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IN SEARCH OF KNOWLEDGE: FINDING YOUNG FRENCH GIRL'S TALES (1880-1920)

Presentation of the Research Project

What does “coming of age” suggest? And more precisely, what does it mean to “become a woman” – (as Simone de Beauvoir has famously stated it). In other words, how do girls get the proper and relevant knowledge and support to grow and find their adulthood path into life? To answer these questions, between June 19 and July 14 2017, our research group has been focusing on young women. Multidisciplinary and grounded in literature, history, social sciences, cultural studies, digital humanities and gender studies, our research group taught us to be “collectors” of material history. And our final project is this website (designed and created altogether), that curates a few chosen serial of postcards, and attempts at re-creating the stories of women who, at that epoch, often stayed silenced.
Concretely, this is how we proceeded: we took as a point of departure, Maryanne Satrapi’s Persepolis (a comic book and a movie that narrate her coming of age in the Iran of the early 90’s). We also spent some time thinking about remembering (how you can access lost memories), and discussed what everybody in the group meant by "Feminism" by sharing iconic images of our times. Thanks to the reading of articles and secondary sources, we then discussed how girls managed to get access to knowledge and science in the patriarchal France of the years 1880-1920. This made it possible for us to analyze our choice of postcards with interesting background data.

ROUGH DESCRIPTION OF WHAT WE DID IN THE SUMMER OF 2017

Monday, June 19 – Introduction to the research topic – Very broadly, what is research? What is a research paper? How do people do research in Science and in the Humanities? Are there differences? How do we get access to knowledge today? How do you think that young girls gained access to knowledge in the nineteenth century?
+ Introduction to remembrances and remembering via Patrick Chamoiseau’s novel Childhood.

Tuesday, June 20 – Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Marjane Satrapi) –

Book versus movie – which structure? Which construction? Why?
What are the key moments of the movie?
What does this movie tell us about the way a little girl turned into a young woman? (focuse on questions of feminism, gender, race, religion etc.)
The matter of the Bildungsroman.
Why and how is Persepolis a Bildungsroman?
Searching for academic articles / FLRC (on computers)
Reading of an academic article – an initiation

Wednesday, June 21 – Etiquette & background history on French women

IN FLRC - Type (and then discuss) your response to Maier’s article. Then, let’s share our work and look at it altogether. Are there things to change/edit? If we put everything that you work on together, do we have a better common response to the article? What can we do? – Let’s summarize the whole article together for good.
IN MASON 220 – Read (and discuss) a Wikipedia page on French women. Is there anything that focuses on XIX^th century? Anything to change/edit?
Let’s look at old etiquette books together. What do they tell us about the status of women? Have things changed? How?
Then, for fun, in groups on 2 or 3, find etiquette suggestions for your century!
Let’s look at more recent articles + let’s do a pop-quiz. What do they tell us about the way society has evolved today?

Thursday, June 22 – Feminism in XIX^th century

What is feminism for you? Let’s discuss what you thought and what you found!
Look again at your “etiquettes” texts then, for fun, in groups on 2 or 3, find and write some etiquette suggestions for your own century!
Then, there is a lot for you to learn, so I will do several Powerpoints. Please, ask questions, take notes as much as you can! All this information is going to be quite helpful for you when you will be working on the young women’s voices…

French History between Louis XIV and 1945
French fashion (especially for women) between the XVIIIth and the XIXth century
The question of gender and of masculinity in XIXth century France

Monday, June 26 – Honnold Mudd Library visit

Your common article (review of Maier) – reading, presentation, suggestions etc.
Library “scavenger hunt” – finding secondary sources.

You can decide to do this individually or as a group – but whatever you chose, please follow the same path that is to be followed in class: be dedicated to your task, and do not use your cell-phone or be distracted!
Also, remember that libraries are quiet places where people work and study – so do not be too loud.
At 3 or 3.15pm, I will walk with you to the library. There, your task will be to find information about women (and possibly girls!) in XIX^th century France. You can use the computers there, you can talk to librarians and ask them questions (always a good idea!), you can simply walk through the bookshelves and search for yourself.
In the end, each of you has to have found a book (aka secondary sources) that you have to take time to stroll through / look at enough to be able to present briefly and orally to the whole class tomorrow. You will have all the remaining time (hence until 4.30pm) for this task. Do not forget to take a lot of noted and remember that looking at the book’s outline and at the introduction is often the best way of finding good and interesting cues.

Tuesday, June 27 – Work on oral presentation, and introduction to the postcards

Oral presentation of your secondary sources: listen carefully to each other’s and ask each other questions + comments on possible ways of making the oral presentation better etc.
What have you learned from your library’s hunt? What was the most (and the least) useful to you? Why? Do you feel as comfortable searching in the library as on a computer? Why? And finally, what do you think the advantages of library searches can be?
First encounter with the postcards – how to describe them? Can you already create stories out of them? How?

Wednesday, June 28 – More background information on French Women (via McMillan’s book)

The whole class today will be quieter / more scholarly and dedicated to knowing even more about women in France at the end of the XIX^th century: we will read aloud together part of a historical essay/book on French women, and take time discussing it. The idea is that everybody shall from now on have a good grasps about the lives of the women to whom you are going to create voices.

Thursday, June 29 – Visit of an Old Collection Library (Denison, on Scripps Campus): how do you search old items in such collections? What are the visit "etiquettes" for places that collect old documents? + visit of “feminist” remains and signs on Scripps campus.

Wednesday, July 5 – Session dedicated to the postcards: choosing a serial and beginning working on it.

Thursday, July 6 – Session dedicated to Digital Humanities and Scalar, given in Honnold Mudd Digital Tool Shed by Eddie Surman.

Monday, July 10 – Work on the Scalar website and corrections/edits of your personal postcards analysis (put on Scalar)

Tuesday, July 11 – Finishing up Scalar’s website & prepping for Wednesday’s group oral presentation.

Wednesday, July 12 – Research Presentations

Thursday, July 13 – Finishing up Friday’s poster!

This page references:

Collectionneuse de cartes