This course examines the role of gender in French and American politics today, with an emphasis on comparative analyses of a variety of news media and country-specific case studies. From the shifting face of Marianne to Marine Le Pen, we will isolate visible norms surrounding femininity on the contemporary French political stage as well as counter-currents to those norms represented by intersectional feminist political actors and activists such as Rokhaya Diallo and Fatou Diome. The course is also designed to en-courage students to explore politics and gender as it relates to their professional inter-ests. What can a gendered understanding of power and politics add to work in develop-ment? To national security? To international education management? Students will give two presentations on a text of their choice over the course of the semester, intended to give them an opportunity to bring to the fore of class discussion and content their indi-vidual professional and/or academic interests.

Course components include:

· Creation of a Middcreate website

· Blogs reflections (4), 2 versions each

· Zoom conversations (3) on course themes with a Masters student at the Univer-sity of Corsica Pasquale Paoli

· Vocabulary quizzes (4)

· Final live research essay, using Camtasia or iMovie

· Cahier and self-evaluation

Other course requirements include continuous and spontaneous participation both in class and online, and general preparedness for class each day (completion of daily as-signments such as readings, reading responses, resumes of Radio France Internationale news stories, and so on).

This course will be conducted entirely in French, and all texts studied will be in French. Required language proficiency: ACTFL Intermediate-low

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