The Graduate Program

Chair
Sarah Kay

Director of Graduate Studies
Thomas Trezise

Professors
David M. Bellos, also Comparative Literature
Pietro Frassica
Marie-Hélène Huet
Sarah Kay
Gaetana Marrone-Puglia
Suzanne Nash
Effie Rentzou
François Rigolot

Associate Professor
Volker Schröder
Thomas A. Trezise

Assistant Professors
André Benhaïm
Göran Blix
Natasha Lee
Simone Marchesi

Visiting Professor
Francois Carnilliat (Fall 2008)
Guiseppe Mazzotta (Spring 2009)

Senior Lecturers
Christine Sagnier (French)
Fiorenza Weinapple (Italian)
Florent Masse (French)

Associate Members of the Department
Anthony Grafton, History
Philip Nord, History
Ezra Suleiman, Politics

GRADUATE PROGRAM
Academic Year 2008-2009

     The aim of the Department of French and Italian is to train students to become effective teachers and scholars of French language and literature. (The department does not offer a graduate program in Italian; it does, however, teach graduate-level courses in Italian literature for suitably qualified students in this and other departments.) Instruction and supervision are so arranged as to ensure that students acquire a broad understanding of the whole field of French studies as well as a specialized grasp of its sub-fields, and are well prepared to develop independently as scholars.

General Requirements

     To qualify for graduate work in the department, the candidate must show evidence of a comprehensive knowledge of French literature and competence, written and oral, in the language. A broad training in the humanities is advantageous. By the end of the second year of graduate study, all students must demonstrate the ability to read simple Latin prose and German, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese. Students are urged, however, to fulfill these requirements in the first year of residence. All language requirements must be satisfied in order for the student to be authorized to take the general examination.

Course of Study

     Programs are arranged on an individual basis, in consultation with the director of graduate studies, according to the needs, preparation, and interests of the student. The normal Ph.D. program takes five years, the first two devoted to preparation for the general examination, the third through fifth to the conceptualization and writing of the dissertation. Readmission each year is contingent upon satisfactory performance. Courses may be broad and basic, designed to prepare students for more specialized and original work, or they may be seminars intended to prepare students to work independently and intensively on particular projects. Students are encouraged to take courses in allied subjects, such as history, comparative literature, art history, etc., when such work is of demonstrable importance to their field. During the fourth term students will begin working with their future dissertation advisers to draw up a list of topics to be researched during the summer following the general examination in preparation for a three-hour special field examination administered early in the fifth term. Students will be encouraged to take two to three additional courses related to their dissertation project during this term. Although five years following the general examination are allowed for completion of the dissertation, students should make every effort to complete it during their residence at Princeton.

Fields of Concentration

     As early as the end of the second term, but in any case no later than the end of the fourth, students select a field of concentration from those listed below. A program of study is established in consultation with the director of graduate studies. The fields are:

(1) Middle Ages and Renaissance
(2) The Ancien Régime (Classicism and Enlightenment)
(3) The Revolution to the Present

     The department expects students to enroll in some courses or seminars in each of the fields. Normally, by the end of their fifth term of study they should have taken a total of 15 courses or seminars, including one in Romance linguistics or literary theory. In the general examination, which is based on a comprehensive reading list, students are examined both on their field of concentration and on their general knowledge of the other fields. The dissertation is in the chosen field. Students may, however, choose to bridge fields in selecting a dissertation topic.

Schedule of Exercises and Examinations

Oral Presentation:

     The oral presentation, required of all first-year students at the end of the first term, consists of a brief critical reading of a literary text in French, followed by questioning on the subject.

General Examination:

     The general examination is usually taken at the end of the second year. It consists of two written parts of three hours each: the first directly related to the field of specialization, the second related to the other fields. Students who pass the general examination are eligible, upon application, for the degree of master of arts; there is no M.A. program independent of the doctorate. Students who fail to sustain the general examination may present themselves, whether they are admitted or not, on one further occasion, within one year of the first examination. Students who pass the second time are eligible for the M.A. degree.

Special Field Examination:

     Early in the fifth semester students will take a three-hour examination on the topics researched over the summer in preparation for a dissertation proposal.

Oral Examination on the Dissertation Proposal:

     Taken no later than February of the sixth semester, the oral examination on the dissertation proposal consists of a 60-minute exercise comprising (1) a 20-minute presentation in French of the student's dissertation proposal and (2) a comprehensive interrogation dealing with the implications of the proposal and the student's general program of study. The questions focus on such matters as literary history and bibliography as well as on critical methods. In order to be admitted to this oral examination, students are required to submit, no later than one week prior to the exercise, a written text of the proposal, outlining the issues they propose to explore, the methods of analysis they propose to adopt, and the bibliography of the topic. Students may not sustain the oral examination on the dissertation proposal until they have successfully passed the special field examination. The faculty will make suggestions concerning the proposal, and can approve it, recommend that it be revised and resubmitted, or, in accordance with University regulations, recommend that the candidate be proposed for a terminal M.A. degree.

     In the event of failure to sustain the oral examination, students may present themselves on one further occasion, within a time period determined by the director of graduate studies. Departmental recommendation of graduate students for a fourth year of study is contingent on their having sustained the oral examination on the dissertation proposal.

     Especially well-qualified students who have completed the language prerequisites may, upon successful application to the department's Committee on Graduate Studies, be authorized to present themselves early for the general examination and the oral examination on the dissertation proposal.

Final Public Oral Examination: After the completed dissertation has been recommended for acceptance by the two appointed readers, the examination is set for a date convenient to the candidate and to the department. The examination consists of a formal public lecture of 30 minutes describing the work undertaken and achieved in the writing of the dissertation. The lecture may be delivered in English or in French. The candidate's examining committee then initiates a question period, taking the doctoral dissertation and related areas as the point of departure. No grade is given for this examination other than a pass or fail.

Teaching Requirement and Assistantships

     As a matter of policy, the department requires its graduate students to gain experience in undergraduate teaching. Most students are appointed as part-time assistants in instruction each year they are in residence. Normally, students do not teach during their first term of residence or during their fourth term, when they are preparing for the General Examination. In the third, fourth and fifth years, students normally teach three hours per week each semester in elementary or advanced language classes. Opportunities to teach in literature courses sometimes arise. This teaching is guided and supervised by a faculty member who confers with the student and reports to the department chair on the student's classroom performance.

Financial Assistance

     Financial support may be in the form of fellowships of varying stipend levels, assistantships in instruction, or a combination of the two.

     The Fulton McMahon Research Fund, established by Alfred Foulet, Graduate School Class of 1927, in honor of Fulton McMahon, Class of 1884, provides funding for summer study and thesis research projects to graduate students in good standing.

     The department also enjoys the exclusive disposition of funds allocated specifically to graduate fellowships and stipend increments. Among these may be counted the Behrman, Bergen, Boudinot, and Schultz fellowships, awarded to graduate students who demonstrate outstanding scholarly promise. The Edward C. Armstrong Fund, established in perpetuity by Alfred Foulet, Class of 1927, through a generous testamentary bequest made at his death in 1987, in memory of his Princeton teacher and colleague, provides for fellowship stipends and increments, as well as grants for thesis research and summer study projects both abroad and at Princeton to students in good standing.

Research Facilities

     The department conducts its graduate work in Firestone Library, where it shares B Floor with the Departments of Comparative Literature, English, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures. It has a large room at its disposal, for study, classes and seminars. Books catalogued as belonging to the department of French, Italian and Romance Studies are located on B Floor as well so that graduate students in the department have easy access to them.

French Courses

500 Pedagogy Seminar
Christine Sagnier
Practical and theoretical preparation for teachers of French. Sessions may be held in common with other language programs.

502 Language and Style
Staff
History, theory, and practice of literary translation.

506 Old French Readings
Staff
Reading of selected texts from the Strasbourg Oaths to the beginning of the 13th century, with historical and critical comment made on problems of editions, genres, sources, and others.

509 Old and Middle French Readings
Staff
Continuation of 506. Its focus is the reading of selected texts from the Roman de la Rose to Villon and Commynes.

510 Seminar in Medieval French Literature
Staff
Intensive study of a selected subject from such topics as chansons de geste, roman courtois, paleography and textual criticism, rhetorical theory, lyric poetry, the chronicles and Provençal materials.

511 Humanism and the French Renaissance
François Rigolot
A study of the intellectual and religious expression of the Renaissance as seen against the political and social movements of the age.

512 Lyric Poetry of the French Renaissance
François Rigolot
Intensive study of a selected subject from topics such as the forms of narrative prose, poetics and logic, chamber theater and fête, Reformation and Counter-Reformation writings, travel, literature, and the critical spirit.

513 Seminar in the French Renaissance
François Rigolot
To suit the particular interests of the studies and the instructor, a subject for intensive study is selected from topics such as the forms of narrative prose, poetics and logic, chamber theater and fête, Reformation and Counter-Reformation writings, travel literature, and the critical spirit.

515 The Classical Tradition
Volker Schröder
Major authors, dominant genres, and masterpieces of the classical age of French literature. The contemporary awareness of tradition and hierarchy, the significance of codification, and the question of imitation are among the problems to be explored. Authors and topics may include Racine, Molière, Boileau, and La Rochefoucauld;classical theater; the moralists; and memoirs and historiography.

516 Seminar in 17th-Century French Literature
François Rigolot, Volker Schröder
Usually a treatment of an aspect of the "other" or nonofficial culture of the 17th century such as préciosité, parody, and burlesque; correspondence; personal memoirs; and others.

517 Forms of Neoclassicism
Volker Schröder
Poetic, dramatic, and narrative systems and conventions in the Ancien Régime. The topic selected is usually generic, but may concern the work of a single writer or a group of works by different writers.

518 The Literature of Enlightenment
Marie-Hélène Huet, Natasha Lee
The relation of aesthetic form, genre conventions, and ideology is examined through the work of one of the major 18th-century writers or through one or more of the paraliterary forms often preferred by 18th-century writers: the familiar letter, the anecdote, the scientific or critical essay, the commentary, historiography, or natural history.

519 Enlightenment and Romanticism
Marie-Hélène Huet, Natasha Lee
Study of an aspect of literature or thought in the two periods. Topics envisaged include the writing of history from Voltaire to Michelet, Madame de Staël and the Coppet circle, classical and romantic theories, and practices of translation.

521 Romanticism
David Bellos, Suzanne Nash
The ideological and formal problems raised by the break with classical ideals are studied in a variety of texts, documentary as well as literary from Rousseau through the late Hugo. Topics include the conception of the literary work as a personal, original production; the struggle of the author for the creation of a style; and the writer's assumption of his relation to history.

522 19th-Century Lyric Poetry
Staff
Intensive textual study of the poetic theories and practices of Hugo, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and the Parnassians.

523/COM 563 The French Novel in the 19th Century
David Bellos, Göran Blix
A systematic analysis of narrative forms through the close examination of particular texts. At various times the following is considered: the prose romance, the picaresque, the thesis novel, the novel of manners, the stream-of-consciousness novel, the nouveau roman, and shorter forms of fiction.

524 20th-Century French Narrative Prose
David Bellos, Thomas A. Trezise, André Benhäim
The major developments in French fiction from Proust to Perec. The course will focus either on formal and thematic developments, or on the work of one or two major authors (for example, Proust, Gide, Céline, Sarraute, Perec).

525 20th-Century French Poetry or Theater
Staff
The aesthetic theories and practices of dramatists or poets who have helped to form our idea of modernism, including Apollinaire, Artaud, Breton, Claudel, Cocteau, Genet, Ponge, Reverdy, and Valéry.

526 Seminar in 19th- and 20th-Century French Literature
Thomas A. Trezise
Treatment of either the works of an individual writer or a broad topic, such as the impact on literature of other forms of intellectual or artistic activity, including philosophy, the visual arts, history, and psychology.

527 Seminar in French Civilization
André Benhaïm, Marie-Hélène Huet
The role of political, legal, and economic institutions in the development of French society of the 19th and 20th centuries. The course studies writers actively involved in the political life of the country.

528 World Literature in French
André Benhaïm
According to faculty availability, treatment of either francophone literature and culture of a given geographical area (such as Canada, the Caribbean, North or Sub-Saharan Africa, Belgium), the literary and cultural problems common to several geographical areas, or the work of one or more Francophone writers.

581 Introduction to Romance Linguistics and Cultures
Staff
The development of the Romance languages, principally French and Spanish, within their cultural contexts and examines the principles and practices of historical linguistics.

583 Seminar in Romance Linguistics and/or Literary Theory
François Rigolot, Thomas A. Trezise, Marie-Hélène Huet, Sarah Kay
An examination of either the intersection of linguistic and literary analysis as illustrated by the Romance languages or the theoretical foundations of literary study.

Italian Courses

551, 552 Medieval Italian Literature
Pietro Frassica
Dante and medieval Italian literature to 1321.

553, 554 Literature of the Italian Renaissance
Pietro Frassica
Currents of Italian thought and literary expression from 1321 to 1600.

555, 556 Modern Italian Literature
Pietro Frassica, Gaetana Marrone-Puglia
Literature of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

Undergraduate Courses of Interest to the Graduate Program

401 Topics in French Literature and Culture
407 Advanced French Language and Style

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