This morning at 10:30, I am in the French library to read an article before class. Michel Foucault, "Qu'est-ce qu'un auteur?", only they have only given us an English translation, so "What is an author?"
Two people on the other side of the room are sitting across a desk from each other and mumuring in French.
I make notes:
"problems in defining 'complete works'"
"so throw out concept entirely"
The guy in front of the desk is bugging the girl sitting behind it as she attempts to do what looks like grade papers.
"Il doit faire absoluement beau sur la côte d'azur."
Agh, he's probably right. I can see the blue sky outside right now.
Also, his voice is beautiful. I can't not listen, but I have to read.
"science - 'pliny says'... now it's the opposite - anonymous scientific texts capable of demonstrating truth"
He's talking about being able to get a permis now that he's 18... "Je veux prendre une boîte, aller de Paris à la côte..."
The girl is clearly irritated, and I'm still listening. They talk about nothing, grades, she got an A- on her last assignment, religion, he asks about the significance of a foulard, she replies that French schools won't let maghrebines, Islamic women, wear their scarves in school just like a teacher of hers once chastised a girl for letting a cross show, not like here, ou c'est le pays de In God we trust, but she won't admit to being croyante or athée, and gets even more irritated. I wonder who they are, why they are here.
Sigh.
Our class discussion was in English again, which allowed all the girls to overuse words like "discourse" and its infinite derivatives, "discursive" "discursivity" "discourses" and so on, without having to think about what they were saying. Not that French is any safe harbor for that kind of thing, already "écriture" is the kind of word that remains untranslated.
