M.Phil. in African Literature and Civilization

Rationale

The review draws on the experience of teaching Literature and Civilisation in the Department of French over the long haul.  It takes into consideration changing needs and interests of students.  The point is to retain students in the Department of French.  The review is structured for Level 500.  The rising order of abstraction and therefore of difficulty in the acquisition of knowledge and skills is conceived along these levels.  A specific profile is set for each Level.

 Goals

• Understanding literary texts.
• Understanding and applying literary concepts.
• Developing in the student sensitivity to style.
• Developing in the student greater proficiency in reading, writing, speaking French.
• Accessing the broader world of ideas.
• Developing in the student the scientific method applied in reflection over a certain length:  the essay, the long Essay, the thesis.

Objectives

Literature is an art form.  The primary object of art is to please.  To understand a literary work is to derive pleasure from it.  The various conceptual tools that are used for analysing literature aim at making it all the more pleasing.  The final object of teaching literature is to develop further in  students the habit and joy of reading and also to access the world of thinking, since literature, of all the art forms, is a major medium for carrying  ideas.  Civilisation contextualises the phenomenon of literature by relating it to the social political framework that informs it.  Further, the study of civilisation develops skills in reading and particularly in eliciting scientific (used broadly) information from written texts.