The Department of French and Italian at the University of California, Irvine
offers a graduate program in French with a strong theoretical and
multidisciplinary orientation. Besides exercising specialities in the
field of French and Francophone literatures, its faculty members are
actively involved in related disciplines such as critical theory, philosophy,
psychoanalysis, sociology, women's studies, cultural studies and
comparative literature. The orientation of the program in French is a
result of the faculty's sense, despite individual differences in fields
of interest and approach, that the analysis of discourse and its strategies,
vocabularies, structures, presuppositions, and goals constitutes the
principal object of literary study.
The theoretical and multi-disciplinary approach to literature is a
demanding one, requiring both a knowledge of the specific disciplines
brought together and a critical awareness of its own strategies and concepts.
The graduate curriculum seeks to provide the student with the necessary
tools for advanced literary study, so conceived. In small seminars
designed to stimulate intellectual exchange, students and faculty explore
literature written in French within the context of relevant historical,
cultural or theoretical issues. They raise questions engaged by literary
discourse and they study critically the theories formulated to account for
literature and its contexts. Courses tend to cross the lines between
disciplines and to emphasize both the close reading of texts and modern
theories of history, culture, literature and criticism. Students also
pursue their work in related fields outside the department and can choose to
do a formal Emphasis in Critical Theory, Visual Studies, or Women's Studies.
In the winter of each year, Professor Etienne Balibar enhances the offerings
of the Department with courses in critical theory that are of interest to a
wide range of students in the Humanities.
Students are encouraged to pursue their work in a French-speaking country.
An exchange program with the Université Paris X, Nanterre or one of
various fellowships can provide the means. Students also may apply to spend
the dissertation year as graduate student instructors in the UC Education
Abroad Program in French and European Studies in Paris.
The Department offers the degree of doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) in French.
The Master of Arts degree (M.A.) is considered a step towards the Ph.D. degree.
Only students intending to pursue full-time studies toward the doctorate are
admitted to the program.
Recent graduates of the program teach at such institutions as the University
of California at Davis, University of Michigan, University of Maine, Reed
College and the University of Alabama.
