Best Graduate Programs in French Studies - Updated 2022

The aim of the Ph.D. program in French is to train scholars and university teachers of French language, literature, and culture in a thriving and diverse intellectual environment. Students accepted into the Ph.D. program enjoy for five years, although readmission each year depends on satisfactory performance. They also hold part-time Assistantships in Instruction. Generous is available for a wide array of professional training, including scholarly research, language learning, and conference presentations.

Along that way, the university will invite applicant to workshops and parties, and to formal and informal get-togethers that the university hope will make their studies in French and its interdisciplines a rich personal experience as well as an intellectually challenging one.

The graduate curriculum covers the Middle Ages to the present, and the literatures of Africa, the Caribbean, and the Maghreb. The French Ph.D. degree normally takes five or six years. The first two years are devoted to course work, including one required course in Old French. Students are required to take at least two and up to four courses outside the department in departments such as Comparative Literature, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, History of Science and Medicine, History of Art, and Film.

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 Masters in Legal Studies (MLS) program. Qualified doctoral students may apply to be part of a dual degree program between the University of Chicago and a French institution.

Approximately thirty graduate students are currently studying French at Columbia. Our PhD program, consistently ranked in the top five programs nationally, is designed to prepare graduates for a career in productive scholarship. Students undergo rigorous and comprehensive training in literary and cultural history and theory before specializing in one area of research. Students admitted to the PhD program must obtain the MA and MPhil degrees along the way.

The French Living and Learning Community allows students to immerse themselves in French language and culture on campus through weekly activities. The program is sponsored by the French and Italian. The French LLC experience will enable students to discover or deepen their knowledge of French culture and further enhance their language skills. If applicant haven't taken a French language course at Dartmouth, the university encourage applicant to take the French Placement 2026 exam offered by the French and Italian Department at the same time as applicant are filling out the application for this community.

Combine their study of biotechnology with the chance to develop their French language skills in a science context. This degree allows applicant to combine their training in biochemistry with study of the French language.

These include poststructuralist, psychoanalytic, cultural historical, postcolonial, feminist, visual arts, gender studies, and historical materialist perspectives, as well as film and media theories.

The primary aim of the master degree program in French is to provide students with a comprehensive background in the literary and cultural achievements of French-speaking countries from an interdisciplinary approach. The department encourages further study for their graduates in doctoral programs at Notre Dame and elsewhere.

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