Jazz-age Paris was, in the words of Maurice Sachs, "the decade of illusion." It was the era of dancings, Mistinguett, the Charleston, Josephine Baker, and jazz; it was the era of Cocteau, Picasso, Man Ray, Kiki, and the Russian ballet; it was the era of Paul Poiret, Coco Chanel, and the flapper. This course provides a cultural overview of Paris in the Roaring Twenties, with a focus on the representation of women on stage and in literary texts. Our study includes surrealist art and literature, avant-garde film, performance art, jazz music, and cultural criticism. We examine a number of paradigms that arise in the literature of the period, from the "New Woman" to the female phantom to the machine woman to the Black Venus. We pay close attention to both primary sources and cultural reception. Slides of art of the period are shown. Readings include Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, Colette's Cheri, Breton's Nadja, and Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. We also view Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Jean Vigo's L'Atalante.