Intensive Week Long Study over Spring Break
This
year students campus-wide will benefit from unique opportunities for
week-long intensive study abroad over spring break. These innovative
programs for intensive study abroad in Paris were expressly created to
provide in-depth on-site international experiences. They include: 6 activity-rich
days in Paris with meetings at the Paris Research Center, classes given
on-site at the cultural, historical and political institutions you are
studying, 6 nights in hotels, numerous group meals, site visits, cultural
activities and UF credit.
Programs Offered Spring Break 2010
- Identity, Politics, Education, and Culture: African Americans in
Paris
Professor Stephanie Evans - The Saxophone in Paris: Then and
Now
Professor Jonathan Helton - History of Documentary Film: The
French Connection
Professor Churchill Roberts - Representing the Streets
of Paris: A Cinematic City
Professor Maureen Turim
Course Descriptions
Identity, Politics, Education,
and Culture: African Americans in Paris
Professor Stephanie Evans
drevans@ufl.edu
This course will explore the African American presence in Paris. Since the mid-1700s, scores of African Americans have visited, lived, and worked in France. Students will research the experiences and perceptions of Black Americans and study why and how a sustained pattern of visitation has occurred. Significant attention will be paid to how gender and sexuality were woven into Black experiences and interpretations of Black Parisian life. Students will look at African Americans in Paris through their own academic lens and make connections from their own scholarly disciplines to the topic of African Americans in Paris. Political science, performing arts, English and creative writing, sociology, history, and economics all offer a point of entry to this topic. The course will be designed to approach topics chronologically, but will mainly be organized thematically to show the various reasons African Americans have continued to engage in Parisian life. These themes will be explored via geographic visitations to the arrondissements where Black Americans experienced world wars, the Pan-Africanist movement, study abroad, writer's life, café culture, and Jazz Age club life.
The
Saxophone in Paris: Then and Now
Professor Jonathan Helton
jhelton@ufl.edu
Since its invention in Paris in the early 1840s, the saxophone has had a very colorful history. From its earliest uses in French opera and military bands, through its role in jazz and popular music, to its place on the contemporary avant-garde music scene, the saxophone has always been both celebrated and reviled. This course will examine the many roles of the saxophone in France from 1840 to the present. Adolphe Sax’s contributions in musical instrument making, past and present teaching practices in France, and the state of the performing saxophonist in France will all be examined through interaction with French professionals and inspection of primary source materials available in Paris. Guest lectures will be given by French experts on 19th Century instrument making, 21st Century instrument manufacturing, the history of the saxophone, and teaching in the French conservatory system. In addition, opportunities will be available to perform and critique concerts in Paris. Prerequisites: Interest in the saxophone. Ability to play the saxophone and to bring one to Paris is helpful, but not required.
History
of Documentary Film: The French Connection
Professor Churchill
Roberts
clrobert@ufl.edu
French contributions to the development of cinema are well known. One of the first motion picture cameras, the cinématographe, was developed by Louis Lumière. Because of its portability, this camera proved to be extremely useful to a lesser known film form, the documentary film. This course will offer a history of the documentary film, with an emphasis on films produced about France during two important periods: World War II/the Holocaust and the French New Wave, a period in the late 1950s and early 1960s that gave birth to a new form of documentary filmmaking called cinema vérité or truth cinéma. The course will be supplemented by visits and enhancements in and around Paris that pertain to the films studied.
Representing the Streets
of Paris: A Cinematic City
Professor Maureen Turim
mturim@ufl.edu
In this course, students will visit sites famous for their presence in films about Paris and concentrate on understanding how different sections of Paris become the representation of different classes and styles of daily life. Cafés, restaurants, and avenues, parks and buildings, subways and bus lines: how do films use, indeed create, the space of the city? We will also see exhibitions relating to cinema, watch films at the Cinémathèque Française and other Parisian theaters, look at exhibitions of photography and painting that correlate to cinematic representations, visit libraries devoted to the arts, as well as the vidéothèque. We will look at the role multimedia presentations play in Parisian museums, and meet with an experimental filmmaker. Students will turn in analytical diaries of their discoveries, illustrated by their photographs and collected documentation, then annotated and supplemented by their reading and film viewings.
Spring Break Course Archive
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Mailing Address:
2008 Turlington Hall
P.O. Box 117300
Gainesville, FL 32611
4 rue de Chevreuse
75006 Paris, France
Phone: 011 33 (0)1 43 22 10 65
Fax: 011 33 (0)1 43 22 07 35