REVOLUTIONS! STRUGGLES FOR RIGHTS IN 19TH CENTURY FRANCE in Fall 2021 (FR1099FB 9)

Largely inspired by Barnard College’s award-winning Reacting to the Past role-playing games, this course plunges students into the intellectual and political currents that shaped nineteenth-century France, from the fall of Napoleon’s First Empire to the repression of Paris Commune. Students assume a diversity of roles in French society and practice critical thinking, primary source analysis, and argument, both written and spoken. They will engage in power struggles and reflect on contradicting meanings of “citizenship” and “liberty” in an imperial and colonial nation-state. They will fight for their rights as aristocrats, clergymen, bankers, workers, or slaves, following France’s history but possibly changing its outcomes: in this game, depending on students’ activism, Napoleon II may rule France for a while, or the abolition of slavery may be hastened or delayed by a decade.
The course is primarily taught in English. However, by the end of semester, students will know some French phrases and will be able to name some places and historical characters the French way.