This course explores the connection between politics, art, and literature in France from the Revolution of 1789 through the Jazz Age, particularly in the countercultural artistic realms known as Bohemia. From the barricades of 1830 to the Moulin Rouge in the 1890s to Americans in Paris in the interwar, the course weaves together the history of the French avant-garde with the upheaval of political, economic, sexual, and anti-colonial/anti-racist revolutions. We investigate the shifting relationship in French culture between political radicalism and artistic/literary rebellion.
- Teacher: Patricia Tilburg