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The Department of French and Italian has a long tradition of excellence in research, teaching and service to the university and the community. The faculty have expertise in a variety of areas including: French literature and culture, Francophone literatures and cultures, Migration literatures and cultures, Italian literatures and cultures, Arabic literatures and cultures, Swahili language and culture, cultural history, gender studies, cinema studies, translation, ecocriticism, and second-language acquisition.
We offer the major in French and in Italian, and the minor in French, Italian, and Arabic. The graduate program in French and Francophone World Studies offers both the MA and the PhD degrees. Students in all majors may satisfy the World Languages requirement of the CLAS Core Program with courses in Arabic, French, Italian, or Swahili. The department also offers courses that satisfy the requirements for International and Global Issues, Interpretation of Literature, Historical Perspectives, Values and Cultures, and Diversity and Inclusion.
The pedagogical and intellectual reach of our faculty is interdisciplinary and cross-departmental. The department collaborates with other units within the Division to pursue the Division-wide objective of promoting the study of languages, literatures, and cultures. In addition, one faculty member is jointly appointed with Spanish and Portuguese, and two others in Literary Translation and Linguistics. A number of faculty have courtesy appointments in International Programs, Film Studies, and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies. Faculty participation is very strong in area studies centers on campus including Caribbean, Diaspora, and Atlantic Studies, European Studies, Middle East Muslim World Cultures, and African Studies.