This course invites students to discover the diverse and rich realm of folklore in the French Atlantic as a site of cultural memory. Students will examine the marginalization of indigenous peoples, local traditions, and popular cultures of the Maghreb, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the French Antilles as an outcome of the long histories of colonization, discrimination, and modernization. In this course, students will discuss how the quest for the past of these regions is crucial for the revival and interpretation of their local popular cultures today. Students will identify themes and how oral and textual cultures interconnect, are transmitted, and sometimes discontinued. By examining folktales and popular songs, as well as visual and traditional performing arts as sites of memory, students will explore how folklore constitutes so much more than just a narrative; and stands as a crucial component in the conception of national identities.