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UC Center Program
Courses - Fall 2007
PCC 111. Histories of Paris
| Professor Christina von Koehler
(as of week 3!)
Class meets: Wednesday 9:30-11h Thursday 16:30-18h
Office Hours By appointment:
01-47-70-29-42 (home phone, do feel free to leave a message)
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Lecture
Wednesday 9:30-11:00am
Thursday 4:00-5:30pm |
Using the buildings and space of Paris as a laboratory, this course surveys key events in the histories of Paris and France. The course will focus on the social and cultural history of the city in its material dimensions; the relation of streets and buildings to the unfolding events of French history, and the meanings of local topography within the enduring mythologies of the city. A central goal of the course is to teach students to read and write critically about the history of Paris and the cityscape around them. [History, Urban Studies, Sociology, Architecture, French] 5.0 credits
COURSE MATERIALS
- A Course Reader ( [CR] hereafter)
Some loose ends:
As nobody ever does the readings during midterm week, I've decided to give you a day off (see Week 6) and replace that class with a visit to the Arc de Triomphe, on Thursday evening, October 11, after Professor Hertz lecture (Week 5). We would leave the center together afterwards (the Arc is open until 10 pm!)
On November 8 Colin Jones will come to speak to the class. Once again, I have pushed the Sacre Coeur visit into the evening following (and thus will give you the Thursday of finals week off).
If these evening visits prove impossible for the majority of you, that may mean finding time on Friday or Saturday or Sunday…which is much less attractive.
Finally, you have got to get to the gardens at Versailles , either with the class or through Accent.
 see the Site Visit schedule here
FORMAL REQUIREMENTS
* Your summary of the first two weeks of the class.
* Class participation and “the Blog” .
Students are expected to have done the reading for each class and to participate in the discussions in class and at the site visits. These visits are what make the class unique: you may not ever again have the opportunity to actually take what you read about Paris to the streets. The visits are every Thursday. A list of meeting points for the walks will be distributed, please try to be on time.
The Blog, managed by Ron, should be a forum where you respond to the site visits and their related readings. It has been created to allow you to synthesize your impressions of the places we visit, to reflect upon them in terms of the issues discussed in class, and to raise questions for further debate. The Blog is to be taken seriously.
* One 7-10 page research project .
This entails visiting and doing research on a site in Paris that bears on the topics covered during the course. You will chose your topic in consultation with me and submit a first outline and a preliminary list of sources by Week 6. Remember, you may use articles from the old reader as a starting point!
download the research paper project here
The paper is due the last week of November (Week 11) .
* Midterm
* Final
Bibliography:
We will continue to use Colin Jones's Paris, the Biography of a City as our general textbook.
Boime, Albert. Art and the French Commune . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Ballon, Hilary. The Paris of Henri IV: Archictecture and Urbanism . Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.
Burke, Peter. The Fabrication of Louis XIV . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Burton, Richard D. E.. Blood in the City . Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.
Cooper, Nicola. France in Indochina: Colonial Encounters . Oxford/NY: Berg Publishers, 2001.
Green, Nancy. The Pletzl of Paris, Jewish Immigrant Workers in the Belle Epoque . New York, Holmes & Meier, 1986.
Harvey, David. Consciousness and the Urban Experience . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.
Hobsbawm, E.J. and Terrence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Jordan, David P. Transforming Paris : The Life and Labors of Baron Haussmann . New York : The Free Press, 1995.
Leith, James. Space and Revolution: Projects for Monuments, Squares and Public Buildings in France, 1789-1799 . Montreal: Mc-Gill-Queens University Press, 1991.
Nora, Pierre, et al. Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past . Arthur Goldhammer, trans. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Vols. I and III.
Rule, John C., ed. Louis XIV and the Craft of Kingship . Ohio State University Press, 1969.
Sowerwine, Charles. France since 1870: Culture, Politics and Society . New York: Palgrave, 2001.
Sutcliffe, Anthony. Paris, An Architectural History . New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
Ungar, Steven and Tim Conley, eds. Identity Papers: Contested Nationhood in 20 th century France . Minn: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
Willms, Johannes. Paris, Capital of Europe. From the Revolution to the Belle Epoque . New York: Holmes & Meier, 1997.
Individual copies of the four English-language booklets from the Itinéraires series should be available for purchase (ca. 7 euros each): The Pantheon; The Palais Garnier; The Eiffel Tower; The Arch of Triumph.
COURSE SCHEDULE
There is also a separate Course Resources Page with additional electronic materials for this course.
Week 3:
9/26: Expressing Power: the Means and Ends of Louis XIV
Readings : Ballon, Hilary. The Paris of Henri IV, pp. 5-6, 12, 114-115, 250-255.
Peter Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XIV , pp. 1-13, 15-29, 39-41, 65-69, 85-97, 145, 151-177.
Nathan Whitman, “Myth and Politics: Versailles and the Fountain of Latona,” in John C. Rule, ed. Louis XIV and the Craft of Kingship , pp. 286-301.
9/27: Site visit: From the Louvre to the Place des Victoires
Week 4:
10/3: Erase, Deface, Replace: Revolutionary Paris
Readings: Richard D. E. Burton , Blood in the City , Chapter 2 “Violent Origins, The Taking of the Bastille,” pp. 26-40.
James Leith, Space and Revolution: Projects for Monuments, Squares and Public Buildings in France, 1789-1799 . Chapter 5 “The Republicanization of Paris,” pp. 118-149.
Itineraire reader: The Pantheon
10/4: Site visit: The Panthéon
Week 5:
10/10: Glory in Stone: Napoleon I's Paris
Readings : . Johannes Willms, Paris , Capital of Europe , “Napoleon as Architect,” pp. 124-135.
Richard D. E. Burton , Blood in the City , Chapter 4, “Vendôme/Invalides, Paris of the Bonapartes 1802-1871,” pp. 72-89.
Itineraire reader: L'Arc de Triomphe de l'Etoile
10/11: GUEST LECTURE: Prof. Neil Hertz, Johns Hopkins University
(A separate packet of readings will be distributed)
??? Afterwards…a Site visit: L'Arc de triomphe (18-19:30)
10/12: Site visit: excursion to the gardens of the Chateau de Versailles
Week 6:
10/17: Three Wishes: Haussmann, genie of the Second Empire
Readings : Make sure you read Ch 8, “Between Napoleons,” in Colin Jones.
David P. Jordan, Transforming Paris , Ch. 4 “ Paris in Crisis,” pp. 91-114 and Ch. 8 “The Implacable Axis of a Straight Line,” pp. 185-210.
Itineraire reader: The Palais Garnier
10/18: Site visit: Le Quartier de l'Opéra
PRELIMINARY BIBLIOGRAPHY AND OUTLINE DUE
Week 7:
10/24: In-class MIDTERM
10/25: NO CLASS ( replaces the visit to the Arc de Triomphe on Oct 11)
MID-SEMESTER BREAK no class Oct 31, Nov 1
Week 8:
11/7: Blood and Iron: Constructing the Third Republic
Readings : Images are from Albert Boime, Art and the French Commune .
David Harvey, The Urban Experience , Ch. 7 “Monument and Myth: the Building of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart,” pp. 200-228.
Henri Loyrette, “ The Eiffel Tower ,” in Nora, vol. III, pp. 349-374.
Willms, Paris, “Haussmann's Legacy” and “La Belle Epoque,” pp. 331-339.
Itineraire reader: Eiffel Tower .
From here on: should you want some precise facts and dates, a very sober summary of the material we are covering, look at Charles Sowerwine's France since 1870: Culture, Politics and Society . ( New York : Palgrave, 2001). A copy will be put on reserve. In case Jones is not enough, I've mentioned the pages to look at in Sowerwine at the end of each section. These pages are not in the reader. Eg. for this session: (Sowerwine, pp. 12-26).
11/8: GUEST LECTURE: Prof. Colin Jones, University of Warwick
??? Afterwards a Site visit: Sacré-Coeur (with a view of the Eiffel Tower )
Week 9:
11/14: Temporary Monuments/Permanent Ambitions: The Universal and Colonial Expos.
Readings :
Excerpts from E.J. Hobsbawm, “Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe 1870-1914,” in Hobsbawm and Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition , pp. 263-273 and 303-307.
Shanny Peer , France on Display . (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998): “A Short Visitor's guide to the expo,” pp. 42-51.
Nicola Cooper, France in Indochina , ch. 4, pp. 65-87.
(Sowerwine: Ch. 7 esp. pp. 102-103; Ch. 11 esp. pp. 148-150, 158: Ch. 12, esp. pp. 166-167).
11/15: Site visit: The Petit Palais and the grounds of the 1900 World's Fair
Week 10:
11/21: Assimilation or exclusion: what is forgotten, what is remembered, being Jewish in Paris
Readings :
Pierre Birnbaum, “Jews at the Heart of French History,” in Nora, ed. (1996) v. 1, Ch 10, pp. 379-423.
Nancy Green, The Pletzl of Paris , Jewish Immigrant Workers in the Belle Epoque , “Emmigration and Immigration,” pp 29-32, “Arrival and Reception,” 50-53, “Setttling in,” pp. 68-78.
Richard D. E. Burton, Blood in the City . Ch. 11, “Operation Spring Breeze,” pp. 206-231.
(Sowerwine: Ch 13 and Ch. 14).
11/22: Site visit: The Pletzl
Week 11:
11/28 : The Identity Crisis of Postwar Paris : why do Les Halles matter?
Readings :
On the “Situation inAlgeria :”
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Culture of Defeat , New York : Henry Holt, 2003, pp. 176-187.
( Sowerwine: Ch. 20, esp. 284-287; Ch. 22, esp. pp. 309-316.)
On Postwar Paris :
Sutcliffe, Paris, ch. 9, pp. 160-189; Jordan, Transforming Paris , pp. 362-367.
Julia Trilling, “Architecture as Politics,” in The Atlantic Monthly , Oct. 1983, pp. 26-35.
(Sowerwine: Ch. 22, esp. pp. 325-327; Ch. 25, esp. pp. 365-66).
RESEARCH PAPERS DUE!!!
11/29: Site visit: Looking for Les Halles
Week 12:
12/5: Culture as a monument to itself: the “grands projets” of the Mitterand years
Readings :
Sutcliffe, Paris , sections from chs. 9&10: pp. 189-206.
Panivong Norindr, “La Plus Grande France : French Cultural Identity and Nation-Building under Mitterand,” in Steven Ungar & Tom Conley, eds, Identity Papers , pp. 240-251.
Maurice Agulhon, “Paris, A Traversal from East to West,” in Nora, vol. III, pp. 523-552.
(Sowerwine: Ch. 26, 27, esp. pp. 408-411).
12/6: Site visit: The Ile de la Cité
Week 13:
12/12: In-class FINAL
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