French

The French Department offers a wide variety of courses at different levels in French language, literature, and film. The primary goal is to foster linguistic/cultural proficiency and to encourage students to become better readers and critical thinkers. The department is strongly committed to an interdisciplinary approach and has been working in close collaboration with programs such as WIT/CSC, Film Studies, CISLA, and Gender and Women's Studies.

The core areas of our discipline are French language and French literature and culture. From both an intellectual and a pedagogical point of view, the two domains remain closely interdependent throughout the whole learning process. As early as the beginning level, authentic materials in literature and culture are used to introduce students to the language. Conversely, it is through a better, finer command of the language that students are ultimately given access to more sophisticated and complex texts.

Foreign language learning (and teaching) is, in our view, a truly foreign experience; it means that we, as outsiders, are in a privileged position to engage our students in different ways of thinking. Rather than be content with collecting bits and pieces of pasteurized knowledge, students should be encouraged to think about what it means to learn a foreign language; to explore the relation between the foreign culture and their own; to recognize and value the differences from one culture to another; and above all, to realize what language does in shaping thoughts, perceptions and values in different ways, at different times, in different worlds.