Modern French Literary Studies in the Classroom: Pedagogical Strategies (review)

While the field of second language acquisition has no shortage of theories and methodologies, exposed and debated in journals and books, and neatly condensed in a number of excellent works tailored for beginning and experienced "language" instructors, the same cannot be said of cultural and literary studies. That is, there are no handbooks for how to teach the nineteenth-century novel, for example. This is probably a good thing, given the myriad angles or even goals one could have, and the wide-open corpus of novels available, but it is also true that there is precious little guidance offered to graduate students or available to current faculty on how to approach – or improve – teaching "French Studies" after the beginning and intermediate language courses. This recent book on pedagogical strategies for "modern French literary studies" is anything but a manual or cookbook for teaching literature and culture. It is, however, a collection of twenty thoughtful essays written by teacher-scholars to illustrate and stimulate what editor Charles Stivale underlines in the first sentence of his introduction: "The operative principle that inspires this volume is succinct and deserves all the emphasis one can muster: TEACHING MATTERS" (1). Indeed, one could argue, as Stivale and his co-contributors do, directly and indirectly, that the survival, or at least good health, of our discipline depends on good teaching. This volume, without falling into simplistic or fatalistic formulas, provides a wealth of ideas and inspiration to tackling the difficult pedagogical aspects of our field, from a multitude of positions that have in common a concern and enthusiasm for French studies. It is a welcome and highly recommended book that will appeal to both new and seasoned teachers, and even to departmental chairs and administrators, for it articulates the relevancy of literature and cultural studies as it offers food for thought on how and what we teach.

It would be impossible in a short review to give fair treatment to all twenty essays, even though each deserves consideration. I will thus paint only the broad lines of the four sections, with due mention of the contributors. In the first section, "Instructing Readers: Linguistic and Literary Frameworks," the focus falls on integrating language and literary studies, and on fostering creativity as well as critical thinking in students. Kate Paesani examines the use of literature in beginning and intermediate language classes while David Powell shows how linguistics, from grammar to phonetics, can be incorporated into the study of literature. Gayle Levy shows how to read Mallarmé's difficult poem Un coup de dés in what she calls a polyphonic mode, dans tous les sens, tapping into a creative (and not strictly interpretive, exegetic) approach that even students in introductory literature classes can appreciate and that prepares them for other modernist works. The last essay in this section, by Lawrence Porter, Anita Alkhas, and Larry Kuiper, also places the importance on creativity and developing critical thinking, to foster good reading and writing practices, as well as originality and self-expression.

The second part, "Exploring the Cultural: Pedagogical Devices," tackles the false dichotomy of literature and culture on the one hand, showing, with examples of genuine integration, at the undergraduate level, of cultural and literary studies with innovative and engaging approaches. Anne McCall describes her experience incorporating cultural studies into the traditional literature survey, in addition to employing group work in undergraduate research projects. This theme of collaborative work and integrating cultural studies also informs Adrianna Paliyenko's innovative course entitled "The cultural legacy of nineteenth-century France" in which students made PowerPoint presentations. Similarly, Kathryn Grossman shows how to enliven a course on Hugo with CD-Rom technologies. Véronique Flambard-Weisbart gives us an example of a global simulation for a course on literature and culture, while John Anzalone uses the concept of margins to teach fin-de-siècle texts at a "smallliberalartscollege" (sic, 108). Finally, Michael Garval brings together a...