How do we read? Is our reading affected by our cultural origins, our gender, our political allegiances? Can film, music and literature be analysed in similar ways? Is there anything to be gained from comparing them?

Strategies for Reading French Texts will introduce you to different textual worlds, from the medieval romance to hip hop; from literature used to fantasize and to challenge, to film exploring personal and political stresses at times of war. It will also explore different writing spaces: the medieval court; the New World in the Renaissance; French colonies in Africa in the early 20th century; immigration and the city in the 21st.

The module will help you develop the skills to read these different genres and the different styles of French represented within them, and will encourage you to think carefully about your own approaches to interpreting them by introducing you to a range of different cultural, theoretical and ideological approaches to reading.

The module will guide you carefully through individual texts in broadly chronological order, but will also invite you to think about how they might be linked. Strategies for Reading French Texts is an introductory module that will equip you with key analytical and writing skills: you will not need to have studied French literature previously in order to follow it.