what Italian cinema has to do with the idea of nation, learning more about (im)migration to Europe, reading about the Enlightenment and the public sphere, and the history (and present) of sexuality and French national identity. At all times you will be encouraged to make connections with your other areas of study, and with your own experiences outside of class. Accompanying these lectures are a series of readings, discussion groups, small and low-stakes quizzes, dialogues, and writing exercises, research puzzles, and collaborative projects. Taught in English.

Course meetings. All lectures for this class will be asynchronous. Each module, with its materials, pre-recorded slide-shows and/or lectures, as well as weekly assignments will be delivered to you twice a week, asynchronously, through Canvas Modules, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

The two assignments for each module will be due on Tuesdays at 11:59pm for modules published the previous Wednesday, and on Fridays at 11:59pm for modules published the previous Saturday. The module quiz will open on Tuesdays at 12pm and close on Wednesdays at 11:59pm for modules published the previous Wednesday, and it will open on Fridays at 12pm and close on Saturday at 11:59pm for modules published the previous Saturday.

Modules. The course consists of 9 Modules, each covering one week of readings, exercises and finishing with a quiz.

Module	Date published	Assignments due date	Quiz due date	Topic
1	June 16	June 22	June 23	Introduction
2	June 19	June 25	June 26	Dante Then and Now
3	June 23	June 29	June 30	Voltaire, the Calas Affair, and the Diffusion of New Ideas in 18th-Century France
4	June 26	July 2	July 3	French "Universalism: An Idea Worth Saving?
5	June 30	July 6	July 7	Proust, the Third Republic, and the Concept of Frenchness
6	July 3	July 9	July 10	Language and Identity
7	July 7	July 13	July 14	Cinema and the Nation: Federico Fellini's "La dolce vita"
8	July 10	July 16	July 17	The Sexuality of French Identiy
9				OPTIONAL Immigration and France: The Film "Welcome
10				Last week: independent work/research on final projects; final project due on July 21

Materials.

All assigned readings will be accessible on Canvas, either as PDFs or in HTML format as web-pages.

Organization of the Course. This course will be divided into 9 weekly modules. Each module will consist of:

-- Readings. For each lecture, there will normally a mix of 2-3 short primary and secondary texts. Most are available for download as PDF. Some are websites. The total is about 50 pages or so per session. There will also be one 2 two-hour movie that you will have to watch in full, as well as several shorter documentaries scattered throughout the quarter. Expect to spend 4 hrs a week on the readings, plus the time to view the assigned documentaries. There will also be

-- A series of lectures with short narrated slide shows. Expect to spend 60 to 90 minutes a week listening to the slides.

-- 2 exercises per module. Expect to spend 20-30 mins on each exercise: total about 1 hr . The exercises will be due on either on Tuesday or on Fridays at 11:59pm. Please try to keep up -- this is especially important for a remote class. Points will be deducted for late work.

The exercises can be:

* a short response.

* an annotation exercise.

* posting an image and description.

* making a movie vlog.

* working with specific databases.

* participating in a graded discussion.

-- Finally, a short quiz, which you'll take depending on the module either between Tuesday at 12pm and Wednesday at 11:59pm, or between Friday at 12pm and Saturday at 11:59pm. The Canvas-administered quiz will be very straightforward (multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, short answer), based on the readings, films, documentaries, and slides, and should not take more than 60 minutes.

Other assigned work. In addition to weekly work for modules, there will be:

-- a final project, due July 21

The final project will be a traditional research paper: 1700-2000-word using 4-5 sources

As part of the final project grade, you will submit

a project description on July 19

and a preliminary bibliography on July 21.

Grade Break-down.


16 module exercises (4/week). Depending on the module, due either on Tuesday or Friday at 11:59pm.	40%
16 quizzes (2/week) + 1 survey. Depending on the module, taken either between 12pm on Tuesday and 11:59pm on Wednesday, or between 12pm on Friday and 11:59pm on Saturday.	30%
Final project -- consisting of	30%
Proposal (due on July 19)	2.5%
Bibliography (due on July 21)	2.5%
Final project (due on July 21)	25%

Important Notes

Academic Standards: Students are expected to maintain a high standard of academic ethics, honesty and integrity. Academic misconduct includes but is not limited to: plagiarism, cheating, harassment, and disruptive or offensive behavior (see statement above), and will not be tolerated. Please refer to the University’s Student Conduct Code, as well as the statement on “Student Academic Responsibility” prepared by the Committee on Academic Conduct in the College of Arts and Sciences: http://depts.washington.edu/grading/pdf/AcademicResponsibility.pdf. Any student or situation found to be in violation of proper academic conduct will be addressed and potentially reported according to University policy.

Religious Accommodations: It is the policy of the University of Washington to reasonably accommodate student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities in accordance with Washington state law. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Faculty Syllabus Guidelines and Resources. Accommodations must be within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form.

Other Resources. Here are a few other resources that could be helpful in these challenging times:

Novel coronavirus & COVID-19: facts and resources

LiveWell

Hall Health Center

The Counseling Center

UW Leadership Without Borders

The Q Center