French

Becoming fluent in what is arguably the most useful second language in the world, spoken on a daily basis by over 125 million people in 40 countries on every continent, as well as understanding French culture and history

www.bucknell.edu/French

Related Student Organizations and University Programs

French Club
Languages and Cultures Residential College
Pi Delta Phi (French honor society)

Career Paths

The Reach of French

France’s economy is the fifth largest in the world (2009); more than 1,200 French companies have subsidiaries in the United States. The country plays a leading role in the European Community, the largest integrated market in the world.

French, with English, is the most important language of international organizations (UN, UNESCO, International Monetary Fund, World Health Organization).

Recent alumni of the French program have secured the following positions:

  • Investment Analyst, GE Capital
  • Admissions Counselor, Denison University
  • Analyst, Goldman, Sachs & Co.
  • Teacher, Teach for America
  • Assistant Account Executive, St. Paul Travelers
  • Editorial Assistant, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Grants & Awards

The Leanne Freas Trout Scholarship in French and Francophone Studies was established in 2009 by Leanne Freas Trout, a member of the class of 1950. The scholarship is used to recruit and retain students majoring in French and Francophone Studies.

Selected Faculty Publications

Logan Connors, "Performing Criticism during Cultural War: The case of Voltaire's l'Ecossaise (1760)." Eighteenth-Century Fiction. Vol. 10, no. 1 (November 2010), pp. 61-80.

Philippe Dubois and John Westbrook, guest co-editors of special issue on Food and National Identities in Contemporary French & Francophone Studies, 2009.

Nathalie Dupont, "Bêtes de langue." Spec. issue "Uncanny Poetry," L'Esprit Créateur 49:2, summer 2009: 163-76.

Renée Gosson, Landscape and Memory: Martinican Land-People-History (film coproduced with Eric Faden) distributed by Third World Newsreel, 2003.

Angèle Kingué, Pour que ton ombre murmure encore (novel), Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999; “Pour l’enseignement des écrivains femmes africaines dans le cours de français,” in The French Review, 1997.

Internships

Students can gain career experience, clarify their goals and make professional connections through internships. Bucknell’s Career Development Center helps students find and secure internships. Recently, students have interned at:

  • Goldman Sachs
  • The Journal Register Company/The Phoenix
  • French Embassy
  • Teaching Assistantship in France

Study Abroad

Bucknell en France provides an opportunity for all Bucknell students to enrich their education by studying in France for an academic year or semester. The program is located in Tours, 150 miles southwest of Paris. Students live with French families and take courses from French professors.

The program includes intensive language training at the Institut de Touraine, classes offered through the Université François Rabelais in Tours, and one course per semester taught by Bucknell faculty. After their first semester in Tours, students can remain in Tours and take regular classes at the Université François Rabelais, the Institut Universitaire de Technologie or the École d’Ingénieurs de Tours; a second semester in France increases the possibility of an internship in a business or public office in Touraine.

A semester in Tours is strongly encouraged for majors; a second semester of study in France or another French-speaking country is highly recommended.

Students also may choose to spend their second semester in Paris or in another French-speaking part of the world, such as Cameroon, Martinique, Quebec or Switzerland.

Program Details

  • The French and Francophone studies program at Bucknell has four stages: basic language skills; building on language skills; direct experience in the culture; and advanced studies in French language, literature and culture.
  • Through the use of computer technology and multimedia such as films, radio and the web, students interact in French constantly with instructors and their peers. In some classes, simulations of real life in France prepare students for their participation in our study-abroad program, Bucknell en France.
  • Although American and French societies have much in common, French values and thought patterns are often distinctly different from ours, so that the study of these cultures opens up a new perspective on the world. Students increase their own sensitivity and awareness, discovering the truth in the saying “To know another language is to possess another soul.”
  • A weekly French Table and guest speakers bring France and the Francophone world to Bucknell.
  • A minor in French is available.
  • Multimedia classrooms and a language learning center are available.

Faculty

Logan Connors
Ph.D. Louisiana State University
Scholarly interests: 17th- and 18th-century French theater, literary criticism, and journalism; literature of the French Revolution; contemporary theater and dramatic criticism/theory.

Philippe Dubois
Ph.D. Ohio State
Scholarly interests: 19th- and 20thcentury French literature, the cultural and literary explosion of the gastronomic field in 19th-century France, the intersections of alimentation, generation and textual production

Nathalie Dupont
Ph.D. Duke University
Scholarly interests: 20th- and 21st century French literature (contemporary poetry and poetics), French language and culture, cinema, cultural and political views on society, representation and performance of identity and the body, violence and marginality

Renée Gosson
Ph.D.Wisconsin at Madison
Scholarly interests: literature and culture of the French West Indies and Quebec

Angèle Kingué
Ph.D. Penn State
Scholarly interests: foreign language pedagogy, Francophone African literature and culture, creative nonfiction and fiction writing

John Westbrook
Ph.D. New York University
Scholarly interests: postrevolutionary French intellectual history and culture, 19th- and 20thcentury society and culture, surrealism, Godard, Houellebecq, the social history of interwar avant-gardes and their echoes in contemporary culture, issues of identity and nostalgia in France today

Undergraduate Research and Creative Projects

Students often collaborate with one or several of the French faculty on research or creative projects, including the following. They:

  • Assist professors working on multimedia projects
  • Produce honors theses with faculty mentors
  • Serve as teaching assistants in a French language course (after they have spent a semester or year in Tours)
  • Conduct summer research in collaboration with a faculty member or members


Recent project titles include:

  • Scudéry and Lhéritier: Les Caprices de la Curiosité
  • Mothers and Daughters: Gender and Authority in Early Modern France
  • Terroir: A Cultural Construction of French Identity
  • Translating Trauma: The Role of Foreign Languages in the Assimilation of Traumatic Experience

Courses Offered

17th-century Studies
18th-century Studies
19th-century Studies
20th-century Studies
Advanced French Conversation I and II
Advanced French I and II
Advanced Intermediate French I and II
Building Proficiency in French
Communicating in Context
Discovering French
Exploring French
Francophone Africa
French Capstone
French Economy and Business Culture
French Literature I and II
Independent Study
Intercultural Communication
Intermediate French Conversation I and II
Introduction to French Cinema
La France actuelle
La France artistique
La France au quotidien
Le Français juridique
L'Ecriture Fantastique
Literature and Culture of Quebec
Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Seminar in French Studies
The French Speaking World
Topics in Civilization
Topics in Francophone Literature and Culture
Topics in Literature
Topics in the Arts
Tours Artistique
Traduction

Graduate School

Many graduates go on to graduate or professional schools. These include not only the French majors and minors, but also students who arrived at Bucknell not knowing French and who learned both the language and literature while majoring in other subjects. Some have taken advanced degrees in French, while others have studied law, medicine, or taken advanced degrees in other subjects. Recent graduates of the program have gone on to:

  • University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • Ohio State University
  • American University
  • New York University
  • Penn State University
  • University of Colorado
  • University of New England
  • Villanova University

Quick Facts

Number of full-time faculty: 6

Average number of majors per class year: 16