The Ranums' Panat Times

This syllabus was used for my course entitled

Topics in the Cultural History of Early Modern France

Professor Ranum History 100.320

What does the phrase longue durée mean? Is your response: "I am not supposed to have to know French to take this course"? If so, consider yourself very probably lost forever to the study of cultural history! Not that the phrase longue durée is a key to unlocking cultural- historical secrets. No, indeed.

One does not, I repeat not, have to know French to take this course. Longue durée is, however, a phrase that is not easily translated–long duration does the job on only one level of meaning–but there is more to it than one level. Among historians, and Fernand Braudel in particular, long duration took on special meaning. Something like a concept, but not quite, and something like a chronological term, long duration came to be used to describe many, many historical features that may scarcely change for centuries. The wearing of black for certain types of mourning may be considered an example. Mourning is certainly a fact of life that has cultural ramifications, yet it cannot be studied easily within the usual chronological or thematic categories–say the 17th century or the Age of Louis XIV.

Your openness to research and reflection of the meanings of words is what is at stake, not whether or not you know what longue durée means. Every word used in this course will be open to collective scrutiny. We must work together to work out what we are talking about. Cultural history rests on the study of language, as does history in general, but in cultural history the themes, the concepts, and even the "subject" must be carefully scrutinized in order to avoid a collapse into "theory" or worse, antiquarianism.

Written Work

There will be two written assignments in this course. The first is propadeutic. We must find out if your skills of analysis and writing are up to par. Answer one question, in three pages. Discern and characterize the "private" and "communitarian" aspects of religious belief and practice in the life of the Guerre family. Take N.Z. Davis's, The Return of Martin Guerre for your only source.

The second assignment will be from eight to ten pages on some theme that joins the reading of Montaigne's Travel Journals to another reading of your choice. There will also be a final exam in the course.

I. The French Language as a Historical Subject and Cultural Criticism
Excerpt from Du Bellay, Défense et Illustration
Excerpt from dictionaries and encyclopedias, on the word "French"
Fumaroli, The Genius of the French Language

II. Warrior Culture
Excerpt from Montluc, Memoires
Photographs of battle pictures, portraits, castles
Neuschel, Word of Honor, pp. 38-58, 103-131
R. Herr on the Duel (summarized in class)

III. Peasant Families and Cultures
Etchings and paintings of peasants, Champaigne to Boucher
N.Z. Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre
Video film of the same

IV. Masculinity and Femininity in Culture
Portraits of amazons, judges, courtiers, Louis XIV
L. Roubin, "Male Space and Female Space in the Provençal Community," in Forster and Ranum, Rural Society in France, pp. 152-180
McGowan, Ideal Forms in the Age of Ronsard, pp. 159-207
Lougee, Le Paradis des Femmes, pp. 11-55 (this book is in English)

V. Urban Artisanal Culture
Etchings of work places and skills (XVIth to XVIIIth centuries)
Excerpts from Palissy, Paré, Ménétra
D. Farr, Hands of Honor, pp. 13-75, 223-260
Printing and its influence on artisanal culture; "how-to" books

VI. Elite Urban Society and Culture
Bosse etchings
Ballon, The Paris of Henry IV, pp. 57-113
Lougee, pp. 113-170
R. Isherwood, Farce and Fantasy, pp. 161-249

VII. Marriage, the "Other" and Family Alliances
Excerpts from peasant, merchant, and noble marriage contracts
Etchings, from Bosse to Greuze
Henry IV's love letters
Moote, Louis XIII, pp. 79-87
Le Roy-Ladurie, Love, Death, and Money in the Pays d'Oc, pp. 1-158

VIII. The State as a Culture, Utopian and Coercive
Excerpts from maps, canal scenes, colonies
R. Mousnier, The Institutions of France..., pp. 645-742

IX. The Cultures of Reading and Writing
Excerpts from reading and writing handbooks
R. Chartier, in Ariès and Duby, The History of Private Life III, pp. 111-159
M. Motley, Becoming a French Aristocrat, pp. 68-168

X. The Culture of Taste
Illustrations of food, food presentations, eating, the toilette
L. Flandrin, "Distinction through Taste," in Ariès and Duby, pp. 265-307

XI. Intimacy and Friendship: Social and Spatial Traces
Ranum, "The Refuges of the Intimate," in Ariès and Duby, pp. 207-263 Aymard, "On Friendship," in Ariès and Duby, pp. 447-491

XII. Culture in Revolt
Le Roy-Ladurie, Carnival in Romans, pp. 175-324

XIII. Dying as a Cultural Phenomenon
Etchings and photographs of dying, tombs, cemeteries in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries Ariès, The Hour of Our Death, pp. 327-38

XIV. Clothing and Culture
Etchings of clothes, idealized social ranks and dignitaries
Roche, The Culture of Clothing (pages to be assigned later)