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Why Study French at UC Davis?
The Graduate Program in French at UC Davis provides graduate students with a strong base of historical coverage, spanning from the Middle Ages to the present including Francophone Studies. The department also offers a strong emphasis on past and recent developments in literary and critical theory that influence French scholarship. Faculty interests such as linguistics, comparative literature, critical theory, film studies, and women's studies ensure that students are exposed to interdisciplinary approaches and are invited to integrate these perspectives into their program.
Students may work not only with faculty in the Department of French and Italian but also with faculty in related fields of interest. Students may pursue a Designated Emphasis (Graduate Minor) in the following:
- African American and African Studies
- Classics and Classical Receptions
- Critical Theory
- Feminist Theory and Research
- Second Language Acquisition
- Studies in Performance and Practice
The doctoral program is distinguished by individualized study and intensive collaboration between faculty and students. The department prides itself on its strong tradition of mentorship that encourages students to develop a truly unique course of research. In addition, the department provides its graduate students with numerous academic and teaching opportunities. Each year the department sponsors a graduate student exchange with one of the French universities affiliated with the University of California's Education Abroad Program, including the École normale supérieure, rue d'Ulm.
Program Requirements
The French Department offers a wide-ranging course of study leading to the Ph.D. degree. Students may choose either the literature or the linguistics track, according to their areas of interest. Students are expected to complete a minimum of 12 graduate seminars, chosen in consultation with the Graduate Adviser or another faculty adviser. They are encouraged to take courses in a variety of areas in order to develop:
1) a comprehensive knowledge of French
2) the ability to use specific critical methods
3) a mastery of the chosen field of concentration.
During the spring quarter of the first year of study, all students are required to take a preliminary exam designed to assess their strengths and weaknesses and to facilitate course selection and advising. Within one year of completing all course work, students advance to candidacy for the Ph.D. by passing a qualifying examination and by demonstrating in-depth knowledge of the history of French literature or the subfields of linguistics. Ph.D. candidates must also demonstrate proficiency in one foreign language in addition to English and French, and must complete a successful defense of their proposed dissertation topics. Ph.D. work concludes with the writing and acceptance of the dissertation.
For a detailed description of all program requirements, please see the Ph.D. Degree Requirements.
Research Facilities
UC Davis' extensive Shields Library numbers nearly 2.5 million volumes, including more than 41,000 periodicals and serials. The library is ranked as one of the 25 best research collections in the nation and its collections in the Humanities are adequate for all but the most specialized research. Volumes not available on campus may be readily and promptly obtained from any of the nine UC campuses through interlibrary loan. In addition, a university bus service provides daily transportation to and from the Berkeley campus 60 minutes away.
Cost of Study (2011-2012)
Fees and tuition for one year (3 quarters) of graduate study currently total approximately $15,271.44 for California residents and $30,373.44 for international students and for nonresident U.S. citizens. The latter, if financially independent of parental support, can become exempt from non-resident supplemental tuition costs during the second year of graduate study by making appropriate arrangements to establish residency in California. Applicants with excellent academic records and those awarded teaching assistantships can apply for Nonresident Tuition Fellowships. For a completed breakdown of fees and tuition, please see the university's Student Fees page.
Financial Assistance
Teaching Assistantships
A limited number of teaching assistantships are available to qualified students even in their first year. The current rate (2011-2012) for a teaching assistantship at 50% time (the normal load)
is $16,969.50 per academic year. In addition to this salary, TAs receive a partial fee remission. For current remission rates, click
here.
Students who wish to be considered for teaching assistantships in French should complete and return the application as early as possible, but in no case later than March 1st.
The TA application is available here.
Scholarships and Fellowships
University scholarships and fellowships are available to students with exceptional academic qualifications. Applications will be available as part of the online application process and must be
submitted, along with all other parts of the application, by January 15th.
U.S. Citizens must also complete the FAFSA.
Other Financial Aid
Information concerning grants, loans, and work-study assistance is available from the Financial Aid Office. Inquires concerning housing costs and availability should be directed to Student Family Housing or the Community Housing Office.
Admission
Admission to the program is based upon the applicant's potential for scholarship, research, and teaching, along with evidence of a commitment to the advanced study of literature, linguistics, and/or culture. Decisions on admission and financial awards are based on all available information including GRE scores, undergraduate record, letters of recommendation, personal statements, and a writing sample to be submitted with the application. Whenever possible, the department will arrange for campus visits. A preliminary consultation with the Graduate Adviser is strongly encouraged. Please contact Associate Professor Noah Guynn at ndguynn@ucdavis.edu.
For those applicants who wish to be considered for fellowships or financial aid, the deadline is January 15th. Otherwise, the deadline is May 31st. Please see the Application Instructions for details on applying, including a list of required application material.
The Community
The City of Davis (population 64,000) and the adjacent campus are located in the Central Valley, 12 miles west of the capital city of Sacramento and 75 miles east of San Francisco. While maintaining a college-town atmosphere, the spacious campus (the largest in the area, and the third largest in enrollment, among the nine campuses of the UC system) enrolls 29,087 students, 6,337 of whom study in graduate and professional schools. In recent years, UC Davis has been consistently among the most sought-after of the UC campuses owing to its outstanding academic reputation and its congenial atmosphere for living and study. UC Davis presents frequent lectures, concerts, art exhibits, films, and theater. The cultural resources of Berkeley and San Francisco are within ninety minutes driving time from Davis, while Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada and the coastal communities of Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel, and Big Sur are only slightly more distant.
Program Faculty
- Jeff Fort, Ph.D. (University of California, Berkeley). He specializes in twentieth century prose, with a special interest in the relation between fiction, memory, and autobiography; critical theory, including modern German philosophy from Kant to Heidegger and its French reception; twentieth century French thought; aesthetics and aesthetic theory; translation. He has translated a number of literary and philosophical works such as Maurice Blanchot, Aminadab; Jean Genet, The Declared Enemy; Jean-Luc Nancy, The Ground of the Image; Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Heidegger and the Politics of Poetry; and most recently Jacques Roubaud, The Loop. He is currently working to complete a study of literary space and the "imperative to write" in Kafka, Blanchot, and Beckett.
- Noah Guynn, Ph.D. (Yale University). He specializes in medieval and early modern French literature, theater, and culture. His book Allegory and Sexual Ethics in the High Middle Ages was published in The New Middle Ages Series at Palgrave Macmillan in 2007. He is currently working on a second book on ethics and politics in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century farce. Guynn's teaching interests extend from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century, and he regularly offers courses on topics such as medieval romance, Molière, and the Theater of the Absurd.
- Eric Russell Webb, Ph.D. (University of Texas, Austin). He specializes in phonology and phonetics, focusing on the role of biomechanics in the grammaticalization of sound structure. He is especially interested in the evolution of language, the emergence of Creoles and the interface between related grammars, e.g. Romance, dialect, register. He has published works in Linguistica Atlantica, The Morphology and Phonology of Creoles, the Canadian Journal of Netherlandic Studies and the Journal of Language and Linguistics, among others.
- Julia Simon, Ph.D. (University of California, San Diego). She specializes in 18th-century French literature and culture, particularly the work of the philosophes, with special emphasis on the relevance of Enlightenment social, political, moral, and aesthetic theory today. She is the author of Beyond Contractual Morality: Ethics, Law, and Literature in Eighteenth-Century France and Mass Enlightenment: Critical Studies in Rousseau and Diderot and is currently working on a project concerning eighteenth-century music theory.
Affiliated Faculty
- Moradewun Adejunmobi, Ph.D. (University of Ibadan, Botswana). teaches in the African American and African Studies Program. Her research interests include African literature, West African popular culture, translation and intercultural communication, literacy and media studies. She has published articles in Research in African Literatures, Cultural Critique, Comparative Literature, and Callaloo among others. She is the author of JJ Rabearivelo, Literature and Lingua Franca in Colonial Madagascar, and Vernacular Palaver: Imaginations of the Local and Non-Native Languages in West Africa. Her current research project focuses on the intersection between writing and new media in West Africa.
Recent Courses
Although courses are not repeated on a regular basis, the following course list should give an idea of the types of courses generally offered by department faculty.
20th Century Prose - Samuel Beckett's Prose.
The seminar will focus on the longer prose works that Beckett originally wrote in French. Much of our time will be spent on the extraordinary "early trilogy" of novels, Molloy, Malone Meurt, and L'innommable -- "novels" which begin by leaving the conventional novel far behind and end with something resembling its complete and utter destruction. We will also read Comment c'est as well as the "late trilogy" of shorter prose works to which Beckett gave the collective title Nohow On: Compagnie, Mal Vu Mal Dit and Worstward Ho (this last was written in "English" (if one can call it that...) and was not translated by Beckett himself; therefore we will read it in its original version). In addition to the question of the novel's destruction and/or deconstruction, we will also address the issue of "failure," on which Beckett so insisted; the nature of fictive language as it is pushed to the extremes of intelligibility; the difficulties and paradoxes that arise when the act of "creation" is explicitly integrated into the texture of the created fictive world; the apparently derisory religious allegories one finds in these works; the paradoxes and aporias of subjectivity and the self-seeking voice; the radical extension and "critique" of the Cartesian cogito; the torture of language and the hellishness of fictional otherworlds (and the echoes of Dante heard in them); the stubbornness of self-reference and the impossibility of escaping autobiographical residues in even the most impersonal prose; the tremendous importance of the literary task and of the poetic articulation of a singular experience, despite it all. We will look at a minimal number of critical works on Beckett, by authors such as Maurice Blanchot, Alain Badiou, Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit, as well as some early critical writings by Beckett himself. Note that lectures and discussion will be in English and the course will be open to students from outside the French department who may wish to read the works in Beckett's English translations. Some French is recommended for such students, but not required. (This will also allow us to address some of the questions concerning bilingualism and self-translation posed by Beckett's work.) (Jeff Fort)
The French Revolution.
This course will study the historical phenomenon of the French Revolution. We will explore documents, narrative histories, and other primary sources - cahiers de doléances, speeches to the assembly, decrees, political pamphlets-to delve into the causes and events of the revolution of 1789. In addition to contemporary source documents, we will read debates in nineteenth-, twentieth- and twenty-first-century history, engaging questions of micro-history, macro-history, historical sociology, and historiography. Work for the course will consist of an oral presentation to the seminar and a research paper. Possible authors to include Sieyès, Robespierre, Mirabeau, Danton, Tocqueville, Burke, Michelet, Taine, Furet, Chartier, and Lefebvre. (Julia Simon)
Creoles and Creolization.
This course provides an introduction to creole languages, pidgins and other contact-induced varieties, their typological distinction and their diachronic emergence. The course further covers theories of creole genesis and reviews the grammatical and sociolinguistic profiles of communities characterized by intense language contact.
The class will focus on the following questions:
- What are creoles, where are they spoken and by whom? How are they distinct vis-à-vis non-creole languages?
- Why does intense language contact sometimes lead to the emergence of creoles and sometimes not? Why do some creoles "debasilectalize" (i.e. become more like their lexifiers) over time, while
others do not?
- Which theories account for these languages' emergence? For their structural similarities and distinctions? What are the strengths and weaknesses of different theories?
- How do sociolinguistic, cognitive and biomechanical factors influence the development and evolution of language? How can these causalities be described and their effects on language be explained?
The typical course meeting will center on the exploration of particular issues raised in reading and previous discussion. Additional weekly work will take the form of data analysis, short position papers on different theories, and overviews of particular creoles, including their past and present situations. You will adopt a pidgin or creole for use several short assignments and class presentations. (Eric Russell Webb)
Topics in the Linguistic Study of French.
This course aims to acquaint students with morphological theory and its acquisition, particularly with respect to learners of Romance languages (French, Italian, and Spanish) whose native language is
Germanic (Dutch, English, German). The first five weeks of the course are devoted to discussing general issues in morphology; early L2 morphological studies and the criticisms leveled against those
studies; and the notion of variability (or systematicity) in morphological forms as it relates to L2 competence, performance, learner-internal factors, and learning environment. The following
five weeks of the course focus on current L2 research on tense and aspect and gender and number. The course also seeks to provide students with experience in presenting a conference poster submission,
based on their own preliminary research related to one of the course topics, during the last week of the course. The final course grade will be based on completion of weekly discussion questions and
morphological exercises (50%), the poster presentation (25%), and a final paper based on the poster presentation that takes into account class discussion/criticism (25%).
Comedy and Farce.
This course will examine late medieval and early modern French comic theater from a socioaesthetic perspective. We will ask to what extent, and in what different ways, early French comic playwrights used spectacle to contest and/or sustain established models of social organization, political domination, ethical judgment, and religious belief. Our orientation will be partly aesthetic (focusing on the generic traits of farce and comedy) and partly sociopolitical (focusing on the ideology of form, specifically the relationship between farce and urban culture, and between comedy and absolute monarchy). The first half of the term will be devoted to fifteenth- and sixteenth-century farces, beginning with Pathelin, the unquestioned masterpiece of late medieval French drama. The second half of the term will focus on the survival of farce in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as well as its influence on the genre that (supposedly) displaces it, comedy. We will read seventeenth-century farces by Tabarin and Molière, as well as Molière's early comedy of manners L'école des femmes and his late comedy ballet (with a score by Charpentier) Le malade imaginaire. (Noah Guynn)
For current course offering, please see the department's Courses page.
French Graduate Student Handbook
French Graduate Student Handbook (last updated: 2011)
