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Syllabus

Class Information

The class meets twice a week for 1.5 hours each.

Subject Description

The French esteem the Revolution of 1789 to be the turning point in their national history; journalists, politicians, scholars, and others outside France have called this moment the birthplace of modern political culture. In this course we will study the events of the Revolution, their political, social, and cultural import, and their legacies in France and beyond.

Subject Requirements
Attendance and class participation is mandatory. Students will write two five-page papers, due in class for lecture #8 and lecture #15. There will be a midterm and a final. There will also be an oral report, presented in class in the penultimate week of the semester. I will hand out instructions for these assignments later in the semester. Each assignment will be weighted as follows in the calculation of the final grade, although these calculations will also take into account improved performance during the course of the semester:
  • Class Participation = 20 points
  • Two Five-Page Papers = 30 points each
  • Oral Report = 30 points
  • Midterm = 30 points
  • Final = 60 points
  • TOTAL = 200 points
Required Readings
  • Popkin, Jeremy D. A Short History of the French Revolution.   Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002
  • Ravel, Jeffrey S. The Contested Parterre: Public Theater and French Political Culture, 1680-1791.   Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999
  • Mason, Laura and Rizzo, Tracy. The French Revolution: A Document Collection.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999
  • Lyons, Martyn.  Napoleon Bonaparte and the Legacy of the French Revolution.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994