Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:50:19.825Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Acting the Dreyfus Affair: History and Theater in the French Classroom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Julie Fette
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As a professor of French Studies, I had often wished to develop a course in which students could mount a play in French. Its pedagogical value seemed obvious: performing in a foreign language and managing a theatrical production could help students increase their knowledge of French society while improving pronunciation and vocabulary. However, my lack of expertise in the theory and practice of theater stymied me. I had also often longed to teach a course about the Dreyfus affair. The story of a French officer falsely convicted of selling military secrets to the Germans, which tore apart French society for a decade, it contains plenteous teachable issues about France: nationalism, anti-Semitism, the birth of intellectuals, treason and raison d'état, the rise of the modern press and public opinion, the separation of church and state, Third Republic politics, military justice, Franco-German rivalries, and even handwriting analysis. But I doubted that a French department would welcome a whole course just on the Dreyfus affair.

Type
The Changing Profession
Information
PMLA , Volume 126 , Issue 3 , May 2011 , pp. 737 - 745
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Beeman, William O. “Performance Theory in an Anthropology Program.” Teaching Performance Studies. Ed. Stucky, Nathan and Wimmer, Cynthia. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2002. 85–97. Print.Google Scholar
Bredin, Jean-Denis. L'Affaire. Paris: Fayard, 1993. Print.Google Scholar
Burns, Michael. Histoire d'une famille française, les Dreyfus: L'émancipation, l'Affaire, Vichy. Trans. Bonne, Béatrice. Paris: Fayard, 1994. Print.Google Scholar
Dupoyet, Pierrette. Dreyfus, l'Affaire. Cannes: Bernard, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Guillory, John. “The Very Idea of Pedagogy.” Profession (2002): 164–71. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Shannon. “Professing Performance: Disciplinary Genealogies”. Drama Review 45.1 (2001): 84–95. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, Jonathan. “Reflection on How the Theatre Teaches”. Journal of Aesthetic Education 39.4 (2005): 20–30. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Noiriel, Gérard. Histoire, théâtre & politique. Marseille: Agone, 2009. Print.Google Scholar
Nouryeh, Andrea J. “The Dramaturg as Professor: Riding the Roller Coaster of Authority in Linking a Seminar to a Production”. Theatre Topics 11.2 (2001): 159–71. Print.Google Scholar
Prisoner of Honor. Dir. Russell, Ken. HBO, 1991. VHS.Google Scholar
Suleiman, Susan Rubin. “The Literary Significance of the Dreyfus Affair.” The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth, and Justice. Ed. Kleeblatt, Norman L. Berkeley: U of California P, 1987. 117–39. Print.Google Scholar
Taylor, Diana. “Translating Performance.” Profession (2002): 44–50. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar