Julien Weber
Office
Le Chateau 105
Tel
(802) 443-5684
Email
jweber@middlebury.edu
Office Hours
Spring 2024: Mon & Wed 11:00-12:00; Tues 9:00-11:00 and by appointment

Julien Weber holds an M.A. from l’Université de Genève and a Ph.D from the University of California, Irvine.

His research and teaching interests include 19th and early 20thcentury French poetry and prose, the intersection of aesthetics and politics, the animal/human relation in modern French literature and philosophy, and ecocriticism.

Courses Taught

Course Description

Senior Thesis
A senior thesis is normally completed over two semesters. During Fall and Winter terms, or Winter and Spring terms, students will write a 35-page (article length) comparative essay, firmly situated in literary analysis. Students are responsible for identifying and arranging to work with their primary language and secondary language readers, and consulting with the program director before completing the CMLT Thesis Declaration form. (Approval required.)

Terms Taught

Winter 2022, Spring 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025

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Course Description

Intensive Beginning French
For students who have not previously studied French, an introduction to listening, speaking, reading, and writing in French, providing the syntactic and semantic foundation of the French language in a concentrated program of grammar presentation, drills, laboratory work, and discussion. Primary emphasis will be placed on the student's active use of the language, and weekly attendance at the French language table will be required. This course does not fulfill the foreign language distribution requirement. Students are expected to continue with FREN 0102 in the winter term after successfully completing FREN 0101, and with FREN 0201in the spring. 6 hrs. lect./disc.

Terms Taught

Fall 2022

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Course Description

Intermediate French I
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 0102 or by placement) 5 hrs. lect./disc.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Spring 2024

Requirements

LNG

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Course Description

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 0201, 0203 or placement) This requirement for the major and the minor may be satisfied by placement at a higher level. 3 hrs. lect./disc.

Terms Taught

Spring 2022, Fall 2023

Requirements

LNG

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Course Description

Self and Society: Effective Writing in French
In this course, students will deepen their knowledge of the French language and French-speaking cultures while developing their reading and writing skills through examination of a variety of texts and media. This course facilitates the transition from language-oriented courses (FREN 0205) to content-oriented courses (such as FREN 0220 and FREN 0230) by introducing students to strategies for interpretation and discussion, with a focus on effective writing. Course materials may include essays/articles, theater, fiction, poetry, videos, and films. (FREN 0205 or by placement) 3 hrs. lect./disc.

Terms Taught

Fall 2021, Spring 2023, Spring 2024

Requirements

EUR, LNG

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Course Description

Travelers and Migrants in French and Francophone Literature
Multiple forms of traveling emerged with the expansion of the French empire, from colonial ventures to forced migration. In this course we will study how writers represent such experiences. We will discuss fictions that focus on mobility, passages, and border-crossing, and question what these fictions reveal about the cultures in contact. How do travel and migration narratives reconfigure the relation between here and there, self and other, the individual and the community? Studying literary texts in their historical contexts will allow us to discuss varied topics, such as nationhood, slavery, exoticism, identity, and difference, as well as to explore several artistic movements that have shaped French and Francophone culture. Writers will include Montesquieu, Balzac, Baudelaire, Madame de Staël, Gide, Césaire, Glissant, and Sinha. (FREN 0209, 0210 or placement) 3 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023

Requirements

CMP, EUR, LIT

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Course Description

Animal Encounters in French Literature
In this course we will explore representations of animals in French literature. Animals have played an important role in literature, yet, in post-Darwinian modernity their depiction became increasingly tied to a questioning of the human/animal divide. What are the recurrent motifs and concerns that shape depictions of animals in 19th and 20th century French literature? What ethical and social questions do they raise? We will study fictional works of animal metamorphosis, and literary accounts of zoos and animal spectacles, as well as ways in which animals have been used as a rhetorical device to de-humanize "Others"—women and foreigners, in particular. We will read texts by Baudelaire, Balzac, Maupassant, Flaubert, Colette, Vercors, and Darrieussecq. (FREN 0220-0229 or by waiver). 3 hrs. lect./disc.

Terms Taught

Spring 2023

Requirements

EUR, LIT, LNG

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Course Description

Ecofictions in French
The climate crisis challenges us to rethink our relation to the environment beyond extractive goals. How can literary arts help us reflect upon traditional perceptions of nature and enable new ways of relating to nonhuman beings? In this course we will study the role of the environment in French-language fictions from the start of the industrial revolution to the present. We will explore how writers from a variety of geographical and cultural backgrounds (France, the Caribbean, Québec) make us attentive to the multiple ways in which humanity interconnects with the nonhuman world. Different strategies of representation will be discussed from wilderness narratives to activist prose and post-apocalyptic fiction. Writers include: Rousseau, Lamartine, Giono, Saucier, Volodine, Roumain, Chawaf, and Damasio. (FREN 0220-0232 or by waiver) 3 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Spring 2022

Requirements

CMP, EUR, LIT, LNG

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Course Description

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. (Approval required)

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Winter 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025

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Course Description

Senior Honors Essay
For this one-term course, qualified senior majors who wish to be considered for Honors in French must submit a proposal well in advance of registration for the term in which the work is to be undertaken. (Approval required; see requirements.)

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Winter 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025

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Course Description

Senior Honors Thesis
Qualified senior majors who wish to be considered for Honors in French must submit a proposal well in advance of registration for the term in which the work is to be undertaken. (Approval required; see requirements above.)

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Winter 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025

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Publications

BOOK

Donner sa langue aux bêtes - poétique et animalité de Baudelaire à Valéry; Classiques Garnier; 2018.
 

CO-EDITED VOLUMES

« Écocritique française/ French Ecocriticsm » ; co-edited with Daniel Finch-Race ; L’Esprit créateur ; 2017.
« The Ecocritical Stakes of French Poetry from the Industrial Era » ; co-edited with Daniel Finch-Race; Dix Neuf; 19.3; 2015.

 

ARTICLES

« Aux frontières de l’expérience esthétique: le grotesque baudelairien »; Nothingham French Studies ; 2019.

« Composer avec les animaux dans Anima de Wajdi Mouawad » ; L’Esprit créateur; 2017.

« Prière d’Arthur Rimbaud: les aléas de l’allégorie animale dans “Les Corbeaux”»; Parade sauvage; 2016.

« Ec(h)opoetics in Mallarmé’s Translations of “The Raven”»; Dix-Neuf ; November 2015.

«Jeter sa langue aux chiens : Collective Memory in Baudelaire’s « Les Bons Chiens » » ;Yale French Studies; 2014.

«L’animal poétique de Valéry» ; French Forum; 2013.

« Poétique du type dans «Spectacle interrompu» de Mallarmé: la griffe de l’ours» ; The French Review ;  2011.