Littérature anglophone

COURS DE LITTÉRATURE ANGLOPHONE 2025-2026

FIRST SEMESTER

Première année

Aims

- Learning about literature from diverse anglophone cultures, getting acquainted with literary issues and learning how to formulate and present a literary question

Bibliography

- L’analyse textuelle en anglais, Terence Hugues et Claire Patin

- How Poetry Works, Philip Davies Roberts

L1 S1 Majeure – UE2 Lire les littératures anglophones (18h)

DL21EM03

Contents

This course is an introduction to literature written in English. Using The Poet X (2018) by Elizabeth Acevedo as the work of reference for the semester, the class will provide students with the tools for literary analysis (genre, voice, point of vieux, composition, figures, etc.), all the while introducing them to a variety of literary questions. A brochure of complementary texts will also be provided by each tutor.

Evaluation

Reading reports (whether oral or written) of texts studied in class, diverse literary and methodological exercises (how to annotate a text, what to look for in a literary text), reading from a literary text in public… Specifications and a methodological bibliography will be provided by each tutor.

Tutors

Yannick Blec, Audrey Fogels, Andrée-Anne Kekeh, ATER

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Deuxième année

L2 S3 Majeure- UE9 Etude des littératures anglophones : Approfondissement - (30h)

DL23EM01

=> Group 1 : Towards literary Emancipation : 19^th century American literature (1830-1865)

Teacher : Audrey Fogels

Varying critical angles as well as adopting a text-based and close reading approach, the class will introduce students to key 19c American works. Read in light of mid-19^th century American debates on cultural emancipation and the place of European literary models ; political questions like slavery, women’s rights ; but also in light of literary movements and modes (gothic tradition, romanticism, sentimentalism) and generic specificities (short stories, romance, slave narrative, poem), the class aims to highlight the entanglement between poetics and politics, attending to the way 19c American texts contribute (or not) to the creation of a distinct American voice and tradition. 

To pass the class : Regular in class response papers and/or short group presentations and/or close analysis. Two final in-class exam. Computers not allowed in class !

=> Group 2  : Poetry in 20th century United States : innovation and diversity

Teacher : Elise Angioi

In the 20th century, the United States went through dramatic social and political struggles and transformation, which was reflected in the various waves of poetic experiments that occurred throughout the century. Poets worked with new forms, new voices, new themes, and even new languages, thus opening the field of poetry to various types of otherness. The goal of this class will be to get familiar with this very rich poetic history and with the many forms poetry takes throughout the 20th century, and to develop the tools to analyze poetry. In each class, we will read a couple of poets and think about their work in conjunction with its historical and cultural context. Amongst the poets we will read are Edna St Vincent Millay, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsberg, Audre Lorde... 

The class is very much discussion based, so you are expected to read the poetic material before each class to be able to share your thoughts on the poems (a booklet will be handed out at the beginning of the semester, and will be available online).

=> Group 3 : Zombies, Clones, and What Remains : Trauma and Survival in Zone One and Never Let Me Go

Teacher : Gwen Le Cor

What happens after the world ends—not with a bang, but with a slow unraveling ? This course examines how contemporary dystopian fiction represents trauma and survival through the figures of the zombie and the clone. Focusing on Colson Whitehead’s Zone One and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, we will explore how these texts use speculative motifs to grapple with trauma, memory and identity in a posthuman age.

Rather than centering on dramatic action or rebellion, these texts dwell in the aftermath : the quiet, ambiguous lives of those who endure. Through close narrative analysis, we will explore how voice and style give shape to trauma and how dystopian fiction reimagines the question of what it means to endure.

Expect lively discussions, reading games, creative projects, and analytical writing as we think with zombies and clones about what remains after catastrophe.

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L2 S3 Mineure Litté, arts et médias - UE11 Commenter le texte littéraire - (30h)

Tutor : Andrée-Anne Kekeh-Dika

“A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a re-reader” writer Vladimir Nabokov states in Conferences on Literature (1980). This course will address the ways in which one can actively engage in dealing with the “singularity” of literature (Derek Attridge, 2008). Emphasis will be placed not necessarily on “what” any given literary text may say but on “how” it works, (Morrison, 1970 ; Alferi, 1991). Drawing on various genres and forms (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, essays, interviews…) focus will be placed on the labor of reading and discussing literary material, paying close attention to the various ways in which literature dismisses the too comfortable certainties of the real world and brings out its own “truth” (Dickinson, 1868 ; Paley, 1959 ; Gass, 1996).

Part of the working material and a bibliography will be circulated in class

• Pierre Alféri, Chercher une phrase (1991)
• Derek Attridge, The Singularity of Literature (2008)
• Emily Dickinson, “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant” (1868/1945)
• Gass, William, Finding a Form (1996)
• Goldenstein, Jean-Pierre, Entrées en littérature (1990)
• Morrison, Toni, The Bluest Eye (1970)
• Nabokov, Vladimir, Conferences on Literature I (1980)

N.B. Part of the working material and a bibliography will be circulated in class.

Requirements and evaluation

Regular attendance is required in this course. Students must have read course material before coming to class and be prepared to participate in class discussions. Grades will be given for oral participation.

Evaluation will include :

• one or two informal response papers (one-page long) about the topic discussed in class + Oral participation 10%
• Mid-term exam 30%
• Oral exam 20%
• Final exam 40%

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L2 S3 Mineure Litté, arts et médias - UE11 Argumentation critique - (30h)

DL23EN05

Tutor : Elise Angioi

Ce cours a pour but de développer l’analyse critique pour la littérature. À travers des exercices de lecture et d’écriture, il s’agira de s’approprier les méthodes de l’argumentation de sorte à construire des démonstrations sur des textes et des notions littéraires. Nous étudierons différents types de textes critiques sur la littérature (allant d’articles de presse à des essais universitaires) pour en comprendre les stratégies argumentatives et rhétoriques. À partir de ces lectures critiques et de l’analyse de textes littéraires, nous travaillerons des compétences de l’écriture argumentative (résumer l’argument de quelqu’un d’autre, exprimer son point de vue, développer son propre argument, etc.). Les textes à étudier seront fournis en cours et seront disponibles sur la page Moodle du cours.

Modalités d’évaluation : présentation orale en groupe, 2 DST

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Troisième année

L3 S5 Majeure – UE17 - Etudes des littératures anglophones : niveau avancé 30h

DL25EM01

=> Group 1 : English literary Studies : heritage and practice

Tutor : Claire Joubert

Academic training must take stock of the rapid cultural changes of the last decades, with the shifts to mass media, digital, and IA forms of expression and communication which reshape what we mean by literature and what we do when we study English literature.

But literary study has gone through similar major shifts across the centuries. This course proposes a historical overview of the evolution of both literature and literary study in the UK and the Empire, with a view to contextualise and develop current practices of the discipline.

Texts and extracts from British and Anglophone literatures of the 16^th to 21st century ; modalities of assessment (weekly reading and tests + 2 written essays) to be specified at the beginning of term.

Course texts :

- Françoise Grellet et Marie-Hélène Valentin, An Introduction to English Literature, Hachette supérieur (5 successive editions from 1984 to 2013, all are acceptable).

- Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Penguin, 2007.

=> Group 2 (CAPES) : Francis Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

Tutors : Audrey Fogels & Stéphane Vanderhaeghe

This class is primarily meant for L3 students who would like to take the CAPES exam in order to become English teachers. It will focus on The Great Gatsby by F. S. Fitzgerald. 

Students should acquire and read the novel before the beginning of the class. 

Evaluation : class discussions, oral presentations, 2 written exams

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L3 S5 Mineure Litté, arts et médias – UE19 – Atelier et projet – 30h

Tutors : Vincent Broqua et ATER

In this interactive class, you will write a blog article on a topic that you will choose and that we will discuss. Most of the semester is devoted to conversations about the topics, to writing the articles, to helping each other do it, and to learn how to write in a different style. In other words : while this class has to do with Anglophone culture, it doesn’t have a specific topic. together we will build a class based on your input. 

Aims

- This course is a writing workshop : you produce articles, podcasts, etc. on the literature and culture of English-speaking countries.

- This is also a way to know more about what students do in Master’s degrees (notably MC2L, MLCC, MEEF...). 

- This course will also allow you to explore other formal means of expression within your blog articles.

Exercises

- one short oral presentation and one blog article about a topic relative to anglophone culture

- Discussing each other’s articles

- helping each other with their writing

- during the last six weeks of the semester, you’ll have to find other forms of expression within a second blog article that you’ll write on a topic related to Anglophone culture.