phd in french and francophone studies

The French Department’s doctoral program reflects the interdisciplinary priorities that have long defined the pursuit of knowledge here at Berkeley. We are committed not only to providing students strong coverage of the field of French and francophone literature and culture, but also to doing so through the critical application of innovative methodologies, and by continually bringing French studies into productive dialogue with developments in parallel disciplines. Our faculty’s interests are both historically and methodologically diverse; their strengths are complemented by a variety of programs—centers, working groups, and so on—that regularly bring scholars of the humanities together across campus. And the relaxed and non-hierarchical atmosphere lends itself to free and passionate inquiry. We invite you to explore our offerings.

A Short Description of the M.A./Ph.D. in French

The doctoral program in French is designed to train students to undertake original research, to engage in scholarly and critical writing, and to prepare for teaching careers at the college and university level. The following information is intended only to provide a brief overview of the program’s main features and requirements. For complete information, please see the  Guide to Higher Degrees in French . Visit our application page for  information on the application process . 

For students entering with a B.A. in French, the French doctoral program normally takes six years to complete. (Students entering with the M.A. will typically spend five years in the program.) This time may vary, depending on each individual student’s preparation; it is divided as follows:

The M.A. Phase

During the first four semesters of graduate study students complete a minimum of eight courses, six of which must be graduate level (200-level). All M.A.-level coursework must be completed with at least a 3.5 GPA. In the fourth semester students take a written M.A. exam, based on a tailored list of representative works from the French and francophone traditions. Upon successful completion of coursework and the M.A. exam, candidates are awarded the M.A. and then considered for admission to the Ph.D. phase of the program.

Please note that the French Department does not admit applicants whose ultimate goal is the M.A. degree.

The Ph.D. Phase

In three semesters students complete four more courses at the graduate level (200-level). During the last semester in the Ph.D. phase students take their qualifying exams, based on a set of specialized reading lists developed in close consultation with faculty members. These exams, which contain both written and oral components, are intended both to test general knowledge of a period and to provide students with a chance to develop ideas that will be useful in the definition of the dissertation topic.

The Dissertation Phase

Following successful completion of the qualifying exams, students are advanced to candidacy and enter the dissertation phase of the program, which consists of four semesters. Students first write a dissertation prospectus in consultation with their dissertation committee, and then proceed with the dissertation itself.

Program Features

Flexibility and broad competency.

The Ph.D. program in French has been formulated to allow students maximum flexibility to pursue their scholarly interests while guaranteeing the acquisition of broad competency in the discipline of French and francophone literature and culture. Students are expected to acquire expertise in works of all periods but are also encouraged to develop interdisciplinary and specialized perspectives.

Incoming students are assigned a faculty mentor as well as a graduate student “buddy” so as to ease their transition into departmental and professional life. We view student-faculty contact as one of the cornerstones of our program’s success.

In-Depth Pedagogical Training

The department provides all Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs) with in-depth pedagogical training, including pilot classes and pedagogical theory. Many of our students find themselves wanting to do supplementary work in planning innovative new language courses, and are able do so through the resources provided by the  Berkeley Language Center . Many advanced graduate students develop their own reading and composition courses or serve as instructors in neighboring departments such as Art History, English, and Comparative Literature; these instructorships often offer the opportunity to plan and execute a literature or culture course of your own design.

The  GSI Teaching and Resource Center  provides weekly teacher-training workshops throughout the semester; individual teaching consultations; grants for GSIs to improve the quality of teaching at Berkeley; and a summer institute for preparing future faculty.

Romance Languages and Literatures Program

The  Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures (RLL)  is a doctorate in three Romance languages and literatures (French, Italian and Spanish, including Spanish-American), prepared with emphasis in the literature or in the linguistics or philological history of one of the three. The RLL Program offers students the opportunity to tailor a course of study in French, Spanish and Italian to their interests. Applicants to the RLL program with a French emphasis are evaluated by French Department faculty and the program’s requirements are different from those listed above.

If you have any questions regarding the graduate program in  Romance Languages and Literatures  with an emphasis in French, please contact the  Graduate Student Services Advisor .

The Designated Emphasis

Students may consider the option of pursuing a Designated Emphasis (DE) in  Critical Theory ,  Film Studies ,  Women, Gender, and Sexuality ,  Renaissance and Early Modern Studies ,  European Studies  or  New Media . Students pursuing a Designated Emphasis take certain prescribed courses within these disciplines, and write a dissertation that partially encompasses the chosen field of study. In addition to providing students an institutional mechanism for incorporating this sort of work into the Ph.D. program, the Designated Emphasis assures prospective employers that you have demonstrated expertise in an auxiliary field, and it will appear on your final degree. The  Program in Medieval Studies  also offers a joint degree in French and Medieval Studies.

Interdisciplinary Centers and Working Groups

A number of interdisciplinary centers and groups regularly bring noted scholars and artists to campus. The  Center for the Study of Sexual Culture , brings together researchers with a common interest in the ways sexuality takes on different meanings in different cultural contexts.

The French Studies Program  organizes lectures, visits by scholars, and conferences involving France and the French tradition(s) across the disciplines of the Humanities and the Social Sciences.

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies  promotes the interdisciplinary study of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at the University of California, Berkeley, and beyond, raising public awareness of the region’s diverse peoples, languages, cultures and their connection to wider global contexts.

The  Townsend Center for the Humanities  promotes research and ongoing conversation among and within academic disciplines. It hosts art exhibits, lectures, and conferences and sponsors a large number of  working groups , which meet informally and are run and attended by both graduate students and faculty. The Center also provides funding to support student journals.

Fostering intellectual life among students is a priority. Click here for information on  current student interests .

Job Placement

The Department is committed to helping graduates secure employment. This includes workshops on aspects of the job market in both spring and fall, reviewing and editing of curriculum vitae and letters of application, mock interviews, and works-in-progress talks that help candidates learn to present their research.

The Department has an  excellent record in placing students  who apply nationally and internationally for positions; in the last several years our students have been offered tenure-track appointments at Middlebury College; Davidson College; Macalester College; Scripps College; Wellesley College; University of Texas, Austin; University of Texas, San Antonio; University of Michigan; University of MInnesota; Pomona College; University of Texas, El Paso; and the University of Washington.

Financing Graduate Study

Each year, a limited number of outstanding admission candidates are nominated to the campus-wide multi-year fellowship competition. Successful nominees receive two years of fellowship support and two additional years of appointment as a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) in French. Students who are not awarded a multi-year fellowship may be awarded a one year fellowship or a Graduate Student Instructorship in French with coverage of non-resident tuition, when appropriate.

Applicants should note that there are a few non-UC Berkeley sources of funding for graduate education. These include the  Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowships , the  Hispanic Scholarship Fund , the  Jack Kent Cooke Foundation , the  Javits Fellowship Program , and the  Soros Fellowships for New Americans .

The Department offers a number of resources for financing graduate study, including fellowship packages, fellowships for continuing students, and Graduate Student Instructorships. It also awards grants for summer study and travel.

UC Berkeley also provides funding support on a competitive basis to humanities students at various points in their graduate career. The  Graduate Division Summer Grant  provides summer financial support. The  Doctoral Completion Fellowship  provides a full year of fellowship support for students who advance to candidacy within normative time (four years in humanities departments). The  Townsend Center  funds a competitive dissertation fellowship for humanities students.

Exchange Programs and Travel Fellowships

Graduate students in French are encouraged to spend time studying in France and the Department has three yearly exchange programs — with the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), the Institut d’Anglais at the Université de Paris VII, and the Université de Tours François-Rabelais. The Department usually selects advanced students to participate in these exchange programs, but from time to time students who have fulfilled almost all of their other requirements and have not yet taken the Qualifying Exam are selected.

These programs have always been sufficient to assure every student the opportunity to study abroad.

Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) Exchange

Students selected to participate in the ENS exchange receive a Department Traveling Fellowship, which provides support to cover living expenses. ENS provides students with free housing and library privileges for the duration of the exchange.

Paris VII Exchange

Students selected to participate in the Paris VII exchange are hired by Paris VII to teach English language courses. Students are paid a monthly salary in euros for 12 months. Students also receive health coverage under the general conditions of the National French Health Insurance System. Unlike the ENS exchange, Paris VII participants must make their own housing arrangements. Only native English speakers are eligible for this exchange program.

Université de Tours François-Rabelais

Students selected to participate in the Tours exchange are hired by Tours to teach English language courses. Students are paid a monthly salary in euros for 12 months. Students also receive health coverage under the general conditions of the National French Health Insurance System. As in the Paris VII exchange, Tours participants must make their own housing arrangements. Only native English speakers are eligible for this exchange program.

Additional Opportunities for Research/Travel in France

Fulbright IIE Fellowship Applicants must be U.S. citizens holding a B.A. degree or equivalent before the beginning date of the grant. Provides round-trip travel, tuition, books, and stipend for one academic year. Approximately 1,300 awards are available for study in over 140 countries. Applies to coursework, master’s or dissertation research.

Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Grants This program provides grants to colleges and universities to fund individual doctoral students who conduct research in other countries, in modern foreign languages and area studies for periods of 6 to 12 months.

Georges Lucy Fellowship Program for Study in France This fellowship is for advanced Ph.D. students who are citizens or permanent residents of the U.S. and whose research topic is unique to France and can only be pursued in that country. The fellowship provides a stipend (currently $25,300) to cover educational fees, necessary travel, and living expenses while in France. Students must be enrolled at UC Berkeley or at an educational institution in France during the tenure of the fellowship. Interested students should submit their application materials to the Graduate Fellowships Office (318 Sproul Hall) by the deadline. One UC Berkeley graduate student is nominated for this fellowship each year.

GSI at the UC Study Center in Paris For a number of years the French Department has had the opportunity to send an advanced graduate student to serve as a Graduate Student Instructor in French in the Education Abroad Program (EAP) at the UC Study Center in Paris. This GSI position is only available in the fall semester.

Walter J. Jensen Fellowship for French Language, Literature, and Culture This fellowship provides a a stipend of at least $10,000 for a minimum of six months of study in France. Phi Beta Kappa will also cover a single round-trip, economy-class ticket for the recipient to travel to France; some additional support may be available to those with dependents. The purpose of the award is to help educators and researchers improve education in standard French language, literature and culture and in the study of standard French in the United States.

Degree Requirements

Course requirements.

Students in the doctoral program must complete 12 courses, including one course in the history of French language (French 201) and one course in literary criticism (French 270 or French 274). Courses completed at Berkeley for the M.A. phase count toward the 12 course requirement.

Students must also fulfill a historical comprehensiveness requirement. This entails completion of a graduate seminar in Medieval literature; three seminars in 16th-, 17th-, 18th-century or early modern studies; three seminars in 19th-, 20th-century, Francophone Studies, or Modern Studies. Outside of these requirements, students are allowed, and indeed encouraged, to pursue their interests in other departments. Students wanting to improve their general background are also permitted to take up to two undergraduate courses for credit towards their degree.

The proseminar (French 200) is taken during the first semester of graduate study at Berkeley. This one-hour-a-week class, which does not count toward the Ph.D. requirement, is designed to give new graduate students a broad view of the Department’s faculty, the courses they teach, and their fields of research. In addition, it introduces students to aspects of their graduate career, issues pertaining to research methodologies, and critical debates across the profession.

Foreign Language Requirement

Students may fulfill the foreign language requirement either by demonstrating a reading knowledge of two languages (Option I) or by demonstrating an exceptionally thorough reading knowledge and an adequate knowledge of the grammatical structure of one language (Option II). If you have questions about how to fulfill the foreign language requirement, contact the Graduate Student Services Advisor at  [email protected] .

The language(s) will be chosen after consultation with the Head Graduate Advisor, and in view of the student’s intended Ph.D. Program Proposal. For example, for students intending to work in the Middle Ages or Renaissance, it would be advisable to choose Latin, or perhaps Italian. For students interested in modern philosophy, German might be wise. Whatever the choice, it should have an intellectual or scholarly relationship to the student’s area of specialization, or with the field of Romance languages more broadly.

Additional Requirements

Doctoral students must fulfill additional requirements, including passing the Qualifying Exams and composing a dissertation prospectus, which must be approved by the student’s dissertation committee. For more information on additional requirements, consult the  Guide to Higher Degrees in French .

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DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH AND ITALIAN

Phd in french/francophone studies, the program.

The PhD Program in French and Francophone Studies focuses on literary and cultural production throughout the French-speaking world and provides students with a strong theoretical background. Historically dedicated to training students in various periods, genres, and media of cultural production in French, the Program is also distinguished by its pioneering commitment to a broadly inclusive conception of the field of French and Francophone literatures and cultures, as well as its sustained engagements with developments in literary theory, philosophy, and critical thought that have indelibly impacted humanities scholarship of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Program aims to develop students’ metacritical perspectives through exposure to the range of theoretical and methodological approaches represented by our faculty. These include poststructuralist, psychoanalytic, cultural historical, postcolonial, feminist, visual arts, gender studies, and historical materialist perspectives, as well as film and media theories.

The research and teaching of our combined faculty exhibits particular strength in the areas of twentieth-century literature and contemporary theory (Ty Blakeney, Christopher Bush, Matthieu Dupas, Scott Durham, Michal Ginsburg [Emerita], Nasrin Qader, Alessia Ricciardi, Domietta Torlasco, Sam Weber [Affiliated], Jane Winston [Emerita]); film and visual culture across periods (Ty Blakeney, Christopher Bush, Matthieu Dupas, Scott Durham, Bernadette Fort [Emerita], Michal Ginsburg [Emerita], Alessia Ricciardi, Domietta Torlasco, Jane Winston [Emerita]); Francophone Studies (Christopher Bush, Doris Garraway, Nasrin Qader, Jane Winston [Emerita]); seventeenth and eighteenth-century studies (Matthieu Dupas, Bernadette Fort [Emerita], Doris Garraway, Sylvie Romanowski [Emerita]; nineteenth century-century studies (Ty Blakeney); Medieval and Early Modern (Christopher Davis, Matthieu Dupas, Cynthia Nazarian, Bill Paden [Emeritus], Sylvie Romanowski [Emerita], and gender studies (Ty Blakeney, Matthieu Dupas, Bernadette Fort [Emerita], Cynthia Nazarian, Bill Paden [Emeritus], Sylvie Romanowski [Emerita], Jane Winston [Emerita]).

In addition, the Program is strongly committed to interdisciplinary research and scholarship and allows students the flexibility to tailor their course of study so as to reach across disciplinary and departmental boundaries. In so doing, students may choose to participate in the  Interdisciplinary Cluster Initiative , a program designed to help Northwestern graduate students foster connections with students and faculty in other departments and programs around interdisciplinary subject areas such as African Studies, Critical Theory, Gender Studies, and Rhetoric and Public Culture. All students benefit from a wide array of interdisciplinary resources, including Northwestern Library’s outstanding Africana collection, and close interaction with experts in related fields of gender studies, film, art history, philosophy, and comparative literature. In addition, the Department regularly hosts conferences and invites internationally acclaimed writers and scholars to Northwestern to lecture and teach. Recent guests include Jacques Rancière, Adelkébir Khatibi, Georges Didi-Hubermann, Hélène Cixous, Frederic Jameson, Ross Chambers, Tariq Ali, Peter Hallward, Boubacar Boris Diop, and Abdourahman Waberi.

The Program is dedicated to meeting the intellectual needs of each student and to supporting students throughout their training through formal and informal mentoring.

Additional Resources

For additional resources, please see our Resources page .

For Program Information contact Lisa Byrnes, Graduate Program Assistant, at [email protected] or email [email protected].

Department of French & Italian Northwestern University 1860 Campus Drive, Crowe Hall #2-107 Evanston, IL 60208-2204

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For information about the application/application process, please see our Admission Requirements .

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November 3, 2023

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French and francophone studies 2024 awards ceremony, ph.d. program in french and francophone studies, program description.

The Department of French and Francophone Studies offers a Ph.D. degree with specializations in culture & society and literature as well as dual degrees in French and Francophone Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, in French and Francophone Studies and African Studies and in French and Francophone Studies and Visual Studies. Graduate students accepted into the Department’s Ph.D. program are expected to acquire a broad factual and theoretical background in French Studies, advanced proficiency in oral and writing skills, and a thorough grasp of research and teaching methodologies. Students select one specialization and may add other subspecialties.  Many of our graduate students also pursue Minors, such as the  Social Thought  minor.

Admission Requirements

Students interested in the Ph.D. program in French may apply for admission directly into one of the two specializations (Culture & Society or Literature) or under general status with the specialization to be determined after arrival at Penn State. No admissions preference is given to either category of students; all prospective students are judged according to the admissions criteria outlined in the handbook the student receives when he or she begins graduate studies in French at Penn State.

Requirements for All Specializations

Requirements listed here are in addition to requirements stated in the  DEGREE REQUIREMENTS  section of the  Graduate Bulletin .

Students must earn a minimum of 33 to 36 credits (or equivalent) beyond the Master’s degree in French.

The Ph.D. degree prepares candidates for careers in teaching and research at the college or university level. Between 33 and 36 credits beyond the M.A. in French (or equivalent) is required in course work at the 400, 500, 600, or 800 level.  Candidates who have not taken these courses while completing their M.A. at Penn State must take FR 571 French Literacy Theory and Criticism (3), FR 580 Approaches to French Civilization (3), FR 581 Theory and Techniques of Teaching French (1-6), FR 501A Pro-Seminar in French Studies I (1.5), and FR 501B Pro-Seminar in French Studies II (1.5). Credits must be distributed in one of two areas of specialization: culture & society or literature.

A maximum of 12 credits may be earned in teaching methodology (French 581) and in supervised teaching (French 602). Such credits are supplementary to the 33 to 36 credits required for a doctoral specialization, except in applied linguistics where FR 581 is required for the specialization.

Occasionally, the acceleration of course work is possible where a student has a significant academic background in a designated area. Acceleration should be requested by the student’s advisor in consultation with the student’s graduate committee. Acceleration requires the approval of the director of graduate studies and the department head.   Candidates whose prior training does not include courses prerequisite to one of the doctoral specializations are required to complete such courses.

The Chair of the Committee responsible for the specialization, in consultation with other members of the Graduate Faculty and the Department Head, evaluates the graduate training and teaching experience completed at other institutions. A record of any credit to be transferred or of course equivalencies is placed in the candidate’s file, with a copy to the candidate. Waiver of any coursework can only be granted with the approval of the advisor, the instructor of the course being waived, and the Department Head.

All students are required to take the Pro-Seminars in French Studies, FR 501A and FR 501B, within the first two years of entering the program whether at the M.A. or the Ph.D. level.  (The Pro-Seminar is offered every other year.)  Doctoral students who are preparing for the job market are required to take the Pro-Seminar a second time.

Ph.D. Committee and Examinations

All doctoral students must pass a  Candidacy  examination and a  Comprehensive  examination.

Examinations will be written and defended in French.  Exceptions are occasionally made for dual-title Ph.D.s, if serious efforts to find outside members who can read and comprehend French fail, and the DGS, Head and advisor are convinced the student does not need to prove their ability to write or speak French.  If outside members know only some French, the exam will be written in French but the oral exam will be bilingual.  Every effort should be made to locate outside and special members with some knowledge of French.

The Ph.D. Thesis

The thesis (also called “Ph.D. or Doctoral Dissertation”) is a formal demonstration of a student’s ability to conduct high-quality research that poses significant questions and proposes new approaches, implications, and insights. It should represent the culmination of work as a student and, at the same time, demonstrate a student’s expertise to colleagues and peers.

Chapters of the thesis should be submitted to the advisor as they are written. Committee members may prefer to read the thesis chapter by chapter or they may wish to review only the full draft version. This should be decided in consultation between the student and the committee members, preferably at a meeting with the full committee. Both the thesis advisor and the student are responsible for ensuring the completion of a draft of the thesis and for adequate consultation with all committee members well in advance of the oral examination.

Each member of the committee will make any suggestions he or she may have within two weeks of receiving the completed draft. If, at the end of these two weeks, no committee members request major revisions to the thesis (editing suggestions do not qualify), the final oral examination date may be set. The request for examination must be submitted to the dean of the Graduate School for approval  at least three weeks prior to the date of the exam.

The Thesis Guide

Students should consult the Graduate School  Thesis Guide  for the thesis format. This guide, available online, through the Thesis Office or in Pattee Library, contains complete and updated information regarding the thesis format, preparation, appendices, etc. The Graduate School also provides special thesis formatting templates for use on word-processing systems:  https://bulletins.psu.edu/graduate/programs/majors/french-francophone-studies/ .

Normally, the thesis defense may not be scheduled until at least three months have elapsed after the completion of the Comprehensive Examination, although the dean of the Graduate School may grant a waiver in some cases.

The final oral exam must take place ten weeks before the end of the Semester. Please check the calendar of deadlines posted every semester by the Graduate School.

Please note that this is a basic outline of the major steps leading to the award of a Ph.D. in French and Francophone Studies.  For more details and information, please see the  Graduate Handbook .

French and Francophone Studies

Graduate program, graduate program handbook.

The graduate program curriculum covers fields in French and Francophone literature from the Ancien Régime to the present and from a variety of theoretical perspectives.

The doctoral program in French and Francophone Studies offers a lively intellectual environment where students explore French and Francophone literatures and cultures across a broad chronological and topical range and through a wide variety of critical approaches.

Our goal is to train scholars and teachers who have a solid grounding in all periods of French and Francophone literatures and who think, write and teach creatively.

Program Benefits

Students in the graduate program profit from an annual calendar of lectures, mini-seminars and conferences, including Equinoxes , the annual graduate student conference. The Department of French and Francophone Studies shares, with the Department of Hispanic Studies, the beautiful  Rochambeau House , where students have access to dedicated study space with computers, printers and scanners.

Graduate students at Brown also benefit from the accessibility of faculty across campus as well as the vitality of the humanities and associated fellowship and funding opportunities. Providence, Rhode Island is  an affordable city  with  a vibrant cultural scene and an excellent quality of life .

The Ph.D. Year by Year

All graduate students must complete the Graduate School requirement of 24 tuition units.

In their first year, graduate students normally take 8 courses: 3 departmental seminars plus one other relevant course in the fall semester; and 2 departmental seminars, French 2900 (Teaching Methods), plus one other relevant class in the spring. Courses and schedules, and other matters relating to students’ individual programs are determined in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies. For each course the student receives a Course Performance Report after the conclusion of the course (for courses taken in departments that depart from this practice the CPR may consist in communications between the appropriate instructor or DGS and the French DGS).

First-year students receive a mid-year evaluation from the DGS near the beginning of the spring semester. At the end of the academic year each student receives a Performance Evaluation which is uploaded to the online GSIM system. The faculty mentor assigned to each student upon entering the program serves as the student's advisor for the first academic year.

Students are on fellowship and do not teach during their first year.

Students entering the program with a Masters degree for which they have received 8 graduate credits take the 1 st  Prelim. Exam at or around the time of the Labor Weekend holiday and, presuming they pass, proceed to prepare the 2 nd  Prelim. Exam. 

In their second year, students (entering with the Bachelors degree) normally take 6 classes in their second year (3 departmental seminars in the fall semester, and 2 departmental seminars plus one other relevant class in the spring). They proceed to prepare the 1 st  Prelim., beginning by consulting with the DGS and forming a committee as outlined in the Graduate Handbook.

Students begin their teaching practice as TAs during the second year.

Until they have completed the 1 st  Prelim. students are required to take all graduate seminars offered by the Department. In instances where the DGS deems it necessary a student may be required to take classes beyond the 1 st  Prelim.

In their third year, students complete remaining coursework. All students are expected to have completed the 2 nd  Prelim. Exam by the end of their third year.

Subsequent years are devoted to preparation of the Dissertation Prospectus and to research for and writing of the Dissertation.

Students receive a second year of Dissertation Fellowship support during their period of research and writing, following consultation with the DGS.

Milestone Requirements for all levels of the Ph.D. program are listed at the end of the Graduate Handbook. Continued funding is dependent on students’ completion of appropriate Milestones. Students who do not meet Milestones may have their GSIM status changed to Satisfactory or Warning.

Required Courses

All students must pass FREN 2900: Teaching Methods, and fulfill the language requirement. They must take departmental seminars as required before taking the 1 st  and 2 nd  Prelims., or as directed by the DGS. In some instances, and with the approval of the Graduate Committee, students may be exempted from these requirements on the basis of previous work or experience.

Students are paired with a faculty mentor in the first semester of their program so that they are immediately in contact with an informal advisor for any questions they wish to discuss. That relationship continues at least until the student begins work on the 2 nd  Prelim. Exam, and often continues beyond that time.

Once they begin the 2 nd  Prelim. Exam on, students work closely with the faculty member who will supervise their exam research, and eventually with their dissertation director.

Pedagogical Training

A notable strength of our program is the in-depth training and experience students gain in language teaching, under the expert guidance of our Department’s language acquisition specialists. Students serve as Graduate Teaching Assistants in our language program during their second, third, and fourth years, teaching one section per semester. Our TAs are fortunate to work with some of the very best undergraduates in the country and to avail themselves of the certificate programs offered by the  Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning .

Professionalization

As students progress within the program they are encouraged to give conference presentations and eventually to publish their work. To that end, financial assistance is offered for attendance at academic conferences; and workshops are given on a regular basis on topics such as preparing an article for submission and publication. The 2 nd  Prelim. Exam is designed to have students produce a publishable article by the end of their second or third year in the program.

Students are also encouraged to avail themselves of professionalization workshops and programs offered by the Graduate School or the university, including those designed to prepare students for non-academic positions.

Students preparing for the job market work closely with their director, committee, and other faculty to prepare CVs, application letters, writing samples and teaching portfolios.

Master's Degree

Students may graduate with the A.M (Masters degree) by completing one year of course work and a thesis of 50-60 pages; or two years of coursework. They must also demonstrate a reading knowledge of a foreign language other than French.

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Department of Romance Languages & Literatures

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French and Francophone

Welcome to the French and Francophone Studies Graduate Program.

Our program here at Harvard is driven by collegiality—the collegiality that reigns among the faculty in the program and is generated, in turn, among our graduate students. We share a common cause in studying the languages, literatures, arts, cultures, and histories that characterize the Francophone world in its most capacious conception. In our teaching and in our research, we address the relation between individuals and communities, humans and the world, the aesthetic and the political, in historically situated contexts that allow for meaningful comparisons across national, spatial, and temporal boundaries. The intellectual life of our unit is marked by mutual respect and an egalitarian ethos that treats students and faculty alike as partners in our mission to understand our present and our past through the cultural objects—both material and abstract—we engage with, and to imagine the future in an age of increasing chaos and instability. As we contend, globally, with natural, social, and political catastrophes that threaten to dehumanize and displace on an unprecedented scale, the study of what makes us human and what can be envisioned beyond the human, as epitomized in the works we grapple with, seems more important than ever.

We look forward to getting to know you in courses, and also, to sharing our intellectual passions and areas of expertise, which we hope to extend to you as a resource as you make your way through to the dissertation. Working with the other sections of RLL, as well as with other departments, we support students in building a singular program of studies that meets their aspirations, including a year abroad at the École normale supérieure, rue d’Ulm. You will find at Harvard, within the program and outside it, a cornucopia of conferences, panels, workshops, performances, seminars, and institutions that will both whet and nourish your intellectual appetites: the Mahindra Humanities Center, where we lead seminars on France and the World, the Renaissance, and Cartography; the Weatherhead Center; the Center for European Studies; the Harvard Film Archive; the Radcliffe Institute; the Center for Early Modern History; and many others. We are also a member of the consortium of French and Francophone graduate programs that, together, award the annual Goncourt américain.

Other wonderful resources to the program are Harvard's Widener Library and its incredibly learned and helpful research staff. Whatever books or journals the library doesn't have, it will get for you on interlibrary loan. We hope also that you will have the occasion to become acquainted with the Houghton Library, Harvard's rare book library, which is a mine of treasures. You will also be able to benefit from Harvard’s museums, the Arnold Arboretum, as well as the research centers it has at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. and I Tatti in Italy.

Last but not least is the city of Cambridge itself, a truly cosmopolitan city on the banks of the Charles, and Harvard Square, with its many cafes, restaurants, and bookstores, where you can experience a veritable carnival of books, food, films, and theater, following your particular passions. And beyond Cambridge you will find the Greater Boston area offers the Boston Symphony, the Museum of Fine Arts, but also an abundance of places to get away from the city, be it to the beaches of the North and South Shore and Cape Cod, the Berkshires, or the forested space of the Fells. You will add to this list many, many personal discoveries, if you join us and study here.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have questions!

The French Section

To see our program requirements, see the GSAS Policies .

Graduate Contacts

Kathy Hanley (Graduate Program Coordinator)

Ph.D. Program in Modern French Studies (FRMS)

Our Ph.D. program combines training in literary, cultural and language studies with individualized research to open new, innovative understandings of the French-speaking world of yesterday and today. 

Related Links

• Application fee waiver
• Ph.D. Handbook (PDF)
• French Program Graduate Funding
• French Graduate Placement

The Ph.D. in modern French studies at the University of Maryland offers comprehensive training in French and Francophone studies, including teaching, research and professionalization. The program offers seminars in French and Francophone literature, culture and film, in addition to French language and linguistics. With the guidance of internationally recognized faculty specializing in a range of genres and issues and reflective of the diversity and complexity of the French-speaking world, students develop competencies in innovative research methods and approaches such as critical theory, gender and sexuality studies, colonial and post-colonial studies, cultural and media criticism, ecocriticism and digital humanities, among others. The French Ph.D. program fosters collaborative work across disciplines, languages, media, centuries and fields. Students may pursue graduate certificates in affiliated programs such as women, gender and sexuality studies, comparative literature and digital humanities, as well as participate in Graduate School field committees in film studies and in medieval and early modern studies. Students are encouraged to pursue independent and innovative thinking through individualized curricula and research projects with the support of the French program’s intellectual community.

Students are normally granted full funding for four years, with the possibility of an additional year, contingent upon availability of funds. Annual renewal of financial support is based on satisfactory performance and progress in the program. The program also provides thorough pedagogical training and teaching experience in French language, literature and culture courses.

Students who have graduated from our program have pursued careers in higher education and beyond. For a complete list of Ph.D. graduate placements .

Admissions Information

Entry into the Ph.D. program is open to students who have already completed an M.A. in a field related to French studies. Students with a B.A. in French or a related field should begin with the M.A.

All foreign applicants whose native language is not English are required to take the TOEFL examination (Test of English as a Foreign Language).

Course Requirements

Ph.D. students are required to take for credit a minimum of eight courses beyond the M.A. at the 600-level or above.

All students must take one course in each of the three following core categories: 1. History of Ideas 2. Issues in Literature 3. History of the French Language

Apart from those core courses, with the help of the director of graduate studies and their advisor, students will create an individually-tailored program of study that best matches their interests to complete the course requirements towards their degree.

Additionally, graduate teaching assistants are expected to take a 1-credit practicum in their first semester (FREN709) and FREN611 (The Structure of the French Language) in their second (spring) semester.

For additional information, please see the Graduate Student Handbook.

Language Requirement

All Ph.D. students are required to demonstrate a sound reading knowledge of one other language in addition to French and English. Students should choose a language that provides an appropriate background for the projected dissertation. The fulfillment of this requirement is one of the prerequisites for advancement to candidacy.

For additional information on how to fulfill this requirement, please see the Graduate Student Handbook.

Entering students are advised in their first semester by the director of graduate studies or by some other designated professor. By the end of their second semester, students should choose a permanent advisor and register this choice with the director of graduate studies. Final responsibility for meeting Graduate School requirements and deadlines rests solely with the student.

Qualifying Examinations

In order to advance to candidacy, Ph.D. students are required to pass two Qualifying Examinations consisting of:

 a) one two-part Comprehensive Examination; and  b) one Prospectus Defense.

In both cases, the committee will be composed of three members of the French faculty. An additional fourth member from outside the department is possible for the prospectus defense if the topic warrants it.

A ) The first Qualifying Examination is a two-part comprehensive exam, first written, then oral, taken over two consecutive days. It assesses whether students have acquired sufficiently broad knowledge of French and Francophone literature as well as of a range of theoretical approaches to be able to successfully take on the dissertation project. This exam should be taken by the end of the student’s third semester in the Ph.D. program. If students choose to submit their written response in English, the oral portion will be in French, and vice versa.

For the written part of the examination, students will have four hours to respond to one of two questions based on the standard Ph.D. reading list. The exam is taken without notes, in an examination room with a computer provided by the department.

For the oral part of the examination, which lasts approximately an hour, students will be asked to discuss their written response and the reading list with their committee.

To obtain the current reading list for the Ph.D. examination, contact the director of graduate studies.

B) The second Qualifying Examination is the oral defense of a written dissertation prospectus (approx. 5,000 words) and accompanying bibliography. The prospectus is a formal project proposal for the dissertation. The prospectus should lay out the proposed area and object of study, explain the relevant context, a research question, how your project is inscribed within the larger field (what has and has not been done in this area), a theoretical approach and a description of the methodology to be adopted, as well as a bibliography.

*Please note that, following a successful prospectus defense, doctoral students are required to submit the most recent version of their dissertation draft as an email attachment to the three departmental members of their Dissertation Committee one year date-to-date after their prospectus defense, and every six months thereafter until the submission of the final version of their dissertation two weeks prior to the defense date. As a rule, students will receive written feedback on these drafts within four to six weeks.

Dissertation

Doctoral dissertations must receive the preliminary approval of the three departmental members of the Dissertation Committee before being submitted to other readers. All readers must be given at least two weeks in which to read the dissertation. At the beginning of the semester in which the dissertation will be defended, the dissertation director will ask the dean of the Graduate School to approve the Examining Committee. At least one member of this five-person committee (normally the dean's representative) will be external to the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, and one may be drawn from another university. A date will then be set for the oral defense, which can be expected to last about two hours.

Application Instructions

Application deadline is January 15 for admission in the fall and may be submitted here . Before completing the application, applicants are asked to check the Admissions Requirements site for specific instructions about the Ph.D. program .  

As required by the Graduate School, all application materials must be submitted electronically through the Graduate Application Portal :

• Non-refundable application fee for each program
• Statement of Purpose. The statement should address relevant aspects of your educational experience, the focus of your academic interests and reasons for applying to our program.
• Unofficial transcripts of your entire college/university record (undergraduate and graduate), including records of any advanced work done at another institution. Electronic copies of these unofficial transcripts must be uploaded along with your online application.
• Three letters of recommendation. In your online application, please fully complete the information requested for your recommenders and ask them to submit their letters electronically.
• Two samples of critical writing in French. While we encourage you to submit your best writing sample, we prefer a writing sample in your declared field of interest. If you are submitting an excerpted selection, please include a brief description or introduction to the selection. The MLA citation format is preferred.
• Description of Research/Work Experience (optional)
• Publications/Presentations (optional)
• Academic CV/Resume

  Completed applications are reviewed by an admissions committee in each graduate degree program. The recommendations of the committees are submitted to the Dean of the Graduate School, who will make the final admission decision. To ensure the integrity of the application process, the University of Maryland authenticates submitted materials through TurnItIn for Admissions .   For questions related to the admissions process, prospective students may contact the Graduate School.

Information for International Graduate Students

The University of Maryland is dedicated to maintaining a vibrant international graduate student community. International applicants are encouraged to contact the office of International Students and Scholars Services (ISSS), a valuable source of information and assistance for prospective and current international students. Admitted international students will receive instructions about obtaining the appropriate visa to study at the University of Maryland which will require submission of additional documents. International students admitted by the Graduate School are responsible for obtaining the appropriate visa in order to enroll.

English Proficiency Requirement

Non-native speakers of English must submit TOEFL exam results to the Graduate School with their application. Based on these results, students may be advised to take a written expression course from the Maryland English Institute or a basic writing course given by the English Department. This course will not count towards the degree.

Please see the Graduate Admissions Process for International applicants for more information.

Program Contact

Director of graduate studies, sarah benharrech.

Associate Professor, French Affiliate, Classics Associate Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

3104 Jiménez Hall College Park MD, 20742

Graduate Programs

French and francophone studies.

The graduate program in French and Francophone Studies is the home of advanced studies in French and Francophone literatures, language and civilization.

Faculty expertise encompasses many fields, from the Middle Ages to the present in several French-speaking societies and countries. Students receive training and guidance in literary and cultural theory, critical methods, research and teaching applications of information technology, modern linguistics, narratology, hermeneutics and sociocultural and psychoanalytic interpretation. Focal areas of research include the historical interactions between French-speaking cultures, questions of gender and race, and relations between writing, cinema and philosophical thought.

Additional Resources

Lectures by invited speakers, films and conferences, extensive library collections, exchange programs with the Universities of Lyon and Burgundy, and computer facilities and study areas in Rochambeau House.

Application Information

Application requirements, gre subject:.

Not required

GRE General:

Writing sample:.

Required (in French). Applications should be completed in English, except for the writing sample.

Dates/Deadlines

Application deadline, completion requirements.

Sixteen courses at the 100 and 200 levels (including two mandatory courses: History of the French Language and Theory and Methods of Foreign Language Teaching), departmental tutorials, relevant courses in other departments. Also required: two foreign languages other than French at the intermediate level or one at an advanced level, two semesters of teaching, preliminary examination during third year, dissertation, and oral defense.

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French and Francophone Studies

Degree requirements.

Learn more about the program by visiting the Department of French and Italian

See related Interdisciplinary Clusters and Certificates

Degree Types: PhD

The PhD Program in French and Francophone Studies focuses on literary and cultural production from the Francophone world. The program is distinguished by a deep exploration of the continued impact French literature and culture has on modern literary theory, philosophy, and critical thought.

The research and teaching of our faculty exhibits particular strength in the areas of twentieth-century literature and contemporary theory, film and visual culture across periods, Francophone studies, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century studies, and gender studies.

The program is strongly committed to interdisciplinary study and allows students to tailor courses to extend beyond traditional boundaries. Students benefit from a wide array of resources - including Northwestern Library's outstanding Africana collection - and from close interaction with experts in related fields of gender studies, film, art history, philosophy, and comparative literature.

Additional resources:

• Department website
• Program handbook(s)

Program Statistics

Visit PhD Program Statistics for statistics such as program admissions, enrollment, student demographics and more.

Program Contact

Contact Elizabeth Murray Department Assistant 847-491-5491

The following requirements are in addition to, or further elaborate upon, those requirements outlined in  The Graduate School Policy Guide .

Minimum eighteen credits for candidacy (including FRENCH 596-0 PhD Thesis Tutorial ), a minimum of 13 credits in French and Francophone Studies; up to 5 courses may be taken outside the Department. Of the required French courses, one must be FRENCH 495-0 Practicum in Scholarly Writing, Publication, & Research and two in the first year must be units of FRENCH 493-0 Topics in Literary Theory (the Program’s introductory theory course) with different content.

Total Units Required (by end of Year 3) : 24

Other PhD Degree Requirements

Examinations : For admission to candidacy, written examinations conducted in three phases:

A theory exam, based on a critical theory reading list, conducted prior to the beginning of fall classes in the student’s second year;

A literature exam based on a list of works of French and Francophone literature and film;

A third-year qualifying/prospectus exam, focusing on methodological issues and a corpus of primary texts related to the student’s prospective dissertation project, conducted in the winter of the third year. There are three possible outcomes of the qualifying/prospectus exam. If the student does not pass the exam on the first try, he or she will be given the opportunity, during the following quarter, to rewrite the section(s) of the exam that were deemed unsatisfactory. If, however, on the second attempt the results are still unsatisfactory, the student will not pass and may be granted a terminal master’s degree at the discretion of the faculty.

First- and Second-Year Review : These reviews are conducted at the end of the spring quarter of the first and second year. The student’s performance is assessed based on a dossier including the student’s self-evaluation, evaluations by instructors, and a seminar paper submitted by the student.

PhD Dissertation : Original and significant contribution to French and Francophone studies; may be written in English or French.

Oral Defense : Defense of the dissertation before dissertation committee. The student may decide to opt for a public defense.

Other : Teaching assignments or graduate assistantships starting in year two.

The department does not admit students for the MA degree, but will award the MA to a PhD candidate if deemed in the student's best interest. At least two years of graduate courses, plus any supplementary courses and/or examinations recommended by faculty, are required.

Last Updated: September 12, 2023

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Francophone, Italian and Germanic Studies: French and Francophone Studies, PhD

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• Francophone, Italian and Germanic Studies: Germanic Studies, PhD
• Francophone, Italian and Germanic Studies: Italian Studies, PhD

The University of Pennsylvania's Graduate Program in French and Francophone Studies (FIGS) offers a five-year Ph.D. program.  All students admitted to the program are awarded full financial support through the University's Benjamin Franklin Fellowships, including summer funding for the first three years.  The overarching goal of the program is to train students for productive scholarship and for effective college or university teaching. We have an outstanding faculty committed to scholarly excellence and we have an impressive record in placing candidates on the job market.

In addition to our faculty having interest in a broad range of centuries, individual expertise include science studies, popular culture, film noir, fashion, travel writing, poetry, anthropology, gender, postcolonial studies, cultural history, narratology, and history of the book. Students are encouraged to incorporate new critical approaches into their dissertation topics.

Interdisciplinary study is encouraged through participation in the wide range of seminars, lectures, and colloquia sponsored by the various Graduate Groups and affiliated research institutes and centers at Penn. Students may complement their studies by taking up to four courses outside the Francophone section. Graduate students in French and Francophone Studies may also participate in The Penn Humanities Forum which also provides a venue for doctoral students to interact with colleagues from across the disciplines.

For more information: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/french/graduate

The Ph.D. program in French and Francophone Studies (FIGS) is planned as a five-year sequence. Requirements for the Ph.D. include:

A total of seventeen (17) graduate courses including:

FREN 7770 Francophone, Italian and Germanic Proseminar : Reading for the M.A. Exam will be taken for credit during the spring semester of the student's first year.

A FIGS topics course—a content course (topic varies every year) taken in the second semester of the first year.

The M.A. Exam Preparation Course—taken in the second semester of the student's first year.

FREN 5990 Teaching and Learning : This course in Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching will be audited in the fall semester of the second year and will be taken for credit during the spring semester of that year after the student has completed one semester of teaching.

A Literary Theory course— taken in the student's first or second year.

Up to 3 courses outside French and Francophone Studies in another field pertinent to the student's area of specialization.

Students are permitted to continue coursework past 17 course units with Graduate Chair approval.

M.A. Examination — an oral examination based on the Master's Reading List will be given at the conclusion of the spring semester of the student’s first year.

Qualifying Evaluation —In order to be admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree, students must successfully pass a qualifying evaluation. At the beginning of the second year, the faculty will evaluate all aspects of the student's performance during his or her first year in the program.

Foreign Language Requirement —a translation exam in one foreign language appropriate to the student's prospective field of specialization. For example, students specializing in Medieval or Renaissance studies should choose Latin.

Ph.D. Examination —  The Ph.D. exam will be taken in May of the third year (or the 6th semester), upon the completion of course work. It will be devised by an examination committee organized by the student in consultation with the student’s primary advisor and the Graduate Chair. It will consist of the following:

A take-home exam essay, to be completed within four days. The exam will be on a topic formulated by the student’s advisor (in consultation with the committee).  The topic will be in the student's field but will not be directly related to the proposed dissertation topic.  It will be based on the texts from the student’s field of specialization on the Ph.D. reading list (e.g. 17th-century Theater, 19th-century realist novel, 20th-century poetry). It will be written in the language to be used for the student’s dissertation and the length of the answer will be approximately 15-20 pages. The grade for the written Ph.D. examination will be pass/fail.

An oral exam to follow within one week will further probe questions from the written exam and also address texts from the Ph.D. Reading List, which will consist of the comprehensive general list as well as 20-25 texts relating to the student's chosen specialized field. The exam will last about one and one-half hours and will be conducted mainly in French. The grade for the oral Ph.D. examination will be pass/fail.

Dissertation Proposal —Students will begin work for an eventual dissertation topic (i.e., the Dissertation Prospectus or Proposal) to be completed during the summer after the student's third year.

• Dissertation Defense —a public, oral presentation of the dissertation will take place during the semester in which the student will graduate.

Students who enter the program with previous graduate work may be eligible to transfer some credits toward the Ph.D.

The degree and major requirements displayed are intended as a guide for students entering in the Fall of 2023 and later. Students should consult with their academic program regarding final certifications and requirements for graduation.

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UCLA Graduate Programs

Graduate Program: French & Francophone Studies

UCLA's Graduate Program in French & Francophone Studies offers the following degree(s):

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Masters available on Doctoral track

With questions not answered here or on the program’s site (above), please contact the program directly.

French & Francophone Studies Graduate Program at UCLA French & Francophone Studies Graduate Program at UCLA 212 Royce Hall Box 951539 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1539

Visit the European Languages & Transcultural Studies Department’s faculty roster

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Visit the registrar's site for the European Languages & Transcultural Studies Department’s course descriptions

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(310) 825-1940

[email protected]

MAJOR CODE: FRENCH & FRANCOPHONE STUDIES

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

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Phd in francophone studies.

UL Lafayette's dynamic, innovative, and interdisciplinary doctoral program in Francophone Studies is the only graduate program in the United States specifically in Francophone Studies and provides students the opportunity to study all the regions of la Francophonie individually and as a whole.

Un programme innovateur et unique

Our program regularly provides specific courses on the literatures, cinema, and cultures of France, Belgium, Quebec, Acadia, Louisiana, the Antilles and Haïti, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Maghreb. The graduate program in Francophone Studies was the first in the United States to design courses on Louisiana Cajun and Creole languages, as well as courses on Belgian Francophone literature.

The French faculty consists of a diverse group of scholars who bring a wide array of expertise and who are committed to providing excellent mentorship of PhD candidates in both scholarship and teaching.

Une expérience singulière

The university itself is located in the heart of French Louisiana, a cultural crossroads joining many areas of the contemporary Francophone world that share historical and linguistic roots. The natural beauty of the landscape provides a fitting setting for the culture’s unique heritage and multicultural diversity.

Students from all over the Francophone World come together at UL to explore the rich variety, hybridity, and créolisation of the global Francophonie using a variety of approaches: literary, linguistic, critical, ethnographic, cinematographic, historical, culture and folklore studies.

Learn more about our: PhD requirements » Curriculum and courses » French and Francophone Studies faculty » Funding for PhD students »

Apply today! Venez étudier avec nous-autres !

Ready to earn your Ph.D. in Francophone Studies from UL? Visit the Graduate School for application information and the online application .

French and Francophone Studies

French Graduate Adviser : Larry Norman

Interdisciplinary Engagement

In addition to the primary field in French and Francophone Studies, all of our PhD students create an individual course of study in a secondary field, which can be in a second Romance literature or in another discipline.  By defining their own path of study while acquiring a rigorous grounding in their chosen fields, students develop the skills and versatility necessary to adapt and succeed in an evolving profession. Formal secondary field tracks in  Cinema and Media Studies  and in  Gender and Sexuality Studies  have been developed, or students are invited to design their own secondary field .

Students may also choose to complete a dual degree program with  Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) , or to apply to the  Masters in Legal Studies (MLS)  program. 

The University of Chicago’s  graduate workshops  are a hallmark of graduate study at this University. These workshops provide opportunities for interdisciplinary exchange among students and faculty across the University. PhD students participate in and coordinate these forums for sustained interdisciplinary exchange among students and faculty.

International Exchange

• Qualified doctoral students may apply to be part of a dual degree program between the University of Chicago and a French institution. Program and application requirements may be found  here .
• The   University of Chicago Paris Center  is located in the research hub between the Université de Paris Diderot and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. The Center annually hosts around a dozen graduate students from the University of Chicago, who work in close communication with faculty through the Research Residency Program, while also participating in the Center’s own graduate student workshop. The Center promotes collaboration with French academic institutions such as the Institut d’Études Politiques (Sciences Po); the University of Paris-IV (Sorbonne); the University of Paris-VI (Pierre et Marie Curie); the University of Paris- VII (Diderot); the University of Paris-IX (Dauphine); the University of Paris-X (Nanterre); and the École Normale Supérieure. 
• École Normale Supérieure exchange program .   Each year the University sends two graduate students for fully funded year-long residences as visiting students at the ENS on the rue d’Ulm in Paris. 
• Collège de France Exchange Fellowship .  Each year, this program offers full funding for a graduate student to conduct doctoral research in Paris, providing a formal year-long affiliation with the Collège de France and its research assets.
• The   France Chicago Center . This University of Chicago-based interdisciplinary organization fosters ties between University students and researchers and their colleagues in France. The FCC organizes and sponsors conferences and colloquia, provides pre-dissertation and dissertation fellowships (including the Collège de France Exchange Fellowship) as well as travel grants for students, funds visiting faculty members from France, and organizes numerous lectures.   

Research Resources

• ARTFL Project .  The University of Chicago is home to North America’s largest collection of digitized French resources and makes for a premier center for work in the digital humanities. A longstanding collaboration with the French National Center for Scientific Research, ARTFL offers a select number of research assistantships for students wishing to develop skills in the area of digital humanities.
• Montaigne Studies .  Published since 1988 at the University of Chicago, the journal publishes scholarly articles on Montaigne and his thought. Students who specialize in the Renaissance may gain important professional experience at the journal as Assistant Editors. 
• The   University of Chicago Library . One of the largest research libraries in North America, with 12.6 million volumes in print and electronic form, the Library holds a vast collection of French and Francophone printed materials, manuscripts, rare books, journal holdings, databases and microfilm sets, and provides extensive support for developing personal research skills.

Graduate Program

Application Requirements

Visit the  Undergraduate Program   section for information on College majors and minors in French.

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PhD Program

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Emphasizing interdisciplinary, global, and transhistorical approaches, our doctoral program fosters complex and challenging ways of thinking about French and Francophone literatures and cultures, strongly grounded in poetical, textual, visual, and historical analysis. Doctoral students in French at UVA gain both deep knowledge of a specialized field of study and broad familiarity with literatures and cultures in French from their origins to the present.  They also develop strong pedagogical skills through training and experience.

Requirements for the doctoral program include coursework, a series of increasingly focused research statements, qualifying exams, and a substantial independent research project.  Further details are available in the Graduate Handbook .

IMPORTANT FORMS

Dissertation Proposal Form

Doctoral committee declaration form, phd qualifying exam, part i (comprehensive exam) reading list, phd preliminary exam completion form.

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The emphasis of the Graduate Program in  French and Francophone Studies  (FIGS) is on doctoral study, of which the M.A. degree is viewed as the initial phase. Applications are accepted only for full-time work in the Ph.D. program beginning in the fall semester. Applications for a terminal M.A. degree or part-time study are not generally considered. Students interested in part-time study or a terminal Master's Degree (in particular, the Master of Liberal Arts ) should contact the University of Pennsylvania's College of Liberal and Professional Studies .

Instructions, forms, and a link to the online application are located  here . 

Admissions Requirements

Candidates for admission to the Ph.D. program should have fluency in French as well as an excellent undergraduate record, strong letters of recommendation, and demonstrated skill in academic writing.

Following are the required components of the application, which MUST be received by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences via an online application no later than January 1 at 11:59pm PST.

Copies of all undergraduate and graduate transcripts - Your application must include an UNOFFICIAL transcript from the institution(s) where you did previous academic work at the undergraduate or graduate level. The transcripts should be scanned and submitted electronically with your application. If you are admitted to the program, you will be required to confirm the information by sending an official copy of the transcript before matriculating.

Three letters of recommendation

A personal statement (1-2 pages in length) -Your personal statement is an important part of your application. The admissions committee looks not only at the general background and qualifications of the applicants, but also at the fit between your specific goals and interests, and the kind of research conducted by the members of the graduate group.

In the personal statement, all Ph.D. applications within the Graduate Division of Arts & Sciences should address the following:

Please describe how your background and academic experiences have influenced your decision to pursue a graduate degree and led you to apply to Penn. Your essay should detail your specific research interests and intellectual goals within your chosen field. Please provide information about your educational trajectory, intellectual curiosity and academic ambitions. If you have overcome adversity and/or experienced limited access to resources or opportunities in your field of study, please feel free to share how that has affected the course of your education. We are interested in your lived experiences and how your particular perspective might contribute to the inclusive and dynamic learning community that Penn values and strives to create.

A writing sample in French (10-15 pages in length) - A writing sample, such as a substantial term paper or thesis from previous undergraduate or graduate work, is necessary for the faculty to assess your research experience. The document should be converted to .pdf format and submitted electronically with your application. In the event that your writing sample exceeds the application platform's file size limit, you may e-mail the document to the Graduate Coordinator.

Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) scores - This applies to all international students who are not native speakers of English, unless they have received a post-secondary degree at an American college or university. Please arrange to take the TOEFL test (if applicable) by a date that will guarantee that your scores will be forwarded to the University of Pennsylvania by the December 16 deadline.  For testing dates and locations, refer to  TOEFL . The Institution Code for the University of Pennsylvania is 2926. You do not have to include the Department/ Major Field Code.

The application fee is $90.00. Payments must be made by credit card, check, or international postal money order written in U.S. currency and made payable to the "Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania."

Application fee  waiver  inquiries and  requests can be sent  to  [email protected] .

Instructions, forms, and a link to the online application are located here . 

Applicants must ensure that their complete materials — including transcripts, test scores, letters of recommendation, personal statement, and supporting documents — are submitted by January 1 in order to be considered for financial aid from or through the university. Please do not telephone the Graduate Division or the Francophone, Italian and Germanic Studies to confirm their arrival; we will contact you if any materials are missing.

For Further Information

Laura Flippin Graduate Coordinator

University of Pennsylvania 514 Williams Hall Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 Telephone: (215) 898-1980 Fax: (215) 898-0933

© 2024 The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania

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PhD French Studies / Overview

Year of entry: 2024

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• Bachelor's (Honours) degree at 2:1 or above (or overseas equivalent); and 
• Master's degree in a relevant subject – with an overall average of 65% or above, a minimum mark of 65% in your dissertation and no mark below 55% (or overseas equivalent) 

Full entry requirements

Apply online

Please ensure you include all  required supporting documents  at the time of submission, as incomplete applications may not be considered. 

Application Deadlines 

For consideration in internal funding competitions, you must submit your completed application by  12 January 2024. 

If you are applying for or have secured external funding (for example, from an employer or government) or are self–funding, you must submit your application before the below deadlines to be considered. You will not be able to apply after these dates have passed.

• For September 2024 entry:  30 June 2024 
• For January 2025 entry:  30 September 2024 

Programme options

Programme description.

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Our PhD French Studies programme will enable you to carry out a significant piece of in-depth research in an area of interest.

French Studies at Manchester is home to a thriving community of postgraduate researchers who conduct research across the broad spectrum of French and Francophone Studies.

They form part of our wider network of specialists whose research spans a diverse range of areas, from early modern theatre, animal studies, and colonial literature to popular music and contemporary cinema.

Our staff have also secured major research grants, including AHRC funding for 'Queer Cinema from Spain and France: The Translation of Desire and the Formation of Transnational Queer Identities' (2012-15) and previously for 'Post-Colonial Negotiations: Visualising the Franco- Algerian Relationship in the Post-War Period' (with Durham University).

Our research culture is further enhanced by our annual programme of research seminars, comprising visiting speakers and researcher-led workshops.

We provide a supportive and welcoming forum for all our postgraduates, fostering the knowledge and equipping them with the skills needed to ensure success within their chosen research field.

Find out more about our research within French Studies , our staff and what our current postgraduate research students are working on.

Find out what it's like to study at Manchester by visiting us on one of our  open days.

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2024, the tuition fees are as follows:

• PhD (full-time) UK students (per annum): £4,786 International, including EU, students (per annum): £21,500
• PhD (part-time) UK students (per annum): £2,393

Further information for EU students can be found on our dedicated EU page.

Please note for the majority of projects where experimentation requires further resource: higher fee bands (where quoted) will be charged rather than the base rate for supervision, administration and computational costs. The fees quoted above will be fully inclusive and, therefore, you will not be required to pay any additional bench fees or administration costs.

All fees for entry will be subject to yearly review and incremental rises per annum are also likely over the duration of the course for UK/EU students (fees are typically fixed for International students, for the course duration at the year of entry). For general fees information please visit: postgraduate fees . Always contact the department if you are unsure which fee applies to your project.

Scholarships/sponsorships

There are a range of scholarships, studentships and awards to support both UK and overseas postgraduate researchers, details of which can be found via the links below. 

To apply University of Manchester funding, you must indicate in your application the competitions for which you wish to be considered. The deadline for most internal competitions, including AHRC NWCDTP and School of Arts, Languages and Cultures studentships is 12 January 2024. 

All external funding competitions have a specified deadline for submitting the funding application form and a separate (earlier) deadline for submitting the online programme application form, both of which will be stated in the funding competition details below. 

 For more information about funding, visit our funding page to browse for scholarships, studentships and awards you may be eligible for.

• AHRC North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership (NWCDTP) PhD Studentships - Competition Closed for 2024 Entry
• School of Arts, Languages and Cultures PhD Studentships 2024 Entry - Competition Closed for 2024 Entry
• China Scholarship Council - The University of Manchester (CSC-UoM) Joint Scholarship Programme - Competition Closed for 2024 Entry
• Trudeau Doctoral Scholarships 2024 Entry
• Commonwealth PhD Scholarships (High Income Countries)
• Humanities Doctoral Academy Humanitarian Scholarship 2024 Entry
• Commonwealth PhD Scholarships (Least Developed Countries and Fragile States)
• School of Arts, Languages and Cultures New Generation PhD Studentships - Competition Closed for 2024 Entry
• President's Doctoral Scholar (PDS) Awards - Competition Closed for 2024 Entry

Contact details

See: About us

Programmes in related subject areas

Use the links below to view lists of programmes in related subject areas.

• French Studies
• Languages and Cultures

Regulated by the Office for Students

The University of Manchester is regulated by the Office for Students (OfS). The OfS aims to help students succeed in Higher Education by ensuring they receive excellent information and guidance, get high quality education that prepares them for the future and by protecting their interests. More information can be found at the OfS website .

You can find regulations and policies relating to student life at The University of Manchester, including our Degree Regulations and Complaints Procedure, on our regulations website .

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Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington IU Bloomington

The College of Arts & Sciences

• Department of French and Italian
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French/Francophone Studies

French/francophone studies – m.a. and ph.d..

Our graduate program is characterized by a diverse and interdisciplinary study of literature and cinema, as reflected in our wide range of course offerings and faculty research interests. Recent graduate seminars have featured topics ranging from insanity in medieval France to marginalization in recent francophone cinema.

Fast-Track PhD Program

Students with a previous MA degree may be admitted to our four-year PhD Fast-Track program

Our doctoral programs in French have been ranked in the top 10 in the nation by the National Research Council. Our 11 faculty members have published books on topics ranging from imaginary saints in medieval France to the legacy of French literary history in the context of the post-colonial francophone world.

We offer financial aid in the form of fellowships and associate instructor positions, generally in five-year packages for students who successfully complete the M.A. degree and continue on to the Ph.D. 

Students with a previous MA degree may be admitted to our four-year PhD Fast-Track program. In this program, a student will spend the first year in the program as an MA student. At the end of the first year, the student will present a dossier of their work which will be evaluated and considered as an application to the PhD program. After admission to the PhD is granted, all coursework completed in the first year of study will be counted towards the PhD degree, and the student will be permitted to transfer relevant/eligible coursework from their previous degree

Indiana University Bloomington is a great place to study, with a beautiful campus and vibrant scholarly environment. The Department of French and Italian has partnerships with the Lilly Library of rare books and manuscripts, the Medieval Studies Institute , the Renaissance Studies Program , the Media School , African Studies , Latin American & Caribbean Studies , Gender Studies , the Book Lab , and other programs to offer students interdisciplinary experiences. Upon completion of the Ph.D., our graduate students typically obtain excellent job placements at universities and colleges worldwide.

Recent PhD Placements

University of Chicago

University of Houston

Colby College

Kennesaw State University

Baylor University

Brown University

Butler University

Davidson College

Eckerd College

Franklin & Marshall College

Kenyon College

Lycoming College

Queen’s University-Belfast

University of Michigan-Dearborn

Areas of study

• Manuscript, book studies, and digital humanities
• All periods, from the Middle Ages to the 21 st century, of literatures and cultures in French
• Postcolonial Francophone literary and cinema studies
• Theater, opera, and cinema studies
• Cultural studies and theoretical inquiry in the humanities

Find more information in our Student Portal Meet our faculty

A note from the program director

Welcome to French and Francophone Studies at Indiana University Bloomington! The strength of our graduate program lies in the outstanding profiles and diverse backgrounds of our graduate students, the expertise of our 10 faculty whose cross-disciplinary, cutting-edge scholarship covers a broad range of topics and areas, and the unmatched resources our department and campus offer to scholars, teachers, and professionals in training.

Read full note

Interested in applying to IU's Department of French and Italian?

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Graduate Degree

French and francophone studies - doctor of philosophy, college of arts and letters, department of romance and classical studies, graduate study.

The Doctor of Philosophy degree program in French and Francophone Studies provides course work in the languages, literature, and cultures of France and the Francosphere.  Students who are enrolled in the program complete a concentration in literary and cultural studies or in interdisciplinary studies. In addition to meeting the requirements of the University and of the College of Arts and Letters, students must meet the requirements specified below. Admission To be considered for admission to the Doctor of Philosophy degree program in French and Francophone Studies, an applicant must:

• Have a master’s degree in French or equivalent, or a total of 30 credits of approved course work.
• Have a grade-point average of at least 3.00 in graduate courses in French.
• Have letters of recommendation from three professors who are qualified to assess the applicant’s ability to pursue advanced graduate study in French.
• Have academic writing samples in French and English.
• Have a reading knowledge of a language other than French and English. This requirement may be completed once admitted into the program through additional course work. Non-native speakers of French are also required to submit a language proficiency evaluation form.

Guidance Committee Initially, the student’s guidance committee must consist of three or four tenure-stream Michigan State University faculty members. After the student has passed the Ph.D. examinations, the dissertation committee consists of at least four faculty members, two of which must be members of the Department of Romance and Classical Studies. The chair of the dissertation committee must be a tenure-stream faculty member in French. Requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in French and Francophone Studies

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Graduate Studies

The application deadline for students who wish to be considered for funding is  November 30

Applications for graduate programs at Ohio State must be submitted online through the Graduate & Professional Admissions website .

The Department of French & Italian offers direct-admit PhD programs in French & Francophone Studies and Italian Studies.

We seek intellectually curious students

• with advanced proficiency in French or Italian
• who are driven to investigate their own answers to critical questions
• who aspire to share the knowledge they accrue with others
• who want to work in a cooperative and inclusive environment with collegial faculty and peers
• who are excited by the prospect of living in a fast-growing, multicultural city at once vast in scope and small-town in feel
• who are attracted to an expansive library system and a wide range of interdisciplinary programs and centers at one of North America’s top research universities
• whose interests link up with one or more of the unique clusters of research topics and directions to which we can provide the strongest support with our exciting departmental and university-wide resources, and an extensive web of affiliated faculty

We provide exceptional teaching training and job experience in foreign language education, with exciting opportunities to teach language and culture throughout the curriculum

• Intensive orientation that prepares you to teach and connects you with other new student-teachers
• Training in encouraging intercultural competency and global citizenship 
• Seminar on the best second-language teaching practices and theories 
• The opportunity to teach throughout the language curriculum 
• Ongoing support from advanced peers and faculty (you won’t be on your own!) 
• Teaching Apprenticeships in your subject specialty under a faculty mentor in whose course you will observe, give guest lectures, and then develop syllabi for your own future courses 
• Advanced opportunities to teach in Ohio State's Individual Instruction Center and in more advanced courses as you gain experience 
• Opportunities to participate in exchange programs in Rennes, France, or teach in Bologna, Italy
• All admitted students will be offered teaching contracts for 4-5 years of funding, and an additional year of funding is awarded on a competitive basis
• The Department frequently nominates competitive prospective students for fellowships for a first or dissertation year
• Ohio State offers competitive stipends and excellent benefits
• The Department and the College offer support for graduate student research and conference travel
• Columbus is a far more affordable city than many

Learn More: Financial Support for Graduate Students

• Many successful PhD students have graduated from Ohio State’s Department of French & Italian and moved on to teaching, business, consulting, and other positions around the country. 

Learn More:  Recent dissertations and placements

• Ohio State has a worldwide reputation and reach, and the nation's most comprehensive research university.
• As an Ohio State student you will benefit from expert faculty, cutting-edge facilities, a diverse community, and a worldwide network of alumni.
• Columbus is a city of innovation, community, and opportunity. It is also a Midwest hub for arts and culture.

Learn More: Discover Ohio State and Columbus

Program Code: 137*/137B CIP Code: 13.1399

General Education Requirements (44 Hours)

• General Education Requirements    

Professional Education Requirements (24 Hours)

A minimum grade of “C” (2.0) must be earned in all Professional Education Courses by Teacher Education majors.

• EDU 2000 - Introduction to Learners, Teachers, and Schools (3) +
• EDU 2100 - Social Foundations of Education (3) +
• EDU 3000 - Diverse Learners: Teaching and Learning (3) #
• EDU 3100 - Assessment for Learning (3) #
• EDU 4900 - Student Teaching (12) [CAP]

+Must be taken prior to admission to Teacher Education

#Prerequisites: EDU 2000   , EDU 2100   , and Admission to Teacher Education. EDU 3000    and EDU 3100    should not be taken concurrently.

To be admitted to the Teacher Education, students must have a minimum 2.7 cumulative GPA, completed 45 semester hours, completed criminal background check and successfully completed testing requirements for Reading, Writing and Math areas of the PRAXIS I CORE (or exempt based on SAT or ACT scores). See Admission to Teacher Education   . Minimum 2.7 cumulative GPA required for admission to Teacher Education, Student Teaching and graduation.

Refer to the Initial Licensure Teacher Education Student Handbook for complete details related to Teacher Education admission, GPA, edTPA, Student Teaching and testing requirements.

Major Requirements (36 Hours)

2.0 major GPA is required for graduation. Major GPA calculation will include all courses taken in the major department, plus any other courses under Major Requirements. Minimum of 18 semester hours of courses taken to fulfill major requirements must be courses offered by Appalachian. All students who wish to enroll in courses taught in French on the level of 2000 or above must see an advisor in the department before enrolling.

FRE 1050    OR FRE 1060    is a prerequisite to all 2000 level courses

French Core (18 Hours)

* FRE 2005    and FRE 2010    should be taken during the same semester when possible.

• FRE 2005 - Intensive Grammar Review (3) *
• FRE 2010 - Spoken French (3) *
• FRE 2035 - The French Speaking World (3)
• FRE 4565 - Advanced French Expression (3) [CAP] [CAP]
• LLC 3120 - Teaching Languages: Theory and Practice (6) (minimum grade “C” (2.0) required)

Writing in the Discipline [WID] Course (3 Hours)

• FRE 3035 - Literature and Film (3) [WID] [WID]
• FRE 3045 - Translation Techniques (3) [WID] [WID]
• FRE 3050 - Masterworks of Francophone Literature (3) [WID] [WID]
• FRE 3065 - Francophone Culture Through Film (3) [WID] [WID]

French Electives (15 Hours)

If course was used to meet requirements above, students may not also use the course to meet these requirements.

One 2000 Level Literature Course

• FRE 2025 - Introduction to Literature and Writing (3)
• FRE 2045 - Children’s and Adolescent Literature (3)
• FRE 2055 - Women Writers of French Expression (3)
• FRE 2065 - Black Writers of French Expression (3)

One Culture/Civilization Course at or Above 3000 Level

• FRE 3040 - French Culture and Civilization (3)
• FRE 3065 - Francophone Culture Through Film (3) [WID]
• FRE 4010 - Aspects of Francophone Culture (3)

One Literature Course at or Above 3000 Level

• FRE 3030 - Masterworks of French Literature (3)
• FRE 3035 - Literature and Film (3) [WID]
• FRE 3050 - Masterworks of Francophone Literature (3) [WID]

Minor (Optional)

Electives (16 hours).

Taken to total 120 hours for the degree

Total Required (120 Hours)

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French and Francophone Studies

School of lcsl - college of liberal arts and sciences, congratulations to our 2024 m.a. graduates: cynthia, laurie and kolade.

It is with great excitement that you join us in congratulating our 2024 French MA graduates, Laurie Liberius, Cynthia Okoye, and Kolade Kenneth on passing their Comprehensive Exams! They have done extraordinary work and will go on to conquer great things. Let us also recognize their mentors Rose Gerazime, Yann Robert and Ellen McClure for their continuous support and encouragement.

CMU Celebrates Educational Leaders Across Campus

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Carnegie Mellon University honors faculty, staff and graduate students for their exceptional contributions in education, teaching, advising, mentoring and service with its annual Celebration of Education Awards (opens in new window) . The awards recognize the accomplishments of those who exemplify the university's standards of excellence in education, and celebrates CMU’s distinguished faculty members and educators for their outstanding contributions and devotion to the university.

Additional College Teaching Awards (opens in new window) honor exemplary teaching by faculty members within the seven schools and colleges at CMU. Each college selects their own recipient(s) based on specific criteria and they are chosen throughout the academic year, depending on the college's award cycle. See the 2023-2024 awardees (opens in new window) .

The 2024 Celebration of Education Awards Ceremony will be held at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 18, in Rangos Ballroom.

The 2024 Celebration of Education Award recipients

• Richard Scheines, Robert E. Doherty Award for Sustained Contributions to Excellence in Education
• Mame-Fatou Niang, William H. and Frances S. Ryan Award for Meritorious Teaching
• Kurt Larsen, Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Advising and Mentoring
• Shawn Blanton, Barbara Lazarus Award for Graduate Student and Junior Faculty Mentoring
• B. Reeja Jayan, Teaching Innovation Award
• Jerry Wang, Teaching Innovation Award
• Suzy Li, Graduate Student Teaching Award
• Isabel Murdock and Mansi Sood, Graduate Student Service Award

Robert E. Doherty Award for Sustained Contributions to Excellence in Education

Richard Scheines, Bess Family Dean, Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences

For more than 30 years,  Richard Scheines (opens in new window) — as professor, department head and dean — has been at the forefront of developing educational programs that benefit learners at Carnegie Mellon University and across the globe. 

“Richard’s contributions run a gamut of different aspects of education at CMU, from specific interventions to organizational changes to program creation and curricular redesign,” wrote nominators Marsha Lovett, vice provost for teaching and learning innovation, Joel Smith, Distinguished Career Teaching Professor of Philosophy, and David Yaron, professor of chemistry.

Hired by the  Department of Philosophy (opens in new window) in 1990, Scheines holds courtesy appointments in the  Machine Learning Department (opens in new window) and  Human-Computer Interaction Institute (opens in new window) .

Ken Koedinger, Hillman Professor of Computer Science, noted Scheines’ early innovations, which included employing AI to create interactive tutors for learning formal logic and developing online courses for causal reasoning, were ahead of their time.

In 1997, Scheines led the creation of the undergraduate major in  human-computer interaction (opens in new window) (HCI) and then served as its director for seven years.

“In addition to advising individual students, he taught and mentored student teams in the capstone project course, recruiting internal and external clients,” said Robert Kraut, Herbert A. Simon Professor of Human-Computer Interaction and University Professor Emeritus. “Students consider this course, still being taught, the highlight of the HCI program.”

As faculty lead of the Simon Initiative (opens in new window) , Scheines has propelled CMU to measurably improve student learning outcomes by putting research findings into use in instruction. 

“I’ve seen firsthand the tremendous impact that he has had in scaling educational innovations in ways that simultaneously leverage the learning sciences while helping to refine our understanding of how humans learn,” said Norman Bier, executive director of the Simon Initiative and director of the  Open Learning Initiative (opens in new window) (OLI).

The online materials Scheines authored and refined have been used by more than half a million independent learners and students at institutions ranging from research universities to community colleges.

As part of this effort, Scheines did impactful educational research on the importance of active rather than passive learning — especially online.  His work in the 2000s and more recently with collaborators Koedinger and Bier on the “Doer Effect” has influenced the design of courseware to effectively improve learning outcomes.

As dean of Dietrich College, Scheines set a bold vision to educate students to solve problems across disciplinary boundaries and to create engaged citizens through experiential learning. 

“Richard recognizes that there is much more to a college education than simply attending courses,” said Kelli Maxwell, Dietrich College’s associate dean for student success. “Through revision of the  General Education program (opens in new window) , Richard was a strong advocate for health and well-being, self-directed learning and holistic advising as critical components to a well-rounded educational pathway.”

One of the signature curricular features Scheines introduced is first-year  Grand Challenge Seminars (opens in new window) . These courses, co-taught by faculty members from multiple disciplines, focus on real, complex global problems such as climate change, food insecurity or racism. In fall 2023, Scheines and Sharon Carver, Dietrich College’s associate dean for educational affairs, created and co-taught the Grand Challenge Seminar,  Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech .

Cameron Dively, a 2018 graduate, approached Scheines as an undergraduate about creating an internship program for Dietrich College students in Pittsburgh. They teamed up to create the  Pittsburgh Summer Internship Program (opens in new window) (PSIP), which funds Dietrich students to intern at nonprofit, community or government organizations, or startups that engage and strengthen the Pittsburgh region.   

“With the PSIP, Richard made it so that every student had the opportunity to experience a meaningful internship, regardless of personal or financial obstacles,” Dively said.

The PSIP, now endowed, has grown from 24 students at 12 host sites in 2018 to 60 students at 43 host sites in 2023. Under Scheines’ leadership, Dietrich College also recently launched a  Community Engagement Fellowship Program (opens in new window) .

Regardless of the project, Scheines relentlessly pursues interdisciplinary work that matters to society.

Amy Burkert, senior vice provost for academic initiatives, wrote, “We, at CMU, are beneficiaries of Richard’s vision, action and leadership, but so are the learners of today and tomorrow whose lives may be made better through his efforts to advance effective educational methods that lie at the intersection of technology and humanity.”

— Abby Simmons

William H. and Frances S. Ryan Award for Meritorious Teaching

Mame-Fatou Niang, Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Director and Founder of the Center for Black European Studies and the Atlantic (CBESA), Department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics, Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Since her arrival at Carnegie Mellon University in 2012, Mame-Fatou Niang’s expertise on the Francophone world and dedication to education have manifested as groundbreaking projects, a first-of-its-kind center launching with a conference this month (opens in new window) and powerful courses.

Kaytie Nielsen, a 2016 graduate, recalled how meeting Niang fundamentally shaped her creative and professional trajectories. Nielsen and Niang worked together on “ Mariannes Noires (opens in new window) ,” a documentary on Afro-French womanhood that began as a senior honors thesis (opens in new window) and continues to make an impact.

“Dr. Niang inspired me to ask tough questions, pushed me to explore with courage and kindness and trusted me to work with her on a film that addressed a major gap in French media, a project that has certainly changed my life,” Nielsen said.

Margaret Gerlach, a graduate student in the Master's in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition (opens in new window) program noted how Niang’s appreciation of student contributions inform her teaching practices. 

“At the core of Dr. Niang’s research is a focus on education,” Gerlach said. “Many assignments in her class involved creating some form of instructional material, and she would often come into class and tell us that she had shared our work with a colleague in Paris, Amsterdam, Boston or one of many other various locations, for them to use with their students. Not only did this make us feel valued and proud of our contributions to the field, but it also helped to inform educational practices elsewhere, allowing other educators to teach the next group of students about the topic.” 

Niang’s lessons are transferable to all students regardless of their major. Louis Plottel, a 2021 graduate of the College of Engineering, remembers the three courses he took with Niang in the Department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics (opens in new window) as highlights of his time at CMU.

“As an engineering student, it was really enjoyable to take classes in a distinctly non-STEM discipline taught by a professor at the forefront of her field,” Plottel said. “The energy, passion and intellect Dr. Niang brought to the classroom, combined with the innovative ways she wove in the works of others in her field, made her classes some of the best I have taken at CMU, and I know many of her other former students feel the same. Her courses left a lasting and positive impact on my development, both personally and professionally.”

— Stefanie Johndrow

Award for Outstanding Contributions to Academic Advising and Mentoring

Kurt Larsen, Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Studies, College of Engineering

Kurt Larsen (opens in new window) , assistant dean for undergraduate studies, advises as many as 200 first-year students, coordinates the First-Year Orientation and Honors Research programs, organizes the CIT Day and Real-World Engineering events, serves as a valued member of numerous university and college committees, and has been the longtime adviser to the Engineering Student Council (opens in new window) and the Carnegie Mellon Solar Racing (opens in new window) student groups.

He has helped countless students navigate the transition to college, manage the rigors of a demanding engineering curriculum and overcome the unexpected challenges they sometimes encounter during their first year.

Senior Vice Provost Amy Burkert may have captured it best when she said, “Kurt is their guide, cheerleader, confidante and coach but is not afraid to give them tough love and hold them to the same high standards he sets for himself.”

Larsen can be found in his office and on campus with his beloved chocolate Labrador retriever, Mudge, a certified therapy dog who, like Larsen, loves to bring a welcome dose of stress relief and fun to Carnegie Mellon students.

— Lynn Shea

Barbara Lazarus Award for Graduate Student and Junior Faculty Mentoring

Shawn Blanton, Associate Department Head for Research, Joseph F. and Nancy Keithley Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Shawn Blanton (opens in new window) has been an outstanding pillar of support for numerous students, encouraging them to pursue opportunities and providing invaluable guidance in the right direction.

Blanton is also committed to enhancing the representation of underrepresented minority (URM) groups in science and engineering. Every year for more than two decades, he has visited the annual National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) convention, as well as his alma mater, Calvin University, to encourage prospective graduate students to consider CMU. He has also recruited students from other URM-centric events, such as the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), the Tapia workshop for URM and low-income students, and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES). 

“I have watched the university go from having a dismal number of members of color in engineering to becoming a nationally recognized college for having diverse members, and we have Shawn’s leadership to thank for that,” said Sossena Wood, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.

During the pandemic, Blanton supported ECE students by organizing online social events to help them destress and build a sense of community. He also provided mentorship to families at The Neighborhood Academy, a middle and high school for underserved students not far from CMU, helping to ensure they received their stimulus checks.

“Shawn could easily have paid much more attention to his own research and teaching and avoided all of the extra time he spent on mentoring others. But that is not in Shawn’s DNA,” said Jim Garrett, provost and chief academic officer. “He is compelled to help other students and faculty of color to be recruited, welcomed and supported at Carnegie Mellon. He goes well above the call of duty because he truly cares about helping the next generations succeed at Carnegie Mellon.”

— Emily Liu

Teaching Innovation Award

B. Reeja Jayan, Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering

Reeja Jayan (opens in new window) , associate professor of mechanical engineering, received the Teaching Innovation Award in recognition of her work in Materials and Their Processing for Mechanical Engineers, an upper-level course that uses the game Minecraft to demonstrate key concepts such as polymer deposition and molecular structure.

With her work being at the intersection of electromagnetics and materials science, focusing on the development of low-cost and long-lasting batteries, it’s no surprise that Jayan’s knack for innovation extends to the classroom, where she’s reimagined how students learn foundational engineering skills. 

“I think this is the very first time such a class existed in higher education — it’s definitely the first engineering course of its kind,” said Jayan.

Jayan kick-started this project in 2016 with the help of student interns Miguel Brandao and Takumi Natsume from the College of Engineering (opens in new window) and the College of Fine Arts (opens in new window) , respectively. Natsume, a senior in the School of Art (opens in new window) , says that taking Jayan’s course was a valuable learning experience even though he doesn’t study engineering.

“At times, it is hard for an artist to be aware that the skills they have are gifts, especially in an academic environment where everybody is coding away,” said Natsume. “However, Professor Jayan isn’t hesitant about accepting and valuing ideas or people outside of her field.”

— Giordana Verrengia

Jerry Wang, Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Engineering

Jerry Wang (opens in new window) has spent his career lifting others up. It is fitting then that he has been awarded this year’s Teaching Innovation Award for creating his end-of-semester “Participation Shoutouts!” activity. In the exercise, students are encouraged to submit short statements of gratitude for other students in the class who have helped them or had a positive effect on them or their studies. 

Wang has been creating shoutouts to inspire and uplift others around him for years, going back to his time as a student at MIT. He has become known by his students for his humor and playfulness, which are combined with his emphasis on making sure students really learn class material. 

Former students remember Wang and his enthusiasm fondly. Emerson Collins, a 2023 graduate, wrote, “Although I interacted with many amazing professors at CMU, none were quite as genuinely engaged as Jerry. From interactive games (ex. shooting nerf guns at walls to understand statistical distributions) to cooperative team projects, there was never a dull moment in Jerry’s classroom.”

Students credit the “Participation Shoutouts!” for helping them in their studies at CMU. “I have found this practice to increase both my long-term absorption of the material and my overall happiness. By writing down what people did that helped me, I can remember for longer the actual material of the course,” said Alex Wang, a current student.

Vincent Cheng, another current student, said, “Writing participation shoutouts helped remind me of the camaraderie and the importance of teamwork in the context of large projects or grasping complicated concepts, a situation all too common in engineering and in Carnegie Mellon as a whole.”

Wang’s aim with “Participation Shoutouts!” is to reduce friction to expressing gratitude. “There is little I believe more firmly than this—our campus (not to mention our country and our body politic) would be so much the better if more people regularly engaged in the conscientious expression of gratitude,” he said.

— Sarah Maenner

Graduate Student Teaching Award

Suzy Li, School of Architecture, College of Fine Arts

Doctor (opens in new window) al student and graduate instructor Suzy Li’ (opens in new window) s teaching philosophy statement is prefaced by a quote from William Butler Yeats: “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” 

In her years of serving as a teaching assistant, adviser, instructor and mentor in the School of Architecture, she has lit this fire in students and inspired them to pursue their individual research interests, guided by her experience, empathy and technical expertise.

She writes: “My overarching goal is to continually refine my teaching approach and foster an even more inclusive and engaging learning environment.” 

Li is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Building Performance and Diagnostics (opens in new window) who previously earned master's degrees in urban design (opens in new window) and architecture (opens in new window) at CMU in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Throughout her time as a student, she has worked as a teaching assistant for numerous faculty in the school, many of whom describe her as an invaluable colleague. Since 2021, she has co-instructed the course Environmental Systems: Climate & Energy in Buildings with  Vivian Loftness (opens in new window) . Last year, Li began teaching her own course, Urban Design Media: Emerging Media. 

The Urban Design Media course grew out of Li's extensive use of ArcGIS for her thesis. There was no advanced ArcGIS course in the school at the time of her qualifier exam, and after hearing the plan for her thesis, Li's committee recommended that she teach such a course. She submitted a proposal for a mini course, but was offered the opportunity to teach a full semester-long course. A required core course in the MUD curriculum, this was no small assignment. 

Li took advantage of resources available to her, including the  Eberly Teaching Center (opens in new window) , which she has involved consistently each semester to help her fine-tune the course material and assignments. She also completed the Eberly Center’s  Future Faculty Program (opens in new window) , saying: “I learned a lot about teaching inclusively, how to do active learning, how to keep the students engaged during the lectures, and how to use different strategies to help them learn the difficult thing through an easier process.” 

Rather than simply lecturing or handing out assignments, Li now sees herself as a steward to help students on their learning journey and allows their interest to guide her teaching. “As an instructor, what I benefit from most is listening to my students. What do they need? What are they thinking about the things I’m teaching? What are the topics they are interested in?”

Li says the faculty members she has worked with have had a big impact on her, particularly Loftness, whom she admires for her communication with students and desire to help them learn beyond just achieving a good grade. Li says she carries this spirit into her own course.

— Christi Danner

Graduate Student Service Award

Isabel Murdock and Mansi Sood, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Isabel Murdock (opens in new window) and Mansi Sood (opens in new window) , doctoral students in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (opens in new window) (ECE), received the Graduate Student Service Award for their contributions in uplifting their peers and creating an inclusive learning environment for all.

One of their recent efforts was the first-ever Pittsburgh Women in Mathematics and Computing Symposium (opens in new window) (WMCS), hosted in February 2023. The conference brought together 54 attendees and 15 faculty speakers from various scientific disciplines across multiple universities in Pittsburgh.

Murdock is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in ECE, researching intervention strategies for mitigating the spread of misinformation on social media. She has mentored undergraduate students as an ECE peer adviser and provided department tours as an ECE student ambassador tour guide. She has volunteered at multiple ECE Ph.D. open houses, providing campus tours in 2022 and organizing a scavenger hunt in 2023. Murdock also has assisted ECE outreach with SPARK Saturdays (opens in new window) , weekend lab events that expose high school students to the field of ECE.

Sood is a final-year Ph.D. student in the ECE, researching ways to make sociotechnical systems more trustworthy and efficacious. She has served on the ECE Diversity, Inclusion, and Outreach (DIO) Committee, launching the ECE peer mentoring program and organizing social events to foster a sense of community in the department. Sood also has served as an event coordinator for the ECE Graduate Organization (opens in new window) , hosting fundraisers to support local nonprofit organizations. 

“They have demonstrated a commitment to service and diversity, inclusion and outreach efforts throughout their time at Carnegie Mellon University,” said Giulia Fanti, assistant professor in ECE, who mentored Sood and Murdock as they organized the Pittsburgh WMCS.

“Together, they embody the best of our institutional values,” said Osman Yağan, a research professor in ECE who has served as a faculty adviser to both Sood and Murdock. “Their countless initiatives for supporting their peers and the broader community, amid pursuing deep and impactful research, is a testament to their extraordinary character, sincerity, strong ethics and commitment to empowering those around them.”

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Suggested search, empowering graduate students and exploring opportunities – jep’s graduate student initiative.

In the demanding world of academia, it’s easy for graduate students to get caught up in the rigors of stringed research and coursework. However, for Jody Liu, a graduate student working at JEP, there was a burning desire to delve deeper into the realm of community engagement and service-learning. Therefore, Jody decided to spearhead a new initiative to better understand the needs and interests of fellow graduate students in this domain. She was inspired and empowered to do so by her position as the Community Service Chair within the Graduate Student Government (GSG) and by past endeavors of similar topics that were led by JEP graduate students and JEP Executive Director Susan Harris. 

Recognizing the importance of gaining insights firsthand, Jody initiated a survey in Fall 2023, distributed via the GSG newsletter, to gauge the community engagement landscape among graduate students. The responses painted a multifaceted picture, revealing common challenges such as administrative barriers, limited resources among professors, and varying levels of emphasis on community engagement within graduate-level courses.

This January, Jody took the initiative a step further by organizing a luncheon, inviting respondents to delve deeper into their experiences and insights. The diverse group of attendees hailed from various disciplines, including the School of Cinematic Arts, Material Sciences (Viterbi), Price, Law School, Keck/Public Health, Annenberg, and Rossier. Despite their interdisciplinary backgrounds, they shared a common goal: to explore avenues for meaningful community engagement within their academic journeys.

The current group comprises 8-9 passionate participants, with plans to expand the invitation to more students across USC. Jody’s vision extends beyond campus borders; she aims to understand the national landscape of community engagement initiatives within graduate education. Drawing from her experiences at conferences in 2023, where she and other JEP members initiated connections with like-minded individuals, Jody hopes to collaborate with peers from other universities to conduct a comprehensive study.

Proposing potential solutions, Jody highlights the importance of partial funding to support students in community engagement endeavors, as well as the integration of official programs or courses to provide resources. She identifies certain fields, such as social work and public health, as more conducive to integrating community engagement into the curriculum.

Looking ahead, Jody envisions a vibrant learning community where graduate students can access resources, engage in regular meetings, and interact with guest speakers from the field. She hopes to establish infrastructure to support students interested in community engagement and to pave the way for post-graduate opportunities in this domain.

Through Jody’s leadership and the collaborative efforts of passionate graduate students, JEP’s Graduate Student Initiative is poised to bridge the gap between academia and community engagement, empowering future leaders to make a meaningful impact beyond the confines of the university walls.

To read more articles that were featured in the Spring 2024 Edition of “What’s new at the JEP House?” please click here: What’s New at the JEP House? – Spring 2024

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Geochemistry, climate change and... French Revolution: understanding volcanoes with Sarah Aufrère

By Laurence Gagnon

Sarah Aufrère on a field trip to MoUnt Meager

In honour of Earth Day, we would like to shine a spotlight on a student specializing in Earth Sciences. Meet Sarah Aufrère, a doctoral student in volcanology at Simon Fraser University’s Department of Earth Sciences within the Faculty of Science. Sarah recently won first place in the Western Final of ”My Thesis in 180 Seconds ” 2024.

Originally from Nice, France, Sarah developed a passion and an aptitude for science in high school. She began studying geology "for fun" and soon became fascinated by volcanoes.

"Of all the sciences, volcanology was the one that really drew me in. But could I make a career out of it?" To explore this question, Sarah travelled to Guadeloupe in the Caribbean for a one-month internship. "Being in the observatory, seeing this volcano that could pose a threat to the community, taking samples, speaking to the media…overall it was just incredible." This experience helped Sarah gain clarity about her career path and led to another opportunity. The following year, she secured a placement at SFU, where she worked with Professor Glyn Williams-Jones , the Earth Sciences Department Chair and Co-director of the Centre for Natural Hazards Research. Together, with one of his students, they studied the Tseax volcano. "This volcano erupted 250 years ago, and stories about it are still being passed down among the indigenous people (...). For me, it was a really different approach to volcanology. I loved the intersection between science and indigenous culture."

during her intership in Guadeloupe*

on the Tseax volcano lava flows, BC*

After finishing her master’s degree in England, she reached out to Professor Williams-Jones, who agreed to be her thesis supervisor. "I had a great experience in British Columbia and Glyn is really amazing. We share a great connection, which is really important when pursuing a PhD."

Sarah is currently in her fourth year at SFU's Faculty of Science. She has worked on three geochemistry projects in the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt, specifically around Mount Meager. Her primary interest lies in identifying early warning signs that could indicate a potential eruption.

When Sarah began her doctorate, the pandemic prevented her from taking samples directly from Mount Meager. However, she was able to analyze samples taken by a former UBC student. "I take basalt rocks and crush them into small pieces using a machine. Since basalt is very hard to break (...) and I'm looking for crystals that are less than one millimetre in size, I use a hammer to crush it into a powder." After conducting a series of manipulations to extract and regroup olivine crystals, Sarah examines them under a microscope to understand their chemical composition, which reveals the history of the volcano. She then analyzes the data from the various samples to gain a better understanding of Mount Meager’s behaviour. This volcano’s last eruption was 2,400 years ago. "This may seem like a long time, but on the geological time scale it's pretty recent, and this eruption was comparable to that of Mount St. Helens in 1980."

Mount  Meager fumaroles, photo by  Glyn Williams-Jones

during her internship in Guadeloupe*

Olivine crystals and millimetre scale*

What about the impact of climate change on volcanoes and the risk of eruption? Sarah tells us that volcanoes capped by a glacier could be more vulnerable to climate change. If the glacier melts, "it will remove a significant amount of weight from the volcano, which could cause the magma trapped inside to suddenly rise up, thus triggering an eruption."

Volcanic eruptions could also have a cooling effect on the climate. Sarah provides an example deeply rooted in her French culture: "Before the French Revolution in 1789, there was a massive volcanic eruption (...) that caused a thick cloud of ash to cover almost the entire planet." As a result, the sun's rays were blocked and the Earth’s temperature dropped significantly. "The ground cooled, crops failed and famine spread, which contributed to the outbreak of the Revolution!"

It is unlikely that we will witness a volcanic eruption in the coming decades, but there is still a possibility. "There are eruptions that we can't predict. Canada’s entire west coast is situated in a volcanic zone. The biggest problem is that people are unaware of the presence of volcanoes nearby and the possibility of eruptions." Sarah reassures us, pointing out that "the government is taking steps to establish volcano monitoring systems. So with a bit of luck, if an eruption were to occur, we could anticipate it."

Sarah's interest in popularizing science led her to participate in the Western Final of the “My Thesis in 180 Seconds” on March 28. During the competition, she presented her thesis titled "Olivine time-capsules constrain the pre-eruptive history of Holocene basalts, Mount Meager Volcanic Complex, British Columbia, Canada" and won first place. As a result, she will have the opportunity to represent SFU during the National Final on May 15 at the University of Ottawa. We wish her the best of luck!

MoUnt Meager, BC*

* Photos courtesy of Sarah Aufrère

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ACFAS Conference: Faculty of Medicine to offer 4 symposia

The Faculty of Medicine is mobilizing for this event by offering 4 symposia exploring health and the French-speaking world:

Democratizing health: Sustainable health in the French-speaking world - Thursday, May 16, 2024 The concept of sustainable health focuses on prevention and promotion and takes shape in a global and interconnected approach to health and well-being. Sustainable health refers to the set of social, economic, environmental, and individual factors that influence the state of health of a person and a population. Francophones—and to a greater extent those living in minority situations across the country—face particular challenges related to their own health determinants, not to mention the influence that their minority status can have. It is against this backdrop that this theme day offers a stimulating space where researchers, decision-making practitioners and citizens can come together to discuss emerging challenges and share ideas, experiences, and visions.

The health of French-speaking Black minorities - Wednesday, May 15 Black immigrants to Canada face challenges in accessing culturally appropriate health care.  This is all the more glaring in a linguistic minority situation, where the Black immigrant is a triple minority: 1) immigrant, 2) Black and 3) Francophone. This intersectionality of social determinants has a direct impact on access to adequate, culturally adapted healthcare, and therefore ultimately on their health status. The symposium will shed light on specific aspects found in perinatal care and mental health and address some possible solutions for improving the cultural competence of healthcare professionals.

Language as a determinant of health: Linguistic discordance in health and health care for linguistic minorities in Canada - Thursday, May 16 (AM only) As migration continues to shape the world at an unprecedented rate, more people will face language barriers to accessing healthcare services because they live in a minority language situation. This is particularly true in Canada. The identification of language as a determinant of health in Canada has been hampered by the absence of linguistic information in many health services databases, by small study samples, and by sub-optimal use of existing data. With a focus on francophones living in minority language contexts across the country, this symposium brings together experts in the field to better understand and address linguistic discordance in care as a determinant of health.

Thinking about the projected, concrete and situated uses of digital health technologies: from "telecare" to "augmented care" - Wednesday May 15 to Thursday May 16 Digital transformations in healthcare are not new, and countless technologies are available today, such as mobile applications dedicated to health or well-being, connected objects to support patients suffering from chronic diseases, robots to operate or cognitively stimulate people with neurodegenerative diseases, wearable or implantable devices to diagnose neurological, cardiac or other disorders. The general aim of this symposium is to bring together the French-speaking scientific community around the issue of projected and concrete uses of digital health technologies, by inviting researchers to analyze the socially situated, embodied and equipped character of digital health technology uses, and to "make visible" social practices, imagined or real "usage trajectories" or "domestication" processes.

Activities offered in French only.

2024 RS Graduate Student Conference

• By: Michael Williams
• April 17, 2024

The Romance Studies Graduate Students Conference, held on April 13th, was an enriching event that brought together emerging scholars representing a wide range of backgrounds and research interests from Boston University, Boston College, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Virginia, and the University of Alcalá in Spain. Organized by Ph.D. students Gonzalo Carretero Martínez ,   Wiktoria Bryzys , and   María del Mar Terol Cabrerizo , the conference delved into the theme of “Remembered & Forgotten,” a theme that sparked meaningful discussions on the importance of remembering and interpreting literary works. By challenging traditional narratives and elevating overlooked works, the event highlighted the ongoing relevance of historical inquiry in shaping our understanding of literature and culture today.

The conference featured four panels, each skillfully moderated by RS Ph.D. students and covering a range of compelling topics. The opening panel on Contemporary Latin American Literature, moderated by Tijana Cupic , included José Luis Díaz Báez ‘s examination of José Donoso’s influence on contemporary Argentinian writer Agustina Bazterrica. The second panel, centered on Autobiographical Fiction and moderated by Íñigo Huércanos Esparza , showcased Isaque de Moura ‘s exploration of Josefa Acevedo de Gómez’s autobiography. Fred Lafortune  led the third panel on Memory, Language, and Trauma in Francophone Literature, while Gonzalo Carretero  guided the final panel featuring Fernanda Alves dos Santos ‘ analysis of insurgent feminist poetry by Vilma Flores, one of Roque Dalton’s heteronyms. The conference concluded with a thought-provoking keynote presentation by Daniel Aguirre-Oteiza on “The Voice of the Land: The Spanish Civil War, Literary History, and Poetic Memory.” After each panel, attendees actively participated in Q&A sessions that allowed for engaging and stimulating discussions, which carried on through lunch and coffee breaks, presenting all participants with an unforgettable experience.

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