49-3353HN Taste and Consumption in French History: Honors

We tend to associate all things French, whether fashions, luxury goods, fine restaurants, champagne, or French women themselves, with good taste and chic. This course explores how notions of taste and practices of consumption have changed in France from ca. 1650 to ca. 1914, from the absolutist court to the modern department store. Against a historical background of dramatic economic, political, social and cultural change, we will explore how aesthetic, consumerist and critical practices associated with taste became shifting, highly charged and contested markers of individual and group (e.g., national, class and gender) identity and even political position, and will examine different historically-applied theories about the motives that have driven or inspired people to consume, use and display certain goods or appreciate particular aesthetic forms. We will read primary and secondary sources (none in French). This course provides comparative historical insight to help students understand the historicity of the contemporary classed and gendered consumption regimes in which we live today. This is an Honors class. In addition to other possible pre-requisites, students need a minimum G.P.A. of 3.50 or higher to enroll.

3 Credits
GA HI
Requirements 3.5 or Higher GPA