FRE 253 - Where Women Wielded Power: Salon Culture in France (in English) (1)

From the 16th century through the 20th, French women hosted intellectual and literary salons, providing a carefully cultivated venue for conversation among great writers, thinkers, artists, and musicians, such as Voltaire, Chopin, Proust, and Picasso. In addition to wielding power by building networks and shaping cultural trends, many of the hostesses were themselves accomplished theorists and authors and took advantage of the salon as a space for their own expression.  Women involved with salon culture wrote in multiple genres and about many topics, and multiple genres were used by others to comment on women and salons-some portraying the women in a flattering light and some belittling their efforts.

In this course, we will engage in our own intellectual salon through discussions of historical and literary works not only about salons but also by salonnières themselves.  We will concentrate on material exploring women’s social roles both in the salon and in the larger society, and how these roles were impacted by socio-economic class, colonization, and race.

This course may be counted as an elective for the FRE major/minor, or an elective for the GSS major/minor. Prerequisite(s): Writing (W) course.
(Humanities) (Writing Encounter)