English Department

> 2nd Year (L2)

LICENCE DEGREE COURSE IN ENGLISH STUDIES

INTRODUCTION
The Faculty of Languages (UFR de Langues) of the University of Nantes offers both French and
exchange students the possibility of taking classes as part of a Degree Course in English Studies
(Licence LLCEr [Langues, Littratures, Civilisations trangres et Rgionales]). Courses are
taught by the English Department comprising 34 permanent professors and lecturers and 9
temporary lecteurs drawn from our partner universities in the United Kingdom and North
America. The Degree is organised over a three-year period with each year being divided in two
semesters, making a total of 6 semesters in all (S1 S6). Each year follows on from the previous
one but it is still possible for exchange students to follow classes in Years 2 or 3 without having
attended classes in Year 1, provided they have the necessary level. Virtually all classes are given
in English. The subjects covered include:

Civilisation (History, Politics, Cultural Studies)

Didactique (Didactics in Language Teaching in Primary and Secondary Education)
Franais (French Literature course taught in French)
Langue Orale (spoken English with a native-speaker lecteur/lectrice)
Linguistique/Phontique/Grammaire/Faits
de
Langue
(Linguistics,
Phonetics,
Grammar)
Littrature (British and American literature from the 16th century to the present)
Pratique de la Langue (listening comprehension)
Traduction/Thme/Version (Translation: French>English and English>French)

In Year 3 it is possible to choose from a range of specialities and options in Modules

54/55/56/64/65/66. In French the modules are referred to as UE meaning unit denseignement
and each counts for 5 ECTS credits.
Most modules are assessed by semestrial examinations which take place during the first two
weeks in January (for Semester 1 classes) and during the last two weeks in May (for Semester 2
classes). Resit examinations are organised in June. Some courses require students to hand in work
on a regular basis.
Lectures (CMs) are given either in amphitheatres or large lecture rooms with an attendance of up
to 150 students. Classes (TDs) take place in smaller classrooms where there are between 25 and
45 students taking part. Lecteur classes (TPs) are organized for Spoken English Practice and here
the groups are smaller (10-18 students on average). All classes take place at the FACULTE DES
LANGUES ETRANGERES on the Humanities Campus north of the city centre and easily
accessible by tram and bus.
The following courses are offered for the period 2012-2017

SEMESTER 1
Each UE counts for 5 ECTS credits. The semester runs over 12 weeks.

UE

31

MODULES

LANGUE

32

LANGUE

33

CULTURE

COURSES
Syntaxe
Phontique
Traduction
Langue orale
Lecture de documents
Civilisation
Lecture de documents
Littrature

34

LV2

See relevant language

Department

35

RENFORCEMENT
LV1

Littrature & Civilisation

36

*COMPETENCES
TRANSVERSALES

C2i
Franais

NB
HOURS/TERM
12h CM + 12h
TD
12h CM
24h TD
12h TP
12h CM + 12h
TD
12h CM + 12h
TD

SUPERVISOR

M. Tutton
M. Mianowski
Lecteurs
P. Carboni
G. Letissier

48h
12h CM + 24h
TD
18h TP
6h CM + 12h
TD

* Information will be provided at the information meeting in September.

S. El Moncef

SEMESTER 2
Each UE counts for 5 ECTS credits. The semester runs over 12 weeks.

UE

MODULES

41

LANGUE

42

43

LANGUE

CULTURE

COURSES

NB HOURS/
TERM

Phontique
Langue orale

12h CM + 12h
TD
12h CM
12h TP

Traduction

24h TD

Lecture de documents
Civilisation
Lecture de documents
Littrature

12h CM + 12h
TD
12h CM + 12h
TD
48h

Syntaxe

44

LV2

See relevant language

Department

45

RENFORCEMENT
LV1

Littrature & Civilisation

46

*COMPETENCES
TRANSVERSALES

C2i
Franais

12h CM + 24h
TD
18h TP
6h CM + 12h
TD

* Information will be provided at the information meeting in September.

SUPERVISOR
C. Brasart
Lecteurs
M. Feith, M.
Mianowski
A. Ivol
M. Feith

G. Letissier

COURSE DESCRIPTION
UE 31 Syntax
This course will be an introduction to the syntax of English. We will study the simple and the
complex sentences by identifying the roles of the constituents at each level of analysis. From
a theoretical point of view, the traditional grammar approach will be combined with concepts
of the generative grammar.
Bibliography
Larreya, P. & Rivire, C. (1999, 2006), Grammaire explicative de langlais, Longman.
Quirk, R. & S. Greenbaum (1973), A University Grammar of English, Longman.
Radford, A. (2003) Syntax, A Minimalist Introduction, Cambridge University Press.
Rivire, C. (2004), Syntaxe simple lusage des anglicistes, Ophrys.
Wekker, H. & L. Haegeman (1985), A Modern Course in English Syntax, Routledge.
UE 31 Phonetics
The course aims at introducing the notion of stress through the analysis of stress-patterns in
the English language which are covered extensively. After a brief introduction of the syllable
structure, we will cover word-stress in isolation and in connected speech, and then stress in
compounds and phrases. The course is a prerequisite for the second semester: intonation. A
handout for the course, sounds as well as regular exercises, will be given on the intranet
(Madoc).
Bibliography
Jones, D., 1998, English Pronunciation Dictionary, revised by P. Roach and J. Hartman,
Cambridge: C.U.P.
Roach, P. English Phonetics and Phonology. A Practical Course, Cambridge: C.U.P.
Wells, J., 1990 (2000), Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, Harlow: Longman
UE 32 Translation
Introduction to prose and unseen translation (French-English; English-French).
A bibliography will be provided in class.
UE 32 Langue orale
Conversation with a language assistant.
UE 33 Lecture de documents (Civilisation) : The power of the past: historical landmarks in
civilization studies (12th-19th centuries)
This course will examine chronologically as well as conceptually the historical context of the
civilization of the British Isles. The lectures and tutorials will deal with several essential

aspects of the social, constitutional and cultural history of the four nations from the Middle
Ages to 1832:
1) The Origins of English Liberties: Magna Carta and the Model Parliament
2) The Reformation and the Civil Wars
3) The Glorious Revolution and the origins of parliamentary monarchy
4) The Age of Improvement
Students will be handed out a selection of historical documents for commentary analysis and
individual study.
Bibliography
Langford, Paul, ed. A Short Oxford History of The British Isles. Oxford: OUP, 2001.
Mioche, Antoine. Les grandes dates de l'histoire britannique. 2me dition. Paris: Hachette
Suprieur, 2010.
UE 33 Lecture de documents (Littrature) : Power, Domination and Alterity in
Shakespeare's Othello and Aphras Behn's Oroonoko
The focus points of this course are the topos of political and gender domination, of
empowering and disempowering the individual and the representation of alterity in two
seventeenth-century works: Shakespeares Othello (1604-1605) and Aphra Behns Oroonoko
(1688).
Bibliography
Shakespeare, Othello, ed Michael Neill. London: Oxford World's Classics, 2006.
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko and Other Writings, ed. Paul Salzman. London: Oxford Worlds
Classics, 2009.
Textbook
Aphra Behn, Oroonoko and Other Writings. Ed. Paul Salzman. Oxford Worlds Classics.
Oxford: OUP, 2009.
ODonnell, Mary Ann, Bernard Dhuicq and Guyonne Leduc. Aphra Behn (1640-1689):
Identity, Alterity, Ambiguity. Paris: LHarmattan, 2000.
Todd, Janet. Aphra Behn. New Casebooks. London: Macmillan, 1999.
UE 35 A Renforcement LV1 (Littrature) : From the Jazz Age to the 'Best War Ever' (1920s1940s).
The Great Gatsby as Modern Romance: A Social-Literary Study of Love in the Roaring
Twenties
This course proposes to see the 1920s through the rose-colored prism of the Jazz Age as
depicted in The Great Gatsby. A falsely high parenthesis in the interwar hiatus (1918-1939),
the period which will be studied through Fitzgeralds novel and Claytons film version of it is
a determining preamble to the crucial 30s. Even as we seek to inquire into the more

conventional (romantic) dimension of Fitzgeralds opuspartly relying on Denis de

Rougemonts landmark Love in the Western Worldour lectures and tutorials will focus upon
a number of anthropological analyses of the material culture in which Fitzgerald chose to
contextualize his love story (manners and dress and social codes; the definition of gender and
sexual roles in relation to socioeconomic status; ostentatious wealth and the symbolic and
material privileges of the leisure class). Thus, in the course of these analyses, we will be
scrutinizing the dark side of the Roaring Twentiesa period of hidden portents during which
the collective enthusiasm of a seemingly glamorous age was only a thin veneer behind which
lurked the all-too-familiar class tensions which would come to a head with the Great
Depression and the monumental socioeconomic, geopolitical, and cultural transformations
that would emerge in its wake.
A course reader will be handed out during the first lecture class.
Bibliography
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. London: Penguin Books, 1986 (Mandatory).
Clayton, Jack. The Great Gatsby. Los Angeles: Paramount Pictures, 2004 (Mandatory).
Rougemont, Denis de. Love in the Western World. New Jersey: Prinston UP, 1983 (Highly
recommended).
UE 35 B Renforcement LV1 (Civilisation) : Times of Crisis : Oscillating between Despair
and Hope
In collective memory, the New Deal era represents the high point of progressive politics in the
United States, as the Great Depression gave rise to the American welfare state system under
the governance of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1932-1945). During this period, US society
changed drastically, through the combined pressures of social movements, economic shifts
and political innovation within the spheres of government. This course will pay special
attention to the transformative quality of the era with a focus on the following themes:
The New Deal and the rise of the American welfare state
The dynamics of the labor movement and the emergence of modern unionism
The history of the Second World War
The home front : how World War Two transformed the American people
Bibliography
Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States from 1492 to the Present (1980)
Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror : A History of Multicultural America (1993)
Tim Robbins, Cradle Will Rock, DVD.
UE 41 Syntax
This course will be devoted to the study of complex sentences and non-finite subordinate
clauses.We will compare the analysis of foregrounding structures (clefting, pseudo-cleft
sentences) and other complex structures (extraposition, nominal relative). This analysis will

be rooted on texts so as to combine syntax and semantics and to introduce notions of

pragmatics.
Bibliography
Larreya, P. & Rivire, C. (1999, 2006), Grammaire explicative de langlais, Longman.
Quirk, R. & S. Greenbaum (1973), A University Grammar of English, Longman.
Radford, A. (2003) Syntax, A Minimalist Introduction, Cambridge University Press.
Wekker, H. & L. Haegeman (1985), A Modern Course in English Syntax, Routledge.
UE 41 Phonetics
The aim of the course is to offer students a general view of intonation patterns in English. For
this purpose, we will analyze intonation-patterns with the help of sounds and curves,
examining the relationships between syntax and intonation. We will then move on to the
phonology of intonation. A handout for the course, sounds, as well as regular exercises, will
be given on the intranet (Madoc).
Bibliography
Cruttenden, A. (1997). Intonation, Cambridge, CUP.
Nicaise A ; & Gray M. (1998). Lintonation de langlais. Paris, Armand Colin.
Roach, P. English Phonetics and Phonology. A Practical Course, Cambridge: C.U.P.
Wells, J.C. (2006). English Intonation An Introduction, Cambridge, CUP.
UE 42 Langue orale
Conversation with a language assistant.
UE 42 Traduction
Introduction to prose and unseen translation (French-English; English-French).
A bibliography will be provided in class.
UE 43 Lecture de documents (Civilisation) : Crises and Protests in the United States of
America (20th century)
This class deals with the major events that shaped the American society throughout the second
half of the 20th century. We will focus on the moments of international and domestic tensions
that illustrate how the country managed its doubts and fear about its political, social and
economic destiny. These crises include the Cold War, McCarthyism, the Civil Rigths
Movement, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and the 1970s economic crisis. We will
tease out how politicians (presidents) and civil societies reacted to these trying times and
transformed the American civilization.

Bibliography
Kaspi Andr, Les Amricains, 2. Les Etats-Unis de 1945 nos jours, Seuil, Paris, 2002.
Krout A. John & Rice S. Arnold, United States History Since 1865, 20th ed., New York,
HarperPerennial, 1991.
Martin Jean-Pierre, Royot Daniel, Eds., Histoire et civilisation des Etats-Unis : Textes et
documents comments du XVIIe sicle nos jours, 6me dition, A. Colin en 2005.
Vincent Bernard, Ed., Histoire des Etats-Unis, Flammarion, Paris, 1994.
Zinn Howard, The Twentieth Century: A Peoples History of the United States,
HarperPerennial, New York, 1998.
UE 43 Lecture de documents (Littrature) : Promises of New Beginnings: The Ideal of SelfRenewal in American Film and Literature
From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to The Iceman Cometh to The Gold Rush or The
Catcher in the Rye, American film and literature present a great wealth of narratives that
revolve around an imperative, almost moral, drive toward self-reinventionthe capacity to
project ones self and identity within an ideal future in order to emerge renewed from and
through a situation of (existential) crisis. By dealing with the theme of new beginnings in
narratives from literature as well as cinema, this course offers to investigate four different
narrative modes, each of which presents a different perspective on the ideal of self-renewal in
American film and literature:
Disenchantment, or the critical mode (krisis/separation/distance) (Hemingways The
Sun Also Rises)
Nostalgia, or the retrospective mode (Allens Midnight in Paris)
Mysticism, or the transcendental mode (Austers Moon Palace)
Subversion, or the parodic mode (Mamets American Buffalo; the Coen brothers The
Man who Wasnt There).
A course reader will be provided during the first lecture class.
Bibliography (full list available on Madoc)
Allen, Woody. Midnight in Paris. Paris: TF1 Vido, 2011.
Auster, Paul. Moon Palace. London; Boston: Faber and Faber, 1989.
Coen, Ethan and Joel Coen. The Man who Wasnt There. Hollywood: USA Films, 2002.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. London: Arrow Books, 2004. Chapters 3-4, 7, 9-10,
12.
Mamet, David. American Buffalo. New York: Grove Press, 1976.
UE 45 Renforcement LV1 (Littrature) : Emily Bronts Wuthering Heights: A Poetic
Novel
Wuthering Heights may be approached from a whole range of perspectives. The purpose of
this lecture is to highlight the poetic dimension of this most unconventional text. Indeed, the
novel is both steeped in the early Victorian era whilst transcending any fixed temporal

boundary lines. First, it will be shown that Bront is directly influenced by the Romantic
tradition to the extent that she could be described as a pantheist who saw the universe as a
whole. The writer, who lived a secluded life in Haworth vicarage in Yorkshire, was exposed to
most of the best-known Romantic poets, notably Byron and Shelley, through Blackwoods
magazine. It will be shown that Wuthering Heights derives from Bronts own poetic
production before using the prototypical figure of the Byronian rebel to study the character of
Heathcliff. Spatiality is seminal to this fiction both as applied to the wild moors that are made
vivid through graphic descriptions and to account for a most subjective vision which has
elicited many interpretations in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Students will be familiarised with the technique of close reading and given an introduction to
the aesthetics of Romanticism.
Bibliography
Emily Bront, Wuthering Heights, Int. and Notes by Pauline Nestor, London: Penguin
Classics, 2003.
A handout of poems will be given to students at the first lecture.
Grin, Winifred. Emily Bront: A Biography. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971.
Gezari, Janet. Emily Jane Bront: The Complete Poems. London: Penguin, 1992.
Marsh, Nicholas. Emily Bront: Wuthering Heights (Analysing Texts). Basingstoke:
Macmillan, 1999.
Pickett, Lyn. Emily Bront. New York: Barnes, 1989.
Stoneman, Patsy (ed.). Emily Bront: Wuthering Heights. Readers Guides to Essential
Criticism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000.
Swinburne, Charles Algernon. Emily Bront. Athaneum 16 (1883): 762-63.
Urquhart, Jane. Changing Heaven. Toronto McClelland, 1990.
UE 45 Renforcement LV1 (Civilisation) : Experiencing Revolutions , from Old Britain to
Modern Britain (1774-1849)
At the turn of the 19th century, Britain underwent major revolutions which transformed what
used to be described as Old Britain into a new modern country at the beginning of the 19th
century. Among the revolutions the country experienced, we will study the agrarian and
industrial revolutions which had a major impact on British economy on the one hand and on
British society at large on the other hand. Last but not least, the American revolution
somehow shook the foundations of the first British empire, leading Britain to reconsider many
of its economic, social and political views and beliefs, in the course of the 19th century.
Bibliography
Mandatory reading: Black Jeremy and Donald Macraild, Nineteenth-Century Britain,
Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 (BU)

Evans, E.J, The Forging of the Modern State, Early Industrial Britain, 1783-1870; Longman
Pearson, 2001.
Porter, Andrew ed., The Nineteenth Century, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001.
Royle, E., Revolutionary Britain: Reflections on the Threat of Revolution in Britain, 17891848, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2000.
Wood, Anthony, Nineteenth Century Britain, London, Longman, 1982.

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