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FR435 Summative Essay Titles

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

You may, If you wish, discuss the same text/thinker in a summative assignment as you have discussed in a piece of formative assignment, but you must not reproduce in part or whole any of your formative assignment in your summative assignment.

You will receive guidance and support in the writing of your summative essay in the following ways:

  1. Refresher workshop on essay-writing skills (Weds 18th November, Teaching Grid, 2.45 – 4.15 pm). This is OPTIONAL
  2. One hour in the module programme will be devoted to a discussion / workshop on the assessment for the module.
  3. Students taking 15 CATs modules in term 1 will receive feedback on their work in week 7 of term 2. All marks received at this stage will be provisional. Please note that you are welcome to come and see me in my office hours to discuss your performance once you have received the feedback for your assessed work.

Write 1 x 4000-4,500-word essay OR 1 x 2000-2500-word essay on one of the following topics:

1. Analyse how the work of any one feminist theorist writing in French studied on the course (Irigaray, Cixous, Kristeva) might fruitfully be applied to any two texts from the course, paying attention to issues of form and style.

2. Analyse the construction of masculinity in any two texts from the course.

3. Compare the negotiation of issues of gender by any two texts from within the same narrative genre (romantic comedy, crime narrative etc.) studied on the course.

4. Compare the construction of gender in one mass popular text and one auteur film (for instance by Buñuel, the Dardenne brothers or Breillat) studied on the course, paying particular attention to formal aspects of the text. How might we speculate about the two texts’ different potential to mediate issues of gendered identity?

5. Discuss the interrelation of gendered and national identity in printed discourse focusing on the Strauss-Kahn affair, with reference to at least four articles (for the longer essay) or three articles (for the shorter option). At least two articles should be in French. You may use those circulated and/or source your own, providing some rationale for your choices in either case.

6. Invent your own question. If choosing this option please discuss it with the course leader.

Texts from/studied on the course may include set or further viewing/reading (as listed on the module outline). You may not write exclusively on a non-French text (such as Sex and the City or others from week 8), although these could be part of a comparative analysis.

You should note that in the examination for this module, you will not be permitted to answer a question relating to material on which you have submitted an assessed essay.