116-223 France and the Pacific

Note

Available as 116-323 at 3rd-year level.

Availability

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

116-115 or 116-202, or equivalent.

Contact

Subject Description

In this subject, the following issues or themes will be examined: voyages of discovery (Bougainville's Voyage autour du monde); the Pacific in relation to 18th Century philosophical thought (Diderot's Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville); the Tahitian mirage (Loti's Mariage de Loti, Gauguin, etc.); missions and the decline of traditional Tahitian culture (Segalen's ethnographic novel Les Immémoriaux); New Caledonia, the history of its colonisation, its present political and economic situation, with special attention given to the Accords de Matignon and the forthcoming referendum on independence. Students who complete this subject should: read in French with confidence literary, travel, political, sociological texts dealing with the Pacific; demonstrate a general knowledge of the history of the impact of the French presence in the South Pacific; appreciate the influence of the Pacific Islands (Tahiti) on the French collective imagination and on literature and the arts; be aware of the present political and social problems in New-Caledonia and French Polynesia.

Assessment

one 2-hour test (40%); one essay (not more than 1500 words) (35%); oral presentation and class participation equivalent to not more than 1500 words (25%).

Prescribed Texts

• Henningham S, France and the South Pacific: A Contemporary History. Allen and Unwin 1992.
• Loti P, Le Mariage de Loti. Flammarion.