Introductory description

N/A

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Introduction: what is the left?
   2.Key moments in the history of the French left: 1936, 1968, 1981.
2. The rise and fall of the Communist Party.
3. The Socialist current I: 1945-1981
   5.The Socialist current II: 1981-
   6.Reading week
4. The far left
5. The trade union movement I: 1945-1981.
6. The trade union movement Il: 1981-
   10.The left in recent elections.
7. lntellectuals and the left.
   12.Conclusions.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Use the knowledge acquired in lectures and seminars and from prescribed viewing and reading as the basis for individual thinking and research
• Demonstrate relevant factual knowledge about the contexts, topics and issues under discussion and display an understanding of the materials studied at a linguistic and thematic level.
• Communicate effectively, both orally and in writing, what has been learned
• Engage in scholarly debates about areas under discussion.
• Understand the various ways in which the events and themes being studied can be interpreted.
• Display an understanding of the relationship between the areas of study located in the past with the situation today
• Show a grasp of relevant IT skills with regard to information-gathering and the presentation of material

Indicative reading list

• Anderson, Perry (ed.), Mapping the West European Left, London, Verso, 1994.
• Jean-Jacques Becker and G. Candar (eds.), Histoire des Gauches en France, Paris, La Découverte, 2002. (2 vols.)
• Serge Halimi, Quand la Gauche essayait. Les Leçons de l'exercise du pouvoir 1924, 1936, 1944, 1981, Paris, Arléa, 2000.
• Sudir Hazareesingh, Political Traditions in Modern France, Oxford, OUP, 1994. Nick Hewlett, Modern French Politics. Analysing Conflict and Consensus since 1945, Cambridge, Polity, 1998.
• Jane Jenson, 'The French Left, 1945-1988', New Left Review no 171 , Sept/Oct 1988.
• RW Johnson, The Long March of the French Left, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1981.
• René Mouriaux, Le Syndicalisme en France, Paris, PUF/Que sais-je, 2005.
• Jean Touchard, La Gauche en France depuis 1900, Paris, Points/Histoire, 1989.
• Noblecourt, Michel, Les Syndicats en Questions, Paris, Editions Ouvrières, 1992.
• Hugues Portelli, Le Parti Socialiste, Paris, Montchrestien, 1992.
• Michel Winock, La Gauche en France, Paris, Perrin, 2006.

International

All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of the UK and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.

Subject specific skills

This module will develop students’ linguistic skills through engaging with primary materials in the target language. It will build students’ capacity to engage with aspects of French culture through analysis of this primary material and through seminar discussion aimed at deeper critical thinking. In particular, students’ awareness of the left & trade unions in France will be enhanced through lectures and seminars which engage in scholarship in the field.

Transferable skills

All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and their target language(s), intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the target language(s), personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.