Spring Term, Honors in Paris, 2006

Download the brochure (pdf) and flyer (pdf)

A new partnership between UF's Honors Program & the Paris Research Center offers the opportunity for high achieving students to enroll in challenging, interactive courses, enhanced by excursions, guest speakers, and tours. The curriculum is tailored for high-caliber students who are enthusiastic about living in France, with Paris as your classroom. In addition to intensive studies of Modern French Culture taught by distinguished UF faculty members, students will participate in activities including a week-long trip to Brussels, lectures by esteemed guest speakers, group dinners, wine tasting, concerts, as well as excursions to other areas of France. You will also be able to take advantage of an array of weekly activities designed by native Parisian students to provide an insider's view of Paris for students. Classes are held at the UF Paris Research Center, located in Columbia University's Reid Hall, an innovative center for American academic life in the heart of France.

This program is open to students from all majors; you do not have to speak French to attend. Priority will be given to students in the Honors Program, but all students with a 3.0 GPA or above are encouraged to apply.

This is a UF sponsored UFIC program so the credits you earn will satisfy major, minor and university requirements while living and studying in Paris with top UF professors. Bright Futures scholarships will cover the tuition for the courses in which you're enrolled.

For more information, please contact the UF Campus Program Coordinator & Honors Advisor, Dr. Kristin Joos ( kjoos@aa.ufl.edu ), Dr. Gayle Zachmann, Director of the Paris Research Center ( paris-research@clas.ufl.edu ) , or Lucy DiLeo of the UF International Center ( LDiLeo@ufic.ufl.edu ) .

Courses offered 2006
Imaging the World: the Cultural Production of 20th Century Paris

Photographing Paris, (ART 2930 C, 3 Credits)

Dr. Sergio Vega

The lecture and reading components of this course will examine Paris as the historical site in which modernist photography came into being, from the invention of the medium by Daguerre to the work of Atget, Brassai, Cartier-Bresson and others. Field trips will include visits to historical sites where renowned photographers worked and famous photos were taken, photography exhibitions in art galleries, and current museum expositions. The course will also cover the study of international contemporary photography currently produced and/or shown in Paris. The studio component will be an introduction to the basics of photography in black & white and color with the idea of reinterpreting Paris through the eyes of the photographers who portrayed the city in the past. Course visits will include the Maison Européene de la Photographie, the Centre National de la Photographie (Jeu de Paume), the Forum des Images, the Palais de Tokyo, the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain and the Fondation Claude Monet among others. Enrolled students must have a digital camera and laptop with Photoshop.

Images of Art & Film in 20th & 21st Century France (ENG 4133, 4 Credits)

Dr. Maureen Turim

How does a culture imagine its artistic production? How have the plastic arts and cinema become intimately linked over the last century? What narratives surround the production of art? We will explore these questions from many perspectives, taking full advantage of this semester in Paris to do site research. We will visit museums to focus on installations of moving images, and to study the manner in which the plastic arts are presented to the public. We will consider how films are used to augment Art exhibits. We will also watch films in which art is a central issue and look at philosophical writing on art. Historically, how have Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Conceptual art found their equivalent expression in cinema? Written work in the course will take the form of short assignments responding to specific museum visits, films, and readings. Films to be screened in class include La Belle noiseuse (Rivette, 1991) a treatment of the erotic relationship between artist and model that we will compare to treatment of this issue in early silent films. We will consider how Passion (1982), directed by Jean-Luc Godard, compares the making of a film to the construction of a painting, and how Lautrec directed by Roger Planchon (1998) represents Montmartre. Then we will look at the citation of conceptual art in Amélie (2001). Analysis of filmed viewed in class will be linked to site visits (i.e. a walking tour of Montmartre for Amélie, etc.).

Imagining Montparnasse: The Politics and Poetics of Avant-Garde Literature, Literati and Legacies (FRT 4956, 3 Credits)

Dr. Gayle Zachmann

This course traces how the relationships between literature and the visual arts were imaged and imagined by 20th century avant-garde literary movements of the Montparnasse quarter. An artistic hot spot prior to WWI, and later host to the avant-garde innovation of the surrealists, Montparnasse realized a vibrant intersection of the arts, of identities, of cultural politics and of history, a cosmopolitan center of imaginings and experimentation. Focusing on the specific figures that came to dominate the literary and artistic production and scenes of the quarter, we will explore how “modern” literary movements and literary and art criticism come to the Vavin neighborhood, what the successive Montparnasse moments have meant to cultural and aesthetic production, how Montparnasse has been imagined, and finally, what the Montparnasse legacy has to offer to writers and thinkers of the public sphere today. Course includes guest lectures, site visits and literary and art criticism. Readings will be used as a basis for understanding the aesthetic, social, political and commercial contexts with which modern artists, critics, thinkers and writers explicitly and at times unwittingly engage.

The African Presence in France: Contesting Images and Creating Identities (AFS 4905, 3 Credits)

Dr. Leo Villalòn & Dr. Abdoulaye Kane

The Honors in Paris program is delighted to announce the creation of a new intensive course planned to coincide with the national celebration of francophone cultures in France (which begins in March 2006). This three-credit co-taught module course will focus on African communities in France, looking at how they have been imaged and imagined in French society and politics and at how Africans themselves have created and defined their place within French culture and society. In addition to assigned readings, this course will include several guest lectures by distinguished scholars in the field as well as site visits and excursions within Paris. Students will also attend “Présences Africaines” (African Presences in France), a two-day interdisciplinary workshop co-organized by the UF Paris Research Center and the UF Center for African Studies as part of the Festival Francophone en France.

Students may also choose to enroll in French language courses (FRE 1116 or higher) and Independent Studies, depending on their needs and interests.

Previous Honors in Paris Programs

• See the Honors in Paris 2008 course listings
• See the Honors in Paris 2007 course listings

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