Our French Doctoral Program:

A constellation of approaches to the literary culture of France and all French-speaking countries, our doctoral program has consistently represented—and will represent in the future—a holistic and collaborative project that stimulates engaged knowledge of literature and culture, nurtures student learning, trains new colleagues, and enhances cultural life. Students and faculty work together toward a future characterized by all that a graduate program in French and Francophone Studies can be: a place of intellectual excitement, cross-disciplinary exchange, pedagogy, and interaction with a global community. Toward that end, our doctoral program emphasizes breadth as well as depth of focus, fostering respect both for literature in all its forms and the full richness of its socio-cultural and historical environment. Our comprehensive and field examinations are designed to nurture meaningful research as well as creative, independent, and original thinking. In order to ensure comprehensive coverage of the broad spectrum of French and Francophone literature and culture, our course offerings deal with the six traditional chronological periods (medieval, Renaissance, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries/contemporary culture) as well as two subject areas: Francophone Studies and Intellectual and Cultural History.

Students are required to cover all eight areas in their course work and to write papers in all six periods. Fields of studies include Literary and Critical Theory; Francophone Studies and Post-Colonial Politics; Gender Studies ; History of the Book; Law and Literature; Literary History, Historiography, and Criticism; Performance Studies; Philosophy and Aesthetics; Rhetoric; Science and Literature; Second-Language Acquisition; Visual Culture. All students are encouraged to take and/or audit courses outside of the department which are relevant to their areas of specialization. Additionally, official Area Emphases sponsored by the Graduate Division are available in European Medieval Studies, Applied Linguistics, and Women's Studies. Beyond the requirements for the M.A., our continuing students are required to complete 24 units of coursework for the Ph.D. in addition to the requirements listed below. Those students who have earned the M.A. at another institution must pass a pre-qualifying examination at the end of their first year, complete 32 units of graduate seminars at UCSB, and fulfill the requirements below.

Additional requirements for the doctoral program:

1. Documented proficiency in French, English, and a third language.
2. Reading knowledge of Old French.
3. One course in literary theory (in addition to the course on contemporary criticism required for the MA).
4. At least one paper must be written in English, even if the student's native language is not English.
5. 3 quarters' experience as a Teaching Assistant (students sign up for 4 units of French 500 [Apprentice Teaching] every quarter during which they serves as a TA).
6. Successful completion of the Comprehensive and Field exams.
7. Writing and defending the doctoral dissertation.

In designing their programs of study at UCSB, .D. students are encouraged to select a sub-field that intersects with and reinforces their area of study within their primary discipline. Such choices might include visual culture, cultural and social theory, epistemology, anthropology, women's studies, medieval studies, rhetoric, performance studies, intellectual history, etc. While not mandatory, cognate disciplines yield numerous benefits: enhanced focus to doctoral reading lists, coherent choices of seminars taken outside the department, and a secondary expertise that broadens their appeal in the current academic marketplace, where interdisciplinarity generalists are in great demand.

For more detailed information on the Comprehensive and Field examinations, and our graduate faculty, please visit:
http://www.french-ital.ucsb.edu/graduates/handbook.html

The University of California, Santa Barbara
Department of French and Italian