 2014 - 2015 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 0680-5147-01 | Testimonial Written Discourses of the French Revolution: the | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| FACULTY OF HUMANITIES | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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University credit hours: 4.0
Course description
The seminar examines theoretical and historical approaches of testimony in the French field. Defined as a complex speech act, giving testimony must be analyzed through communicative and pragmatic approaches while both addressor and addressee are taken into consideration. The dynamic links existing between testimony and institutions will be the next object of investigation and analysis. In order to be turned into a testimony, the perception or experience narrative has to be validated as important and approved as of vital concern for the society.
The following questions will be discussed in class: what are the relationships between the individual beliefs of the witness and the doxa, between him and the collective patrimony shared by the collective within the witness's life and with which he wants to communicate? What are the tensions existing between different ethical commitments in the composition of testimony and how to resolve them? What are the tensions between the specific narrative procedures adapted to a particular content and existing rhetorical conventions; the influence of this tension on the communication between addressor and addressee. What is the relationship between the individual artistic features of representation and the truth value of the testimony? What is the connection between the memory process, the act of testimony and the chosen narrative structure?
By using a specific corpus defined in time and space, namely, French Revolution's written testimonies, our task is to open a new inquiry field within testimonies' studies.
The following questions will be discussed in class: what are the relationships between the individual beliefs of the witness and the doxa, between him and the collective patrimony shared by the collective within the witness's life and with which he wants to communicate? What are the tensions existing between different ethical commitments in the composition of testimony and how to resolve them? What are the tensions between the specific narrative procedures adapted to a particular content and existing rhetorical conventions; the influence of this tension on the communication between addressor and addressee. What is the relationship between the individual artistic features of representation and the truth value of the testimony? What is the connection between the memory process, the act of testimony and the chosen narrative structure?
By using a specific corpus defined in time and space, namely, French Revolution's written testimonies, our task is to open a new inquiry field within testimonies' studies.