Demystifying the French: Tips for and Tales of Franco-American Encounters
In this class we will read and discuss the work of four American writers that will help demystify the French, provide a better understanding of why Americans sometimes fail to understand them and their ways (and vice versa!), develop an appreciation for their most wonderful qualities, and offer a few laughs along the way.
The books we will read are French Toast (Harriet Welty Rochefort); Culture Shock! France: A Guide to Customs and Etiquette (Sally Adamson Taylor); French Ways and Their Meaning (Edith Wharton); and French by Heart: An American Family’s Adventures in la Belle France (Rebecca S. Ramsey).
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Janet Hulstrand is a writer, editor, teacher, and writing coach. She has created and taught literature courses in Paris, Florence, Hawaii, and Cuba for Hunter and Queens Colleges of the City University of New York, and Writing from the Heart workshops in Essoyes, a village in the Champagne region of France. Her work been published in the Christian Science Monitor and Smithsonian, and she is a regular contributor to Bonjour Paris and France Revisited. She is coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home and is currently working on her next book, A Long Way from Iowa: Living the Dream Deferred, a literary memoir.
