#  French 161: Reading Proust, In Search of Lost Time 

 





 Semester:   Spring 

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 Year offered:  2024 

 

 

 

In this seminar, we will work our way through Marcel Proust’s multi-volume novel, A la recherche du temps perdu, published between 1913 and 1927, reading some volumes in their entirety and selections of others as we study a variety of themes upon which Proust touches including love, art, death, time, memory, modernity, sexuality, and class. Our goal is threefold: first, to gain a critical understanding of Proust’s novel through our own readings and analyses; second, to engage with the philosophers, theorists, and critics for whom Proust’s work has served as a key interlocutor and object of study; and third, to understand Proust’s importance for twentieth-century literature and thought and his continued appeal today. Secondary readings may include texts by Barthes, Benjamin, Bersani, Carson, Deleuze, Kristeva, and Sedgwick.