French thinking -isms

Jean-Paul Sartre and 
Simone de Beauvoir

Richard and Philippe discuss French abstract thinking…

Richard: We French appreciate thinkers.

Philippe: Look at all the –isms we’ve invented.

Richard: Jean-Paul Sartre and existentialism.

Claude Levi-Strauss

Philippe: Claude Levi-Strauss and structuralism.

Richard: Jacques Derrida and deconstructionism.

Philippe: Not to mention Simone de Beauvoir and feminism.

Jacques Derrida

Richard: But would you include a painter? Like Claude Monet and impressionism?

Philippe: Hmm, is painting on the same level as abstract verbal concepts?

___________

Voice-over

Two philosophers, an anthropologist and a sociologist revered by the French. Perhaps in other countries great thinkers are not always valued as highly.

Match the –ism with the definition…

For example…

1. impressionism         a. style of painting in which color captures light
                                           and expresses feeling

1a is correct

______________________________________________________

2. existentialism           b. women should be treated as 
                                            intellectual equals to men

3. structuralism             c. writing does not have just one meaning, 
                                            it depends on the reader

4. deconstructionism    d. people are free but responsible
                                             for their actions

5. feminism                    e. elements are understood in relation 
                                             to a larger system

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