“Paris Through American Movies” course available this summer

Emily Moran

A new online course will be available to students this summer about the depiction of Paris in American movies. The course titled “Paris Through American Movies” is a Modern and Classical Language Studies course worth three credit hours. Unlike most MCLS courses, this course will be taught entirely in English. The course is five weeks long and will be open to any student looking to fulfill an arts and sciences elective.

Richard Berrong, professor of Modern and Classical Languages, said he created the course because Americans have shown great interest in Paris and experiencing Paris through movies.

“I created it because of the great success with the general public of Woody Allen’s ‘Midnight in Paris’ and David McCullough’s ‘The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris,’ which was on the New York Times’ Best Sellers list for months,” Berrong said.

Berrong said he chose to make the course about Paris depicted in American movies because he couldn’t come up with a lot of American movies set in other European cities. He said he realized that people’s views of Paris were mostly shaped by these American movies, unless they had been to Paris already. He is looking forward to having students fantasize about Paris.

“Americans have a very romantic image of Paris, let’s face it,” Berrong said.

Berrong said the course will not be an online course comprised of Powerpoint presentations. Instead, the course will incorporate video clips and excerpts from movies. Berrong said the course will allow students to spend five weeks virtually in Paris.

“I think that in the summer, when students would like to get away to interesting places, students who have to take a class would like to be able to travel to Paris, even if they don’t have the money and need to take classes instead,” Berrong said.

Contact Emily Moran at [email protected].