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UC Center Program
Courses - Fall 2008
PCC 111. Histories of Paris
| Professor Christina von Koehler
Office Hours By appointment:
01-47-70-29-42 (home phone, do feel free to leave a message
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Lecture
Class meets: Wednesday 9:30-11h Thursday 16:30-18h |
This course examines how the history of social and political conflict in France since the Middle Ages has been embodied in the ever evolving urban landscape of Paris. More than in any other city, control over the symbolic significance of most Parisian sites was -- and continues to be -- violently contested. We will look at the histories of the conception, construction, and public perception of Parisian monuments and place their stories within the larger context of the tumultuous development of the French state and of French national identity. Major events of French history form the chronological backbone for this course, with emphasis placed on the forces that literally shaped some of the city’s most emblematic neighborhoods. The readings are selected from works by specialists in French political, urban, and social history; and the class will include weekly walking tours to sites in Paris, as the student learns to “read” architecture and to use the city as a rich primary source for historical analysis. [History, Urban Studies, Sociology, Architecture, French] 5.0 credits
COURSE MATERIALS
- Colin Jones, Paris: Biography of a City. (London: Penguin, 2004)
- Course reader
- Three English-language booklets from the Itinéraires series published by the Editions
du patrimoine: The Pantheon; The Arch of Triumph; The Palais Garnier.
FORMAL REQUIREMENTS
- Class participation and Reaction papers (25%)
Students are expected to have done the reading for each class and to participate in discussions in class and at the weekly 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. A list of meeting points for the walks will be distributed, please try to be on time. Visits are not optional.
Reaction papers – 2/3 typed pages – respond to site visits and the related readings. These papers 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. Each student must hand in a total of 8 reaction papers (ie. You may chose not to write a paper for some of the site visits). The reaction papers are due one week after the related visit.
- *One 7-10 page research project. (25%)
This entails visiting and doing research on a site in Paris – but not one that we will have visited together! -- 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 4. The paper is due Week 10.
- * Midterm (25%)
- * Final (25%)
COURSE SCHEDULE
There is also a separate Course Resources Page with additional electronic materials for this course.
Week 1.
The Unplanned City: Whose Paris?
Readings:
Jones, Ch. 4 (also look at “The Philip Augustus Wall” in Ch. 2)
David P. Jordan, Transforming Paris,(New York: The Free Press, 1995), Chapter 1 “Paris before Haussmann,” pp. 13-40.
Ballon, Hilary. The Paris of Henri IV, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994), pp. 5-6, 12, 114-115, 250-255.
Week 2.
Expressing Power: the Means and Ends of Louis XIV
Readings:
Jones, Ch. 5
Peter Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XIV, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 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, (Ohio State University Press, 1969), pp. 286-301.
Site visit: From the Louvre to the Place des Victoires
Week 3.
Deface, Erase, Replace: Revolutionary Paris
Readings:
Jones, Ch. 6 and up to page 238 in Ch. 7
Richard D. E. Burton , Blood in the City, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 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.(Montreal: Mc-Gill-Queens University Press, 1991), Chapter 5, “The Republicanization of Paris,” pp. 118-149.
Itineraire reader: The Pantheon
Site visit: The Panthéon
Week 4.
Glory in Stone: Napoleon I’s Paris
Readings:
Jones, finish Ch. 7
Johannes Willms, Paris, Capital of Europe, (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1997), “Napoleon as Architect,” pp. 124-135.
Carol Duncan, “From the Princely Gallery to the Public Art Museum,” in D. Boswell and J. Evans, eds., Representing the Nation. (London: Routledge, 1999) pp. 304-331
Itineraire reader: L’Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile
Site visit: L’Arc de triomphe
PRELIMINARY BIBLIOGRAPHY AND OUTLINE DUE
Week 5.
1815 to 1851: The Struggle for Paris Past and Future
Readings:
Jones, Ch. 8.
Jordan, Transforming Paris, Ch. 4 “Paris in Crisis,” pp. 91-114.
Burton , Blood in the City, Chapter 4, “Vendôme/Invalides, Paris of the Bonapartes 1802-1871,” pp. 72-89.
Site visit: Les Invalides.
FRIDAY? Excursion to the Chateau de Versailles (TENTATIVE).
Week 6.
Three Wishes: Haussmann, genie of the Second Empire
Readings:
Jones, Ch. 9, up to p. 323
Jordan, Transforming Paris, Ch. 8 “The Implacable Axis of a Straight Line,” pp. 185-210.
Itineraire reader: The Palais Garnier
Site visit: Le Quartier de l’Opéra
Week 7.
10/24: In-class MIDTERM
10/25: Guest Lecture (TBA)
MID-SEMESTER BREAK
Week 8.
Blood and Iron: Constructing the Third Republic
Readings:
Jones, finish Ch. 9
David Harvey, Consciousness and the Urban Experience, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), Ch. 7 “Monument and Myth: the Building of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart,” pp. 200-228.
Willms, Paris, “Haussmann’s Legacy” and “La Belle Epoque,” pp. 331-339.
Site visit: Sacré-Coeur (with a view of the Eiffel Tower)
Week 9.
Temporary Monuments/Permanent Ambitions: The Universal Expos.
Readings:
Jones, Ch. 10
Henri Loyrette, “ The Eiffel Tower,” in Pierre Nora, et al. Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past. Arthur Goldhammer, trans. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), vol. III, pp. 349-374.
E.J. Hobsbawm, “Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe 1870-1914,” in Hobsbawm, E.J. and Terrence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), excerpts: 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: Colonial Encounters, (Oxford/NY: Berg Publishers, 2001), ch. 4, pp. 65-87.
Site visit: The Petit Palais and the grounds of the 1900 World’s Fair
Week 10.
Assimilation or exclusion: what is forgotten, what is remembered, being Jewish in Paris
Readings:
Jones, Ch. 11
Nancy Green, The Pletzl of Paris, Jewish Immigrant Workers in the Belle Epoque, (New York, Holmes & Meier, 1986), “Emmigration and Immigration,” pp 29-32, “Arrival and Reception,” 50-53, “Setttling in,” pp. 68-78.
Robert O. Paxton, “Inside the Panic,” in The New York Review of Books, Nov. 22, 2007, pp. 49-50.
Burton, Blood in the City. Ch. 11, “Operation Spring Breeze,” pp. 206-231.
Tony Judt, “The Problem of Evil,” in NYRB, Feb. 14, 2008, pp. 33-35.
Site visit: The Pletzl
RESEARCH PAPERS DUE!!!
Week 11.
The Identity Crisis of Postwar Paris: why do Les Halles matter?
Readings:
Jones, Ch. 12 and “Conclusion”
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Culture of Defeat, (New York: Henry Holt, 2003), pp. 176-187.
Gene Lebovics, “Crisis of Culture, Crisis of State,” in Patricia Yaeger, ed. The Geography of Identity (Ann Arbor: U Michigan Press, 1996), pp. 223-241.
Richard Cobb, “The Assassination of Paris,” in his People and Places (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 187-199.
Site visit: Looking for Les Halles
Week 12.
Culture as a monument to itself: the “grands projets” of the Mitterand years
Readings:
Herbert Muschamp, “Growing Accustomed to Paris’s New Face,” from The New York Times, June 18, 1995, pp. 1 and 33.
Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris, (1831)), Book III, Part II, “A Bird’s Eye View of Paris.” 22 pp.
Maurice Agulhon, “Paris, A Traversal from East to West,” in Nora, v. III, pp. 523-552.
Site visit: The Ile de la Cité
Week 13.
Review session
In-class FINAL
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