FR40060 Fifty Years of Formalism: the Legacy of the Nouveau Roman

Academic Year 2020/2021

It is more than fifty years since the Nouveau Roman grouping in France sought to resituate the novel as an art form, emphasising the writing process and the text's status as construct in order to challenge perceptions of the genre as a vehicle for representation of social reality and/or political or philosophical argument. The movement had a direct impact on cinema, spawning the Nouvelle Vague.

Half a century later, what remained of the Nouveau Roman legacy? While it fell from favour in the 1970s and 1980s, contemporary novelists like Jean Echenoz have been happy to place themselves in its lineage while remaining at the same time predominantly representational. Simultaneously, a film-maker like Agnès Varda traversed the half-century with a practice that moved with the times.

We shall see how Echenoz and Varda engage with their formalist, experimental heritage but also what new aesthetic, cultural and social questions compete to inform their work.

We shall trace the evolution of some key topics across the decades: the city/suburbs; the artwork/media image; the self and self-representation.

The language of instruction and of readings is French.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of this module students should be able to:
-- assess some common features and divergences within the Nouveau Roman movement;
-- assess continuities and discontinuities across fifty years of self-reflexive cultural production in France;
-- compare and contrast contexts of artistic production across the period;
-- develop your skills of literary analysis and interpretation, and of oral presentation in French;
-- produce an extended essay and a bibliography according to established research methodologies.

Indicative Module Content:

Aspects of the "Nouveau Roman" movement
Essays and fiction of two leading "Nouveaux romanciers"
Overlap with Nouvelle Vague cinema
Self-reflexivity in a later generation: novel and cinema

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

24
Specified Learning Activities

76
Autonomous Student Learning

120
Total

220
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
Seminar-based module: weekly discussions of extracts from set primary texts and of supporting critical essays etc. Student participation is to the fore. Informal presentations (e.g. of extracts, essays etc) prepare the ground for formal presentations. 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations
Learning Requirements:

BA or equivalent.
An ability to read and speak French to degree-level standard. The language of reading is French, and instruction is principally through French.

Learning Recommendations:

Study of literature at undergraduate level.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Presentation: 15-minute presentation on a novel/film/article from Part 2 of the module Varies over the Trimester n/a Graded No

15
Presentation: 15-minute presentation on a novel/film/essay from the Nouveau Roman period (part 1 of the module) Varies over the Trimester n/a Graded No

15
Essay: Extended essay on topic related to course themes Coursework (End of Trimester) n/a Graded No

70

Carry forward of passed components
No
 
Resit In Terminal Exam
Summer No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Informal oral feedback on presentations. Meeting to discuss essay plan prior to writing.

Primary texts:
Resnais, Alain + Robbe-Grillet, Alain: L'Année dernière à Marienbad (1961, FILM - UCD Library)
Robbe-Grillet, Alain: Dans le labyrinthe (Paris, Minuit, 1959)
Sarraute, Nathalie, Les Fruits d'or (Paris, Gallimard/Folio, 1963)
Jean Echenoz, Lac (Paris: Minuit, 1989)
Jean Echenoz, Un an (Paris: Minuit, 1997)
Agnès Varda, Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (2000, FILM - UCD Library)

A bibliography of secondary reading will be distributed at the start of the module.