Sociologue Amateur

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! On this national holiday, I thought it would be fitting to write (or at least begin to write) a post on national identity.

Seventy years ago, in his essay on English patriotism, George Orwell, wrote that "national characteristics are not easy to pin down, and when pinned down they often turn out to be trivialities or seem to have no connexion with one another." This is a simple fact that all who try either make any but the most superficial observations, or to draw any but the most trite inferences, on sociology and anthropology, should acknowledge, be they tourists or academics. I offer it as a disclaimer as well as a general precaution to the following comments. I will recount a few anecdotes and impressions, and try to make some sense out of them.

On Monday, I had the misfortune to trip when taking my run through the quad of the Cité Universitaire; I tumbled and fell on my right side, grazing my right shoulder, my right elbow, my right knee, and both hands. I fell only about 20-30 meters away from a group of three people walking their dogs. I stood up, brushed myself off, and continued on my run, but, perhaps significantly, perhaps not, not one of them had stopped in order to ask me if I had hurt myself. This struck me as unusual; in Ithaca, when I take a tumble, those nearby who witness my fall usually express concern, by asking me if I am OK, etc. This applies even to drivers; once, a driver who saw me in his rear-view mirror even backed up to ask me if I was alright. I am not certain that the three dog-walkers saw me; but I am also not certain that they did not.

The dynamics in the park may not differ, in some respects, from those in the classroom. I gave exposé #3 on Medieval Travel; the same day, as I mentioned in my post about that exposé, that one of my classmates, Roman, had the same subject, and that after the Cours Magistral that day, I told him that I had been impressed with his presentation. I began speaking with him and with two of his friends, and after several minutes, I introduced myself, feeling that it was an opportune moment. None of them offered their names in return; I had to ask them: it wasn't exactly pulling teeth, but most of the time, when I give my name, I receive my interlocutors' in return. Likewise, trading cell phone numbers is very common back in the U.S., even among ephemeral acquaintances (how many numbers do I have of people I met a few times freshman year, and have rarely, or never, seen again?) -- not so, here.

This brings me to one of the most important aspects of life here: the near-impossibility of making French friends. I say "near" because I, and several others, have each managed to meet 1-5 French students with whom we have achieved at least some rapport. I would like to add here that I am very grateful to all of my French friends who have been kind and considerate enough to offer me their friendship. That being said, I estimate that maybe half of the other EDUCO students to whom I have spoken simply have no French friends. Zero. This is, naturally, partially due to the language barrier, and also due to the fact that the French students in our classes are well into their University careers, and thus already have constructed a nucleus of friends (my classes are all categorized as "License-3," meaning that students are in their third years, unless they are MASTER students). But where this ties together with the incident in the park, is in the social distance at which strangers are held. I am fully confident that, if I had called for help, the three people out walking their dogs would have stopped to help me without hesitation. However, I did not call for help; and they therefore had no reason to divert any attention toward me. I attribute this to a heightened sense of professionalism; that is, a greater distance between public life and private life. Both the park and the classroom are "public" spaces, where interactions involve a certain level of formality.

Formality is understandable in a park, almost the epitome of a "public" space, but in the U.S., classrooms are absolutely private nexuses. Think about the last time you were in class: unless you're my Dad, who actually is a professor, you're referred to consistently by your first name, and likewise address the other students and the TA by each one's first name (Prof. Pucci's class is kind of an exception to this, but his class is extraordinary, in more ways than one, but, Matt, I have always referred to you by your first name): only the Professor is referred to by his or her last name. In France, by contrast, the instructors all call me Monsieur Davis (pronounced day-VEES), and address me as vous, which makes me feel just a little bit stranger than if they referred to me as the less formal tu. The other students use tu, outside of class; I would mention their in-class interactions, but there are almost none to speak of: I don't think I've ever spoken to any of my peers while class is in session, except in a whisper, to ask them what was just said, etc. (I really miss discussion sections, in case it isn't evident.) This brings me to a curious observation Guillaume has made: American students (and JD in particular) will raise their hands to answer questions, even if they are only 40-50% certain that the know the answer; French students, even abroad at international schools, will not answer questions.

In an unusual, opposite reversal (which just goes to show that all binary us-and-them conceptual bifurcations are artificial), in the U.S., one's grades and evaluations are strictly between the individual student and the instructor. Although I had been told, before I left, that French professors have no qualms about telling students, to their faces and in front of the class, that their work is not good, it still surprised me the first time I witnessed it (and it still does). Everyone is criticized for some aspect of his or her presentation, even if the instructor praises the piece as a whole; and this is as true for exposés as it is for papers.

There is more professionalism in the classroom, and I think it is explained by a fundamentally different approach to university-level academics. In the U.S., being a student is one's life; here, it is more like one's job. At home, one never stops being a student, and one's entire schedule of classes, studying, sports, clubs, and even part-time jobs, is wholly within the framework of student life. When and where one studies is one's business: some people do it in the morning, some in the evening, some at the library, some at home. Here, studying is done at the library, during regular work hours (the Bibliotheque de la Sorbonne is open from 10:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m.). Uris Library is open 24 hours, and some students bring blankets and pillows. Studying never stops, and all-nighters are known among even the most responsible. In France, nuits blanches (literally "white nights," the term used for all-nighters) are generally just not done. There is a time to study, and a time not to study; the decision is less nice back home. I may be overgeneralizing by taking Ivy-League standards as the norm, but La Sorbonne is a very prestigious school here, and has, from what I can tell, relatively high academic standards.

One more note on academic standards, before I move on. In the U.S., educators, from high school teachers to college professors, consistently repeat, almost tautologically, that they don't care what students argue, as long as they support their arguments. Here, the refrain is on the structure and methodology: as long as all seven components of an introduction are in place, that introduction is of passing quality, even if the quality of the writing and the level of research are shoddy (not to say, these aspects are unimportant; I have seen a professor call out a student for treating a masculine noun as feminine in his in-class essay).

Academic standards are not the only standards encountered in student life. Veronique, one of the members of the (awesome) EDUCO team, has berated me before about the lack of attention I pay to my body, because I consistently sleep under eight hours a night (completely true) and don't consume a balanced diet (debatable). As she puts it, "les etudiants francais respectent leurs corps" [French students respect their bodies]. From what I have gathered from conversations with my other French friends, French students do tend to sleep more than their American counterparts, who, let's face it, barely sleep, ever. However, as far as I can tell, American students (or, at least, Cornell students), 1) Smoke less, and 2) Exercise more. By my standards, smoking and a lack of exercise are both key characteristics of an unhealthy lifestyle, in a way that sleep deprivation and poor diet are not. I wonder what doctors think of the matter...

There are a few other cultural observations, related, somewhat indirectly, to what I have been saying.

Drinking coffee (or eating croissants) while walking seems to be less common, as is speaking on the cellphone while walking. If you want to drink coffee, you sit down in a cafe to do it; when you eat lunch, you sit down on a park bench to do it.

In France, it's impolite to post others' photographs on Facebook.

The French have achieved a level of secularism in society that they have a word for it, laïcité, which they readily admit cannot be easily translated into other languages. For instance, in my Contemporary Arab World class, the professor, describing the politico-religious climate of the late Ottoman Empire, said it was "seculier, mais pas laïc" [secular, but not laïc]. If your 16th (and early 17th) century were mostly filled with gruesome religious wars and massacres, you, too, would want to prevent people from making public display of their religion (note: the ban on religious paraphernalia, better known in the U.S. as the ban on headscarves, is unenforced). However, I don't know if Ithaca is just already such a secular place, or whether the rising French xenophobia against North Africans and Romany, but there do seem to be some open displays of religion.

To name just one example, I was once handed a pamphlet containing 2 books from the New Testament, the Gospel of John and Paul's Letter to the Romans. It is on the desk in front of me now; it is conspicuously covered, on the cover, with French patriotic symbols: the blue, white, and red; the familiar hexagonal shape of France (plus Corsica) which we all know from the Mercator projection; a Parisian skyline; the Eiffel Tower; on the cover, the title alone is the only indication that this is a religious text. By contrast, there is nothing particularly "French" about the contents of the book (which could just as easily have been printed in any other Francophone country). My analysis? Just as in the U.S., with the influx of non-Christian immigrants (or, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, non-Protestant immigrants), somebody has made a connection between Christianity and patriotism: both represent traditional values placed in jeopardy by the newcomers. I have spoken with Bruno about the immigration issue, and he thinks that there is a strong parallel between North Africans in France and Latin Americans in the United States, with the very, very important exception that Latin Americans are typically Christian, whereas North Africans are not typically Catholic.

One last comment, just to remind you to keep a measure of Orwellian skepticism about trying to discover national "essences": public urination is rather common, and people do not consistently clean up after their dogs. The Mayor's Office has even posted sign up around Paris, alerting polluters, and those who urinate in particular, that they will be fined!

I would like to thank Valérie, Guillaume, Bruno, Joe, Sharon, David, Nick, Madeline, Jamie, Aday, Sarah, and everyone else with whom I have discussed Franco-American cultural differences: you all had a hand in this post also: mad props to Madeline for cutting my hair, and for Jamie for lending us her bathroom to do it!

~JD

"In 1475, Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, gave the herald who had just defied him in the name of Duke Rene of Lorraine a cup of gild silver filled with 500 pieces of gold and the robe of gold cloth which he, Charles, had worn at the ceremony of defiance" (Pierre Chaplais, English Diplomatic Practice in the Middle Ages, p. 243-244).

CM, TD, Bibliotheque

Absence from Cornell, and introduction to a foreign system, make me realize just how much I miss so many basic aspects of the Big Red.

At Cornell, there are three main pillars of academics: the lecture, section (discussion, lab, or fieldwork), and library. Superficially, the same division exists in France: the weekly CM (cours magistral) is a lecture lasting 60-90 minutes delivered to all of the students taking the class; the weekly TD (travaux diriges) element of the class breaks the students into groups of around fifteen to twenty, and lasts 2-3 hours; and there is a university library, just around the corner from the Pantheon.

I'm taking four classes, all of them at Paris IV (I passed the very easy French language test required in order to opt out of an otherwise mandatory French class taught by EDUCO). On my academic menu, I have four courses: 1) International Relations of Medieval Europe, 2) The France of Louis XIV, 3) 18th-century French society, and 4) Emergence of the Arab World 1798-1914. I've been to 2 CMs for each, and attended the first TD, except for the Louis XIV TD, which is tomorrow morning at 8:00. I begin all of my days relatively early, usually at 8:00, but never finish later than 2:00 in the afternoon. It's a 40- to 50- minute walk from my dorm to Paris IV, so a fair amount of my time is taken up just in getting to class. On my way to class each day, I pass by the Parc Montsouris, the monument to the Franco-Prussian War, the Paris Observatory, the Jardins Luxembourg, and the Pantheon.

CMs are enjoyable, and not unbearably long. All of the professors wear suits and ties, every day, and it is absolutely necessary to address them all as vous (formal "you"). The professors are as cordial as they come, and though very professional, are extremely welcoming, especially to foreigners. There are a surprisingly large amount of foreign students here, most of them through an intermediary program known as ERASMUS; among the first questions I'm always asked by instructors is if I'm with ERASMUS. Surprisingly, lecture halls fill up from the front to the back; I am accustomed to students sitting as far back as possible. Here, students line up in the hallway before the start of class, maybe 15 minutes in advance, in order to be first in the room, to grab front seats. It isn't always easy to hear just what the professors are saying if you're in the back, something I never noticed at Cornell, because I near the front, in the first occupied row, if possible. Not possible here. In any case, the three greatest differences between the American and French systems are 1) French professors have zero contact with their students, 2) office hours do not exist, and 3) though there is a bibliography, there are no reading assignments meant to be completed each day. Bibliographies can contain over 100 volumes; in other words, students are required to pick what and how much to read for the CM.

TDs are long, and sometimes boring. They are not discussion sections; they are lectures delivered to a smaller class size. I cannot tell whether the instructors are young professors, or grad students (or whatever the equivalent is here), but they also wear suits, and are not on a first-name basis with the students. Every single one of the 4 TDs I have attended so far has followed exactly the same model: the instructor hands out a fasicule, or course packet; for each week, there are two short readings, each about 3-5 pages long. The instructor reads down the list of readings, and every student volunteers to prepare an expose, written or oral, on a particular reading. There are very, very strict guidelines for exposes, which are not gone over in class, because all of the French students have been preparing exposes for three years now. (To receive the first post-high school degree, the LICENSE, requires 3 years; all of my classes are third-year courses, and include MASTER students.) For instance, for my 18th-century France class, I chose an excerpt from Montesquie's Lettres Persanes, which I read with Prof. Kaplan, and absolutely adored. Luckily, I'm going to receive a little bit of coaching about how to prepare an expose. But the form of the TD is that of a lecture, only on a smaller scale. In this same class, for instance, I received an incredibly boring lecture on French historiography, which was also very disheartening for someone with academic aspirations, for reasons I can't quite explain. Unfortunately, the sheer number of foreign students has impelled my Arab World Prof (same instructor in CM and TD) to treat them as a separate category, preparing a different kind of assignment than their French peers. Although I could easily understand more lenient grading for non-Francophones, I think it's rather stupid, as well as discouraging, to be denied equality with one's peers in this way. This marks me off, definitively, as different, something I don't like.

Finally, the library. Oh, boy, where to begin; the Cornell system of libraries is superior in absolutely every respect. Assuming most of you know the policies of Olin, Mann, and Uris, I'm just going to list what I can only see as faults of the Sorbonne library:

1) Hours are 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
2) Students may not access the stacks, but must place an order on the library catalog, and are obligated to wait two days to receive their books.
3) Students may only borrow 2 books at a time.
4) Loans are for 14 days.
5) No Borrow Direct, no Interlibrary Loan.
6) Students must apply for a library card.
7) Students must use their library card to gain admittance, as well as to exit the library; they must pass through metro-like turnstiles.
8) There are no printers in the library.
9) One must exit the library in order to use the bathrooms.
10) No Libe Cafe.

I am as shocked by the fact that the library closes as the EDUCO team is of the fact that American students don't respect their bodies (as they put it), and don't get 8 hours of sleep every night. I've spoken to my Australian friend Nick, who told me that in Australia, university is just a part of one's life; it doesn't consume one's life, as it does in the states, where one identifies with one's graduating class, with one's hallway, with one's dormitory, etc., very strongly. I think that it's the same here in France: students live with their parents, and, I guess, that means that they go to bed before midnight each night (at the moment of my typing this, it's 12:17 in the morning, and I have an 8:00 class tomorrow). I know that I could never have writte that Hume paper with such restrictive guidelines.

Two notes before I finish.

The French make up for their horrendous libraries with wonderful, wonderful bookstores. There are some massive used bookstores here, in the Latin quarter, on the Rue Saint Michel, just south of the street's eponymous statue.

French universities, including Paris I, IV, and VII, have departments of geography, and of demography. Maybe these fields are covered in the U.S. by history, econ, and political science (gov at CU)? I don't know. I've only heard of one demographics course ever being taught at Cornell, and that was before I was born, and taught by Prof. Kaplan.

I will update again, sometime after Yom Kippur. Is there anything that anyone is curious about, that I haven't written about? Let me know.

~JD

"Ces grandes chose paraitront petites un jour, quand elles seront confondues dans la multitude immense des revolutions qui bouleversent le monde, et il n'en resterait qu'un faible souvenir, si les arts perfectionnes ne repandaient sur ce siecle une gloire unique qui ne perira jamais" [These mighty happenings will appear insignificant one day, when they will be confounded in the immense multitudes of the revolutions which overturn the world, and nothing would remain of them but a feeble memory, if the perfected arts had not draped upon this century a unique glory which will never perish] (Voltaire, Le Siecle de Louis XIV, p. 561).