Explore the literature, culture, and history of the French-speaking world. Learn a rich language that is valued worldwide in higher education, medicine, international relations, diplomacy, business, and travel.
The Department of French and French Studies at Sewanee offers an exceptional opportunity to study and experience the rich literature and culture of the French-speaking world. We develop each of the pillars of the National Foreign Language Standards: communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities. Language classes are designed to help you develop skills in speaking and writing French as well as in reading literary texts. We integrate culture, history, and technology into our classes, creating a cross-disciplinary approach to the curriculum.
As a result of our course of study, you’ll obtain an operative level of oral and written proficiency and will be capable of reading important French works and reacting to them critically. As a student of French, you will also have opportunities to take skills learned in the classroom further. The French House offers a variety of extra-curricular activities that represent French culture. French majors and minors may live in the French House for at least one semester, sharpening their skills with complete language immersion.
French is both the language of love and reason. It opens up the world, and there is no limit to what you can accomplish once you speak it fluently. Sewanee prepares you for your profession and your passion. Below is a sampling of recent graduates' first jobs.
Sewanee graduates enjoy extraordinary acceptance rates to top graduate and pre-professional programs–about 95 percent to law school and over 85 percent to medical school. Below is a sampling of where Sewanee grads continue their education.
The French Department’s rich course of study facilitates cultural experiences beyond Sewanee. Each fall, accompanied by a Sewanee faculty member, students apply place-based learning abroad in Nantes, France. The program consists of five courses and also includes several excursions--including a week-long trip to Paris--that provide cultural opportunities to attend plays, concerts, and dance performances in some of France's great performing arts centers.
An interdisciplinary survey of Paris seen through history, culture, literature, and the arts. This course traces the development of Paris from its foundation by Gaulish boatmen of the Parisii tribe to its current status as a global city. Cinema, art, literature, and computer-mediated virtual tours are used to analyze the evolution of major political and cultural events in Parisian history. Taught in English.
The acquisition of pivotal expressions which aid in modulating the flow of the French sentence; the overall goal is to improve compositional skills for writing assignments required while studying in Paris. Literary and cultural reading is also discussed and analyzed, with excursions to an author's Parisian address or to important places in Paris connected to the author's life. This course is part of the Sewanee Semester in Paris.
A survey of French films from the invention of cinema to the contemporary period, with an emphasis on points of connection with American cinema. From the Lumieres brothers to Melies, from Pathe and Gaumont to Surrealism (Clair, Bunuel, Cocteau), from Abel Gance to realism (Renoir, Carne) and from "New Wave" (Resnais, Godard, Truffaut) to "Modern Cinema" (Lelouch, Malle).
Requirements for the Major & Minor in French and French Studies
Aymeric Glacet is Professor of French and French Studies. His areas of specialization are 20th and 21st century French and Francophone literature, and visual culture. Professor Glacet teaches courses at all levels, and it gives him great pleasure to stimulate his students’ interest in majoring or minoring in either French or French Studies. He also teaches early French literature, the history of French cinema, as well as Francophone culture and literature of North Africa and the Caribbean.
Professor Ledford is an Assistant Professor of French and French Studies. He specializes in early-modern French and Francophone literature with a particular focus on Joseph Boulogne, the Chevalier of Saint-George, and 18th-century women writers' contributions to discussions on masculinities. Additional research interests include ethnic, racial, and sexual alerity in the early 18th century; French Baroque opera; and second language teaching and learning.
Kathryn Oliver Mills learned French at the age of eight in a one-room schoolhouse in Taizé, a Burgundian village housing an ecumenical monastery. Following a B.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Virginia, she went on to get her M.A. and Ph.D. in French from Oxford and Yale respectively. In her subsequent career, the mechanics of acquiring a 2nd language as well as the advanced study of literature have been important to her love of French. Her first job involved teaching French to first-generation college students whose first language was Spanish, and she has regularly graded the Advanced Placement exam (AP) for high-school students. At Sewanee, she teaches beginning as well as upper level courses, and she has also pursued her own critical interests in book and article publications ranging over the subjects of 19th century French literature, the genre of crime fiction, and contemporary American poetry. She is particularly fascinated by how literary form intersects with cultural contexts, and how poetry takes on religion.
Donald Rung studied French structuralist criticism at the University of Hawaii as well as at Princeton. Rung wrote his dissertation on Descartes' use of classical rhetoric, a subject that he continues to research. Other research interests include emblematics and, most recently, the place of money in the transition to the modern age. Coming to Sewanee directly from the Northeast, where he grew up, he has fallen in love with the natural beauty of Sewanee's environment and the warmth of its people.
kmills@sewanee.edu
Gailor Hall 213, Ext. 1524
During the spring semester, the French House held a number of fun and interesting events. They participated in the International Carnival Tour of Language Houses by serving king cake from New Orleans and made crafts with Mardi Gras beads. In partnership with other campus organizations, they held a salon about LGBTQ issues and existentialist philosophy, which was held at the Wick. On a beautiful spring day, there was a Bocce/Petanque tournament held with and against the Italian House. They all shared ice cream and cake. Students were introduced to this traditional game that is ubiquitous in French and Italian parks.
Professor Effie Rentzou of Princeton University will deliver a talk, over lunch, entittled Beyond the Human: Universalism, Humanism, and the French Avant-garde of the 1930s.
McClurg Room 206ABC
Friday, September 29 at noon
Aymeric Glacet's most recent book, "Insults and other names of writers: Marcel Proust, Saint-John Perse, Michel Butor, Nabile Farès, A. Camus, JMG Le Clézio, P. Michon" was published in the summer of 2022.
Read more to find out when free French tutoring, the French Table, yoga classes in French, and video gaming in French are offered this semester
To create an immersive learning experience, Sewanee has several language houses (French, German, Russian, Spanish, and Italian) that simulate real-world language and cultural encounters. The head resident is a native speaker, and students speak their house language while “at home". Events throughout the year showcase educational and recreational aspects of the language house and the culture it represents.
International & global studies at Sewanee stretches far beyond the gates. Involving faculty members from departments across the College, the program spans disciplinary and thematic boundaries. The rapid pace and complex nature of our world require dexterity to navigate. At Sewanee, you will study the ever-changing political, economic, and cultural issues that characterize our world today. Here, experiencing the real world begins in the classroom.
At Sewanee, we pledge to offer each student an opportunity to study abroad. And at Sewanee, we keep our promises. Travel, learn, and cultivate your knowledge by communicating across cultures and acquiring a sensitivity to other ways of life. Apply social scientific methodologies to various frameworks. Learn to formulate solutions to global problems and apply those theories at home in a local context.
