My name is Yacine Chemssi and in Fall 2022 I will be a fourth-year graduate student in the Film and Media Studies program with a concentration in French. I am working on beur and banlieue cinema in France, and, in particular, I am analyzing Franco-Maghrebi identity manifestations in films about the banlieue (French suburbs). I am focusing on the intersection of gender, class, religion, culture, and race and how all these contribute to the negotiation and construction of Franco-Maghrebi subjectivity. My principal aim behind the creation of a Humanities Engage-funded collections-based module for a French undergraduate class is to give students a broader picture about the French-speaking world. In fact, when we speak about French, students usually think about France or French-speaking Canada as the main French-speaking countries. Even the manual we use in this course is mostly designed to introduce students to the language and culture in these countries. However, there are many other French-speaking countries and regions in the world that I would prefer to introduce to students linguistically, culturally, historically, and in regard to the French colonial legacy in some of these countries.

Furthermore, since the course is entitled French in a Global Context, I would like students to gain knowledge about the use of French in other European countries (Luxembourg, Switzerland, Belgium), in French-speaking North African countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia), in Sub-Saharan Africa (Senegal, Mali, The Ivory Coast), in Asia (Lebanon, Oceania, The Camboge), and the presence of a French linguistic and cultural heritage in Louisiana, USA. I believe that this would enhance student’s knowledge about the use of French beyond France and Canada and would introduce them to multiple French-speaking cultures and geographical regions. Students would also be able to draw connections between these countries and regions from a cultural perspective and reflect on the French colonial legacy and history as well.

Before applying to the Curricular Development Opportunity, I discussed my idea with Professor Brett Wells, the French program coordinator, who found the idea interesting and encouraged me to apply. We also agreed that he would supervise my project and provide guidance throughout the curricular development process. My plan now is to access national archives, libraries, and official websites of some of these French-speaking countries online, to look for history, culture, and language-related documentation to use with my students in class, and to open angles of discussion about other French-speaking countries beyond France. I will also physically look for materials in the French National Library and in museums such as the Louvre and the Museum of Immigration in Paris.

Ultimately, what has surprised me so far is the incredible amount of literature, the richness of history and culture of all these regions and countries which we rarely or never even refer to when we speak about French language and culture. It is also challenging to introduce all these countries in a small-scale project like this one. I am aiming to refer to one country per region and develop at least an aspect about it and introduce it to the students.

The Archives & Collections Pedagogy Workshop was an interesting warm-up for me right before I start working on my project. All the ideas that the contributors (including the experts from the University Center for Teaching and Learning and archivists and special collections librarians) raised and shared were important in providing helpful ideas related to curriculum development. One idea that I found very interesting is how to measure and evaluate students’ understanding and acquisition of a topic. I not only learned from the discussion that I should consider students’ evaluation of what I introduce to them, but I also gained ideas on how to do that, like having them reflect on a given topic by writing a letter or a journal. Then they could maybe go further to compare it in multiple contexts.