Fall 2020
Digital Humanities 150: User Experience Design
Instructor:This course introduces the fields of UX research and design. It covers UX design methods and process, including ethnographic field research, persona-scenario development, information architecture, prototyping, and usability testing. Students will learn by hands-on practice in a human-centered process : how to understand users, how to design interface & interaction for users, and how to evaluate and communicate user experience design with users.
French 203: Contemporary Francophone Literature
Instructor: Alain MabanckouAhmadou Kourouma showed in Les Soleils des Indépendances the disillusionments after the independences of the African nations. Camara Laye, with L’Enfant noir, distinguished himself by painting the Africa of his childhood when African writers were expected to be very socially committed. Mariama Bâ in Une si longue lettre presents the voices of African women. This course is intended to approach the literature of French-speaking black Africa. It helps to understand how the novel has always been close to African history, but increasingly stands out, with the globalization of the world.
French 207: The Crisis of Universalism
Instructor: Laure MuratWhy French universalism, as a project for a fairer society, is now in crisis? How does it compare specifically to the American model? As a political and philosophical concept, universalism has always been at the chore of the debates about democracy in France. From revolutionary idealism to post-colonial era, we will analyze historically the evolution of an idea and its impact on migration, minorities, gender and race. The course will be taught in French.
French 495: Teaching College French
Instructor: Kimberly JansmaFrench 495 provides professional development for graduate teaching assistants during their first quarter of teaching French at UCLA. The focus is developing instructors who can teach the French language in context and facilitate meaningful interaction. Instructional activities will be based on empirically based theories of second language acquisition. We will demonstrate a variety of activity formats and media to help instructors enhance the learning experience in the classroom as well as in digital environments. Taught in English and French.
For the syllabus, please click here
Italian 216B: Ariosto and Renaissance Epic: Love and War
Instructor:This course focuses on Ariosto’s Orlando furioso and Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata. Themes include the following: the influence of classical models (especially of Virgil’s Aeneid); the interplay between love and war; questions of gender; the often (though not always) violent encounters between Islam and Christianity in the early modern age; the political and theological repercussions of the geographical explorations beyond the Mediterranean. Students will be encouraged to analyze and discuss the primary texts examined in this course in light of the main critical currents that have emerged on the subject of Renaissance epic over the last thirty years. While the weekly discussions will be conducted in English, the Orlando furioso and the Gerusalemme liberata will be read in Italian.
For more information on this course, please click here
Scandinavian 245A: Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, and Late 19th-Century Scandinavian Drama
Instructor: Arne LundeThis course will focus on gender, sexuality, class difference, and crisis in the dramatic works of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and his key rival, Sweden’s August Strindberg. The two most important European playwrights of their epoch in the 1880s and 1890s, both created their greatest plays in self-imposed exile on the Continent in Germany, Italy, France, et al. Course lectures, readings, and discussions will further illuminate their artistry and influence within the cultural, political, and social history of their times. Course taught in English.