Eric Leveau

As we want to engage in individual and collective efforts toward sustainable and climate-change mitigating solutions, this workshop offers an opportunity for students to explore the multiple ways in which “sustainability” can be fostered and developed at an institution like Sarah Lawrence College. Students will work in small groups on a variety of projects and produce research and educational material that can lead to concrete and actionable proposals for the College and our community to consider. Students will determine their own areas of interest and research, from energy and water-usage monitoring to composting solutions, recycling/reusing and consumer sobriety, landscaping choices, pollinators and natural diversity, food growing, natural and human history of the land, and community collaborations, to name a few. As part of their project effort, students will engage with College administrators who are actively working toward sustainable solutions, as well as student, staff, and faculty groups such as the Warren Green vegetable garden, the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collective on the Environment (SLICE), and the Sustainability Committee. We will also explore the possibility of writing grants in coordination with other actors at the College. This workshop will meet once a week for one hour. It is offered as pass/fail based on attendance and a group project that will mostly be developed during our meeting time. It is open to all students, including first-year students. All skills and areas of expertise are welcome, from environmental science to writing and visual and studio arts—but any interest in issues of sustainability and a strong sense of dedication will suffice!

From the years leading to World War II to its aftermath, French writers published some of the most important works of 20th-century Western literature; this course will explore several of these masterpieces in the cultural and historical context of that period, from existentialism in Sartre’s Nausea (1938) and No Exit (1944), to the philosophy of the absurd in Camus’ The Stranger (1942) and Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1949/1953), and finally the feminist revolution brought by Beauvoir’s Second Sex (1949). Other extremely important questions will also be the focus of our discussions, such as the role and influence of the French Communist party, the colonial presence of France in Algeria (we will read Kamel Daoud’s 2013 The Meursault Investigation, a response to Camus) and the active participation of France in the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps. (We will read excerpts of Irène Nemirovsky’s novel Suite Française, which she was working on when she was arrested in 1942 and whose manuscript was only discovered and published in 2004.) Finally, we will also look into the importance of psychoanalysis, as developed by Jacques Lacan, and the rise of structuralism with Roland Barthes’ Writing Degree Zero, which is in part a response to Sartre’s 1948 What is Literature?

As our societies and communities are starting to address the challenges of climate change, it is particularly important to explore the implications of the concept of “nature” in the Western and Judeo-Christian tradition that is dominant in the United States. In this class, we will look critically at this Western idea of nature by confronting it with representations of natural environments and the animal realm coming from Indigenous, African American, and Asian and Pacific Islander traditions. For example, comparing stories of world creation from Indigenous nations with narratives taken from the Bible and Greek and Roman classical texts will allow us to better grasp how language in the European tradition functions as a deep divider between humans and other living creatures. We will try to better understand how the romanticized conception of wilderness in America is in close relation to the presence of enslaved Black bodies on its land in addition to the erasure of the existence of Indigenous nations. Going in a different direction, we will analyze how contemporary feminism and gender studies provide crucially important models to invent a new way for the West to relate to nature. Animals will also be a focus of our discussions, from classical representations of animals as machines, to the use of models like the burrow imported from the animal realm by philosophers, to the possibility of shifting from a humanistic understanding of nature inherited from European Renaissance, to new forms of ecocentric expression. This class will take place in and outside the seminar classroom, as we will regularly observe nature on campus and engage in concrete projects such as growing herbs and vegetables. A few trips will allow us to explore local natural areas, including along the Hudson River. As part of this First-Year Studies class, students will be encouraged to work on personal projects that link the material seen in class to any personal interests that they have. This could be very concretely in relation to nature, plants, and wildlife on campus or as part of the work that local organizations around the College are developing on environmental issues and social justice. Other students may want to incorporate into their research elements of popular culture, such as horror movies, video games, or anime series such as Avatar. In addition to class, students will meet individually with their professor every other week. On alternating weeks, we will engage in group work related to sustainability on campus—including hands-on projects and gardening.

As the capitalistic and predatory model aggressively promoted by the United States continues to reveal itself as a major threat to biodiversity and the environment in general, it is vital to understand the cultural and literary history of the concept of “nature” that is at the core of the Western and Judeo-Christian tradition while also putting that concept in the context of gender, race, and ethnicity in America today. For example, comparing stories of world creation from indigenous nations, with narratives taken from the Bible and from Greek and Roman classical texts, will allow us to better grasp how language in the European tradition functions as a deep divider between humans and other living creatures. We will also follow the development of the genre of the pastoral as an idealized construction of nature that deeply influenced Europe from third-century BC to 19th-century English and American Romanticism. We will try to better understand how the conception of wilderness in America is in close relation to the presence of enslaved black bodies on its land. Going in a different direction, we will analyze how contemporary feminism and gender studies provide crucially important models to invent new ways for the West to relate to nature. Animals will also be a focus of our discussions, from classical representations of animals as machines to the use of models like the burrow or territoriality imported from the animal realm by Deleuze and Guattari, to the possibility of shifting from a humanist understanding of nature inherited from European Renaissance, to new forms of ecocentric expression. These are some of the themes that we will cover in this lecture, with the goal of reading texts of the past in order to better understand the complexities of today’s discussions and debates about how to invent new forms of relating to the living environment around us.

This course will offer a systematic review of French grammar and is designed to strengthen and deepen students’ mastery of grammatical structures and vocabulary. Students will also begin to use linguistic concepts as tools for developing their analytic writing. More than other countries, France’s identity was shaped by centuries of what is now perceived by the French as a historically coherent past. In this course, we will explore the complexities of today’s French identity—or, rather, identities—following the most contemporary controversies that have shaken French society in the past 30 years while, at the same time, exploring historical influences and cultural paradigms at play in these débats franco-français. Thus, in addition to newspapers, online resources, recent films, TV series, and songs, we will study masterpieces of the past in literature and in the arts. Topics discussed will include, among others, school and separation from faith; cuisine and traditions; immigration and urban ghettos; women and feminism in France; France’s relation to nature and the environment; the heritage of French Enlightenment (les Lumières), duty to remember (devoir de mémoire), and France's relationship with dark episodes of its history (slavery, Régime de Vichy and Nazi occupation, Algerian war). Authors studied will include Marie de France, Montaigne, Voltaire, Hugo, Flaubert, Proust, Colette, Duras, Césaire, Djebar, Chamoiseau, Bouraoui. In addition to conferences, a weekly conversation session with a French language assistant(e) is required. Attendance at the weekly French lunch table and French film screenings are both highly encouraged. The Intermediate I and II French courses are specially designed to help prepare students for studying in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their Junior year.

This course will offer a systematic review of the most fundamental aspects of French grammar. The emphasis of the class will be on developing oral proficiency by working on specific grammatical structures and conjugations, as well as idiomatic expressions. We will also work on writing skills through in-class short essays and exercises with the primary goal of strengthening students’ grammatical agility. We will meet twice a week for two hours. We will use recent and contemporary French and francophone popular culture (songs, film, cartoons, fashion, etc.) as a gateway to explore underlying trends and tensions that have been at work in the francophone world since the 1960s. Some of the questions that we will discuss this semester include colonization and its aftermath in France and Belgium, as well as in several sub-Saharan African countries; the complex issue of race and slavery as part of France’s past in the Caribbean; the presence of Islam in France as a result of immigration from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia; the history of feminism and gender; and the question of ecology and climate change. Each week will be organized around a song, a film, and a text that echo each other around a common theme. We will memorize lyrics and write and act dialogues, as well as short essays. This course will be an excellent preparation for the spring 2022 Intermediate I course, which will focus on reading and writing more elaborate texts. In addition to conferences, a weekly conversation session with a French language assistant(e) is required. Attendance at the weekly French lunch table and French film screenings are both highly encouraged. The Intermediate French I and II courses are specially designed to help prepare students for studying in Paris with Sarah Lawrence College during their junior year.

This course will offer a systematic review of French grammar and is designed to strengthen and deepen students’ mastery of grammatical structures and vocabulary. Students will also begin to use linguistic concepts as tools for developing their analytic writing. More than other countries, France’s identity was shaped by centuries of what is now perceived by the French as a historically coherent past. In this course, we will explore the complexities of today’s French identity—or, rather, identities—following relevant contemporary controversies that have shaken French society in the past 30 years while simultaneously exploring historical influences and cultural paradigms at play in these débats franco-français. Thus, in addition to newspapers, online resources, recent films, television series, and songs, we will study masterpieces of the past in literature and in the arts. Topics discussed will include, among others, school and separation from faith; cuisine and traditions; immigration and urban ghettos; women and feminism in France; France’s relation to nature and the environment; the heritage of French Enlightenment (les Lumières), duty to remember (devoir de mémoire), and France's relationship with dark episodes of its history (slavery, Régime de Vichy and Nazi occupation, and the Algerian war). Authors studied will include Marie de France, Montaigne, Voltaire, Hugo, Flaubert, Proust, Colette, Duras, Césaire, Djebar, Chamoiseau, and Bouraoui. In addition to conferences, a weekly conversation session with a French language assistant will be required. Attendance at the weekly French lunch table and French film screenings are both highly encouraged. This course is specifically designed to help prepare students to study in the Paris global education program.

Building on the foundations learned in Intermediate French I (FREN 3501), this course will include a systematic review of French grammar and vocabulary, with a focus on writing papers according to French expectations alongside reinforcing linguistic correctness in spontaneous oral communication, in order to develop real fluency. This yearlong course will be divided into two separate themes. In fall, the focus will be on the literary and cultural revolutions brought on by World War II in France, from Sartre’s existentialist novel, La Nausée, to Camus’ absurd novel, L’Etranger; alongside Beauvoir’s revolutionary book, Le Deuxième Sexe, and Beckett’s play, En attendant Godot; to new experimentations in the genre of the novel, including Butor’s La Modification and Duras’ Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein. We will also study this time frame as one of the darkest periods of recent French history, learning about the collaboration of the French state in the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps and the violence of colonization that led to the Algerian war. In spring, the focus will be on the history and contemporary ramifications of the notion of nature and the environment in France. We will read and discuss extensively the current debates in France around the question of climate change and protecting biodiversity, exploring exciting initiatives happening all over the country. These discussions will be anchored in an exploration of the cultural origins of the French relationship with the natural world, from the notion of “terroir” of aristocratic origins, to Romantic admiration for natural landscapes, to colonialist constructions of the “exotic,” and philosophical reflections on the human/animal divide, to name a few topics of potential discussion. In addition to conferences, a weekly conversation session with a French language assistant will be required. Attendance at the weekly French lunch table and French film screenings are both highly encouraged. Aimed at consolidating students’ B1 level (Common European Framework of Reference, CEFR) and bringing students to B2 level, sufficient to potentially attend French universities, this course is specifically designed to help prepare students to study in the Paris global education program. The spring semester will also be an opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration with the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE) courses offered at the College.

This course will explore the question of nature in France in the context of both climate change and the rich cultural and literary history of the country. Some of the themes that will allow us to better understand how the French relate to nature include the forêt de Brocéliande in medieval novels of the Arthurian stories cycle; discussions about the status of animals in 17th-century France; romantic depictions of nature in French novels, set both in France and America in the early 19th century; evocations of exotic islands, in contrast to Paris’s industrial revolution, in Baudelaire’s poetry; and Louis Ferdinand Céline’s account of life in French Congo in the 1920s. In parallel to this literary exploration, we will study how France is reacting to the threat of climate change, from legendary vineyards that must face rising temperatures, to new legislation that stirs the country into new practices, and to the work of NGOs that work to protect habitats in various parts of France. We will look at a mix of theoretical works by Foucault, Deleuze, and Irigaray, among others, as well as focus concretely on specific regions, local associations, and farms that are inventing a green future. In addition to conferences, a weekly conversation session with a French language assistant(e) is required. Attendance at the weekly French lunch table and French film screenings are both highly encouraged.

Western literature and culture deeply influence how our country negatively perceives transitional spaces, such as the spaces between cultivated land and forest or between water and land. The need for control pushes us to reshape or eliminate marshes, swamps, thickets, and other forms of overgrowth. Similarly, we feel uncomfortable considering the soils in which we bury our dead—or we ignore them completely. Yet, a closer examination of the biology of decay reveals cycles of life that follow death, with growth, reproduction, and nutrient exchange accompanying decay at every turn. We will read excerpts of literary works that have shaped our cultural perception of decay and of these transitional states and spaces, including works by Sophocles, Mary Shelley, Alice Walker, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and others. We will also explore the ecosystems themselves through lab experiments and trips to local parks and field stations (Center for the Urban River at Beczak, Untermeyer Gardens). This joint course will evaluate the divide between culture and science and explore how cultural representations may evolve with an adequate framing of scientific research and findings. This course fully participates in the collaborative interludes in the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collaborative on the Environment (SLICE) Mellon course cluster.

As the desire to engage in individual and collective efforts toward sustainable and climate-change mitigating solutions increases, this workshop offers an opportunity for students to explore the multiple ways in which “sustainability” can be fostered and developed at an institution like Sarah Lawrence College. Students will work in small groups on a variety of projects and produce research and educational material that can lead to concrete and actionable proposals for the College and our community to consider. Students will determine their own areas of interest and research from energy and water-usage monitoring to composting solutions, recycling/reusing and consumer sobriety, landscaping choices, pollinators and natural diversity, food growing, natural and human history of the land, and community collaborations, to name a few. As part of their project efforts, students will engage with College administrators who are actively working toward sustainable solutions, as well as students, staff, and faculty groups such as the Warren Green vegetable garden, the Sarah Lawrence Interdisciplinary Collective on the Environment (SLICE), and the Sustainability Committee. We will also explore the possibility of writing grants in coordination with other actors at the College. Most of the coursework will happen during class time. Skills in areas of any expertise are welcome, from environmental science to writing to visual and studio arts—but any interest in issues of sustainability and a strong sense of dedication will suffice.