Charles Nunley
Professor of French
Email: nunley@middlebury.edu
Office Hours: SPRING 2013: Tu Th 9:30-12:00, and by appointment
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Charles Nunley has his B.A. from Middlebury College and his doctorate from Princeton University. He teaches modern French literature.
He is the lead editor of Course Guide: AP French Language. College Board Press (2009), and his research is on Francis Ponge, prose poetry, and the wartime publications of French poets (1940-44). See below for some of his recent publications.
Courses
Courses offered in the past four years.
▲ indicates offered in the current term
▹ indicates offered in the upcoming term[s]
FREN 0102 - Beginning French Part Two
Beginning French
This course is a continuation of FREN 0101, dealing with more complex French. Oral skills are stressed and students participate in the French language table at lunch. This course does not fulfill the foreign language distribution requirement. (FREN 0101)
Winter 2011, Winter 2013
FREN 0103 - Beginning French Part Three
Beginning French
Emphasis on increased control and proficiency in the language through audiovisual, conversational, and drill methods. Readings and film enlarge the student's view of French life and culture. (FREN 0101 and FREN 0102) 5 hrs. lect./disc.
Spring 2011
FREN 0203 - Intensive Intermediate French
Intensive Intermediate French
An active and intensive review of French grammar for students having had good beginning-level training in French. We will work not only to perfect mastery of the structures of the language with practice of writing and reading, but also to develop oral comprehension and production skills. (FREN 0103 or placement) 5 hrs. lect./disc.
Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2012
FREN 0205 - Toward Liberated Expression ▲
Toward Liberated Expression
A course designed to increase and perfect the ability to express oneself in spoken and written French. Emphasis on precision, variety, and vocabulary acquisition. Sections limited to 15 students. (FREN 0203 or placement) This requirement for the major and the minor may be satisfied by placement at a higher level. 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Fall 2013
FREN 0210 - Identity in French Literature ▲
Identity in French Literature
Exploration of differing views of the self, society, and the world in major works of French poetry, drama, and prose. This course is designed to develop students' ability to read and critique literature in French, as a transition from FREN 0205 to more advanced literature courses. (FREN 0205 or by placement) 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Fall 2010, Spring 2013, Fall 2013
FREN 0221 - From Romanticism to Modernism
From Romanticism to Modernism
The 19th and 20th centuries were marked by social and political revolutions and by literary and artistic movements that changed our attitudes to art and to ourselves, including romanticism, realism, symbolism, surrealism, and existentialism. We will study literary texts, artistic and philosophical movements, and the social circumstances that conditioned them. Close readings of the texts (including prose, drama, and poetry) will develop critical vocabulary and writing skills. Authors may include Hugo, Balzac, Flaubert, Baudelaire, Gide, Camus, Sartre, and Francophone writers. (FREN 0210 or placement) 3 hrs. lect./disc. (1 additional hour for CW, Fall).
Spring 2010, Fall 2012
FREN 0306 - Study/Production of a Play
Study and Production of a Play
French through theatre: this course is a semester-long workshop that will culminate in the production of a play by a French or francophone playwright. Students will participate in all aspects of the production process, from costuming and music to prompting and publicity. Two performances will be held at the end of the semester. All activity will be conducted in French. In addition to regularly scheduled classes, this course will involve additional time each week in rehearsal. (FREN 0221 or by waiver).
Spring 2009, Spring 2011
FREN 0385 - French Depictions of Self
Representing the Self in Modern French Culture
In this course we will explore the art and artifice of self-representation and how it has been used by writers, artists, and others in modern France. Our readings will include works of literary self-fashioning (e.g., Proust, Duras) as well as autobiographical narrative in French cinema, self-portraiture by French painters and photographers, and new avenues of digital self-representation online. Throughout, we will consider the works in context to uncover their relevance to historical and cultural circumstance. Assignments will consist of three papers and one longer creative essay in which students write on a personal experience using narrative strategies discussed in class. (FREN 0221 or by waiver) 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Spring 2010
FREN 0484 - Culture in Interwar France
The Cultural Front in Interwar France
In this senior seminar we will explore creative works produced in France in the 1920s and 1930s. In close readings of novels, screen plays, songs, comics, and essays, we will examine how conflicting notions of popular and elitist culture evolved in the years leading up to World War II. We will pay close attention to technological innovation (for example, the advent of sound in film and photography in the daily press) and how it changed patterns of culture, production, and consumption. Students will undertake a significant piece of independent research to present to the class. (Open to French Senior Majors). 3 hrs. lect./disc.
Spring 2013
FREN 0500 - Independent Projects ▲ ▹
Independent Project
Qualified students may be permitted to undertake a special project in reading and research under the direction of a member of the department. Students should seek an advisor and submit a proposal to the department well in advance of registration for the term in which the work is to be undertaken. FREN 0500 projects or essays proposed by senior majors for fall or spring may be eligible for departmental honors. (Approval required by the department as a whole. See requirements above.)
Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Winter 2010, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Winter 2011, Spring 2011, Fall 2012, Winter 2013, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014
FREN 0700 - Senior Research ▲ ▹
For senior majors who are candidates for departmental honors. Students should seek an advisor and submit a proposal to the department well in advance of registration for the term in which the work is to be undertaken. (Approval required by the department as a whole. See requirements above.)
Spring 2009, Fall 2009, Winter 2010, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Winter 2011, Spring 2011, Fall 2012, Winter 2013, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014
FYSE 1243 - Paris City of Exile
Internationally perceived as a place of freedom and enlightenment, Paris is a destination to which have flocked countless foreign exiles and expatriates. At the same time, however, a rather different notion of Parisian exile can be sensed in the ways some writers have expressed their feelings of profound alienation, disaffection, even fear, in the face of the modern metropolis and the form of civilization it is seen to incarnate. In this seminar we will examine the works of a variety of writers and filmmakers, both French (Baudelaire, Zola, Breton, Perec, Truffaut) and non-French (Hemingway, Huston), whose representations of Paris reflect the theme of exile as it relates to their experience of the modern urban landscape. No knowledge of French required. 3 hrs. sem.
CW EUR LITFall 2009
LITS 0710 - Senior Honors Essay ▲
Recent publications
"Sounding the Limits of Resistance Memory: Robert Desnos, Comics and Nursery Rhymes" (forthcoming, The French Review)
"Présences partagées: Design and Implementation of an Advanced-Level Course in French Theater", chapter forthcoming in MLA volume, Dramatic Interactions
"From West to East: Nancy Huston and the Poetics of (Af)filiation in Tombeau de Romain Gary" forthcoming in an edited volume.
"For the Record: Robert Desnos, Music and Wartime Memory" (SubStance, 2009).
“Surrealist Artist as Objet trouvé”, in Proceedings of Symposium held in honor of Suzanne Nash (forthcoming).
