Master of Arts in French Language and Literature
Multilingual
Courses
Common Core
MTR500Research Methodology
3 credits
This course improves student skills in writing research proposals and conducting basic research. It enables students to become critical readers of professional literature and develop a critical spirit of inquiry by providing a structured way of thinking about information studies problems and their resolutions. Thus, students will practice writing a typical research proposal which includes: thesis statement/hypothesis, context, variables, literature review, research methods, outlining, results, and so forth. They will also apply basic aspects of quantitative and qualitative analyses within the frame of research proposals. The purpose of this course is to provide students with research training: knowledge and skills. It includes theoretical and methodological teachings, in addition to practical applications. It introduces students to research techniques and analysis methods, and provides them with the methodological framework required to write a research paper or a thesis. The course also includes a purely technical and formal objective: empowering students to apply the rules of research presentation in accordance with what is required by the University, or even on a universal scale, through the implementation of practical work adapted for this purpose (using methodology books, reviewing dissertations or theses, project outlines to be submitted, reports on the proceedings of defense sessions, etc.).
Specialization
LFR520Culture and Modern Civilization Seminar
2 credits
This course deals with the analysis of what makes the unity of a culture and differentiates it from others. It is based on the theories of Margaret Mead and de Bruno Latour who are concerned with how individuals receive their culture and integrate it within their personal development. Based on the study of exemplar stations of French culture that range from the Golden Age, though the Roaring Twenties, the period between the two World Wars, May 68, the Women’s Liberation Movement and the French theory (Derrida, Barthes, Guattari, Bourdieu), we will challenge the biases rooted in attitudes, and we will study using literary texts the difference between men and women in French society according to the psychosocial context, besides studying gestures and corporeality related to each gender. We will also focus on the movement of ideas at the end of the 20th century in interaction with the cultural totality.
LFR524French Linguistic Seminar I
3 credits
The course consists of two parts. The first is devoted to a review of linguistic and stylistic concepts. The second deals with the application of concepts to poems taken from two collections: Les Fleurs du mal by Baudelaire, and Liban: Vingt poèmes pour un amour and Archives sentimentales dune guerre au Liban by Nadia Tueni, in order to write a stylistic review of a poem.
LFR525French Linguistic Seminar II
3 credits
This seminar aims to remind students of the stylistic guidelines and help them to apply these concepts to a specific corpus. The selected corpus is a collection of monologues taken from works that belong to the period from the 17th to the 21st century.
LFR521French Literature Seminar I
3 credits
This course proposes a philosophical approach to literary texts of 20th century authors, placing the literary work at the intersection of the concerns and aspirations of a group and/or an individual. Hence, students deal with another phase of the pluralistic reading of a literary work showing the intersection of this writing within a multidimensional spacetime framework, placing the work at the crossroad of a convergence of thoughts rooted in a particular era, while transcending it; however, these works remain literary in the first place regardless of the genre used.
LFR522French Literature Seminar II
3 credits
This course is designed to teach the Freudian and Jungian schools to the students of the Masters in French Language and Literature, as well as their application to literary texts as critical approaches of the subtextual discourse, or in other words the unconscious of the text.
LFR690AMaster Dissertation
LFR610Seminar: Comparative Literature
3 credits
The course consists of three parts. The first part reviews the Oedipus myth, the ancient and the classical tragedy. The second part focuses on a comparative study of a Greek tragedy, The Phoenician Women by Euripides and two classical tragedies, The Thebais by Racine and Oedipus by Corneille. The third part is devoted to an introduction to myth criticism.
LFR621Seminar: French or Francophone Literature
2 credits
The course is dedicated to a hermeneutic reading designed to teach students the decryption of sacred symbols, as well as the application of philosophical and religious concepts to literary texts, presenting the rationale of evil (the pact with the devil, metamorphosis and inversion) and good (the quest of the Self, the quest of God and angelism).
LFR612Seminar: General Linguistics
3 credits
The objective of this seminar is to review issues related to language and gender; exploring female and male dialects by presenting them in their most representative aspects at many levels relating to phonology, syntax, morphology and multiple contingencies that govern every utterance. The language in question is not only verbal but also gestural. In this brief overview, we rely on the course of general linguistics by Ferdinand de Saussure. We then propose outlining a new question in terms of linguistics of sexual difference by referring to contemporary linguists: Lakoff, Verena Aebischer and AnneMarie Houdebine.
LFR623Seminar: Pragmatics
2 credits
This seminar aims to introduce pragmatics as a linguistic discipline. The various pragmatic theories which help examine the functioning of words in situations will be introduced, in addition to the extralinguistic processes for the production and interpretation of meaning. These theories will be applied to extracts of theater, a dramatic genre presenting many similarities with authentic conversations, the real object of interest of pragmatics.
LFR526Seminar: Theater
3 credits
The course focuses on the evolution of the genre. A diachronic vision attempts to trace the sources of Greek tragedy, to show the future of dealing with the tragic themes, the appearance of comedy and the creation of the tragicomic genre. The corpus is rich: the syllabus includes Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, Plautus, Adam de la Halle, Monléon Robert Garnier, Tirso de Molina, Shakespeare and Calderón. The seminar, refraining from an artificial thematic repartition, will dwell on many areas of interference before examining the preparations for classical drama.
Mission
The program aims to train students to become French language and literature teachers in both complementary and secondary cycles, within colleges for which French is the first language of instruction. It also aims to train them to be able to form and write literary and linguistics criticism through media and communication fields, or through scientific research.
Program Educational Objectives
1. Graduates will be able to teach French language and literature in the complementary and secondary school cycles.
2. Graduates will be able to make literary and linguistics criticism.
3. Graduates will be able to conduct a research.
Program Outcomes
a. Students will acquire the ability to teach linguistical and stylistical characteristics of French language, as well as literature contents and specifications in the Secondary Cycle of the Lebanese school system.
b. An ability to produce a literary and linguistics criticism (publishing, cultural press, etc.).
c. An ability to join a research center and produce research.