Culture of Everyday Life

The Culture of Everyday Life: A User's manual In this course we will explore works produced in France that focus on the everyday and its growing impact on cultural expression. Beginning with key theories of the everyday (Debord, Barthes and Certeau), we will then focus on creative texts of the interwar period (reportage, le fait divers, surrealism), before turning to the postwar context and consumer society (Beauvoir, Perec and Ernaux). We will end with consideration of the everyday and its relation to postcolonialism in a recent novel by Leïla Slimani. Photography (Brassaï, Man Ray), film (Tati, Varda, Malle), and performance art (Sophie Calle) will also be considered.

The Culture of Everyday Life: A User's manual In this course we will explore works produced in France that focus on the everyday and its growing impact on cultural expression. Beginning with key theories of the everyday (Debord, Barthes and Certeau), we will then focus on creative texts of the interwar period (reportage, le fait divers, surrealism), before turning to the postwar context and consumer society (Beauvoir, Perec and Ernaux). We will end with consideration of the everyday and its relation to postcolonialism in a recent novel by Leïla Slimani. Photography (Brassaï, Man Ray), film …Read more