FREN 3850 - Literature & Medicine in the 19th Century

(HB) (LA-AS) Satisfies Option 1.

Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

Prerequisite: FREN 2310 or permission of instructor.

M. Molinié.

In the XIX century, both literature and medicine shaped the birth of the idea of the psyche. A new medical discipline like psychiatry (at that time called “alienism”) considered the pathologies of the soul at the same time as romantic authors investigates the misfortunes and sufferings of the individual in modern society. Clinical cases (Charcot, Freud) could be read like novels and scientific theories similarly fed fictions (Maupassant, Zola, etc.). This course will explore these reciprocal influences between literature and medicine in France through medical case studies and fiction, taking into account both classical texts and the most recent research. At the intersection between madness, psychiatry, literature, cultural history and narrative theory, it raises questions about personal identities and the birth of modern subjectvities.