Learning Objectives

The major in French Language & Literature, the major in French Studies, and the Certificate in French Language & Francophone Cultures are interdisciplinary programs that provide students with opportunities to acquire advanced language proficiency and both a knowledge of and engagement with the literary, cultural, socio-historical, and political traditions of the French-speaking world.

Upon graduation, French majors and French certificate students should have achieved the following objectives:

  1. Demonstrate advanced proficiency in spoken and written French.
  2. Demonstrate the ability to read critically, interpret analytically, speak persuasively, and write coherently about visual and literary texts produced in the French-speaking world.
  3. Demonstrate familiarity with methodological approaches in the study of literary and cultural texts, such as close reading, socio-historical contextualization, and literary and cultural theory.
  4. Demonstrate knowledge of literary and cultural traditions, such as major movements, writers, and works of the French-speaking world, focusing on at least one and ideally multiple traditions: European, African, Caribbean, Asian, North American, and other Francophone cultures.
  5. Demonstrate the skills necessary for scholarly research and writing in the Humanities.

In addition, we welcome and encourage the development of skills in linguistics, translation, and comparative studies.