The French department offers a graduate program with a strong critical, cultural, and historical orientation. In addition to their respective specialties in French literature, the faculty pursues research in related disciplines such as philosophy, epistemology, aesthetics, anthropology, psychoanalysis, rhetoric, intellectual history, etc. Criticism, or critical theory, is the discipline that takes as its object of study discourse itself, in an attempt to recognize and evaluate the functions of the different languages of knowledge when they are deployed in various texts and also to understand when it is feasible and productive to mobilize them in one's own analyses. In keeping with this orientation, graduate courses reflect the faculty's interest in viewing French literature from multi-disciplinary critical approaches.
Courses emphasize the close reading of texts as well as modern theories of interpretation.
Moreover, through cooperation with programs in Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Women's Studies, and Film Studies, students can readily incorporate an interdisciplinary focus into their course work and dissertation. A Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition is offered jointly with the Division of Educational Studies. A certificate in Comparative Literature, Women's Studies, or Film Studies is available for students who seek to combine their Ph.D. in French with literary and theoretical issues outside the historic or generic boundaries of French literature. The Doctoral Qualifying Exam will be taken just prior to the beginning of the student's fifth semester, while the Ph.D. orals will be taken in the semester following the completion of course work. The fourth year will be spent in Paris and is designed to familiarize students with French cultural and critical currents, as well as to provide an expanse of time in which to undertake specialized research for the thesis project.