Difficult Women: 1789-1945

Code

MLAC3190

School

Modern Languages and Cultures

Level

3

Credits

20

Semesters

Full Year UK

Summary

This module invites students to critically engage with representations of apparently disruptive and transgressive
French and Francophone women from determining moments in French history between 1789 and 1945, including
individuals who were violent, who took up arms, were transgressive, broke laws, and were institutionalized,
deported, and defamed in the press – all in the name of social justice. Examples include revolutionary Théroigne de
Méricourt, who dressed as a man in order to fight for women’s revolutionary involvement and was
institutionalised for madness, and Louise Michel, one of the women accused of setting devastating fires that
gutted government and cultural institutions during the Semaine Sanglante of the Paris Commune.
Students will analyse case studies in the light of the dominant gender discourses of their time (during the 1789
Revolution, the Paris Commune, the Belle Epoque, and the First and Second World Wars), as manifest in cultural
representation, such as press, literary and visual sources. Where possible, they will also study the voice of lived
experience, via memoirs and works published by the women in question, in order to explore how their own
perspectives interacted with representations of them.
Students will examine the case studies and work on a thematic research project in the second. For this, they will be
invited to identify a theme pertinent to at least two of the case studies, in order to comment on the threads that
link women’s militancy across centuries, but also to explore the extent to which ‘difficult’ women contributed to
lasting change in women’s lives over time. Possible themes might include but are not limited to social class, gender
and gender identity, (political) violence, mental ill health and perceptions of madness.
The module will give students the opportunity to consult digitized primary source material such as newspapers,
books and imagery via archives such as the Bibliothèque Nationale de France’s collection, gallica.fr.

Target Students

Optional module for all students taking French as part of their UG plan.

Co-requisites

Modules you must take in the same academic year, or have taken in a previous year, to enrol in this module:

• French 3 (MLAC3082)

Classes

• One 1-hour workshop each week for 20 weeks
• One 1-hour lecture each week for 20 weeks

Assessment

• 80% Research Project: A 3000-word research project that identifies and critically engages with a common theme across the case studies taught.
• 20% Poster Presentation: A poster presentation outlining the plan for the research project.

Assessed in both autumn & spring semest

Educational Aims

Learning Outcomes

• An understanding of several key moments in French History across the period 1789-1945.

• An understanding of dominant gender discourses across the period 1789-1945.

•  The ability to make critical use of primary and secondary source material.

• The ability to engage in study and research both independently and in a group.

• The ability to engage in critical and analytical reflection.

• The ability to express ideas clearly and effectively in the context of a well-constructed argument.

• The ability to design a research project, including framing research questions and identifying source materials.

Conveners

• Dr Philippa Read