La France contemporaine à travers ses films

"Rice's La France contemporaine à travers ses films successfully fosters a dynamic learning of French language and culture through the study of French cinema. It should appeal to a broad range of learners and avid cinphiles, while providing interesting glimpses into some of Frances most complex and hotly debated cultural issues of today."
     —Cheira Belquellaoui, DePauw University, in French Review

Ideally suited for a culture course on contemporary French society as well as for any course intended to prepare students for a semester or year in France, La France contemporaine à travers ses films is an engaging textbook that combines written documents and films to present a lively and relevant picture of contemporary France. Noted author Anne-Christine Rice employs a three step approach to each chapter of the text. Students first gather information, then draw conclusions, and finally are asked to challenge their conclusions. The inclusion of a single modern French film in each chapter adds listening comprehension and authentic cultural material to the research and readings.

The topics covered in La France contemporaine à travers ses films are broad and numerous, pertaining to a wide variety of issues related to contemporary French society. The topics and the films themselves have been carefully selected in order to maximize student interest, foster a better understanding of contemporary France, and provide a balanced view of French society today.

La France contemporaine à travers ses films is truly a unique textbook: one that is flexible enough to allow chapters to be assigned in any order. Additionally, activities within the chapters can also stand alone, providing instructors the ability to assign those activities that best suit their time and interests.

Features:

• Concise yet thorough, this manageable text can easily be covered in a single semester.

• Unique, fresh and engaging approach to teaching French culture, accommodating a high interest level course with substantial material for classroom discussion and student interaction.

• Chapters end with more opportunities for research and study, affording students and instructors alike to further their knowledge of a particular concept, bringing to light the fact that there is always more to know.

• Flexible design and presentation affords instructors the ability to easily customize the text to fit their particular syllabus.

• Carefully chosen research opportunities, discussion topics, contemporary articles and interviews with actual French citizens provide students with a meaningful and relevant grasp of current French culture.

• Comprehensive Instructors Manual, available to qualified adopters, provides valuable teaching aids and suggested classroom activities.

• Viewing and discussing feature-length French films with strong, meaningful images of what France really looks like, how it operates, and its cultural norms leads students to a better understanding of a world outside their own.

Instructor Resources:

An electronic (PDF only) instructor's manual is available to qualified course instructors who have adopted the text for their course. To request a copy, click here.

Films:

The films are not included with purchase of the textbook.

• Je vai bien, ne t'en fais pas - (region 2 DVD available at Amazon.com; digital download available at iTunes)

• Entre Les Murs (The Class) - (DVD or digital download available at Amazon.com; digital download available at iTunes)

• L'esquive (Games of Love and Chance) - (DVD available at Amazon.com)

• L'Auberge Espagnole (The Spanish Apartment) - (DVD available at Amazon.com; digital download available at iTunes)

• Ressources humaines (Human Resources) - (DVD available at Amazon.com)

• Une hirondelle a fait le printemps (The Girl From Paris) - (DVD available at Amazon.com)

• Le Petit Lieutenant - (DVD available at Amazon.com; digital download available at iTunes)

• Le goût des autres (The Taste of Others) - (DVD available at Amazon.com)

About the Author:

Anne-Christine Rice is an instructor in the Department of Romance Languages at Tufts University, and is a frequent and in-demand conference speaker on the subject of integrating film into the college language curriculum. She completed her Masters degree and DEA (doctoral coursework) in Angers, France, and holds a CAPES (French national certification for teaching). She is an advisory editor for Focus.