Department of French and Italian

The Department of French and Italian teaches these languages and literatures at the 100, 200, 300, and 400 levels. The department offers four tracks for concentrators: concentration in one language and literature (French or Italian); concentration in two languages and literatures (one of which must be French or Italian); concentration in French or Italian with history, politics, art, or another related field; and concentration in French or Italian with linguistics. The department also offers a top-rated graduate program in French.

There are 16 regular faculty members in the department; more than half of them are native speakers of French or Italian. They include scholars of international distinction in all the main branches of the subjects taught, from medieval literature to contemporary French and Italian film, as well as younger faculty of exceptional promise. All professors regularly teach undergraduate classes; class size is limited to 13 students in language-instruction courses and is only occasionally much larger in literature and other courses.

The Department of French and Italian is located in the newly refurbished East Pyne Building, which also houses the University’s Language Resource Center, a 70-seat auditorium equipped for film projection and many other state-of-the-art facilities for faculty and for students.

The department offers language courses in French and Italian from beginners’ level through to advanced. The 101–102–107 sequence is designed to bring beginning students to a level at which they can operate effectively in speaking, reading, and writing the foreign language. There are also intensive, accelerated courses in French and Italian in the spring semester (102/7), and a separate sequence (105–108) for students having mastered basic French skills in high school. Selected students interested in pursuing the study of French or Italian beyond the language requirement may participate in summer study at Annecy (France) or at the University of Macerata (Italy). Many students obtain advanced placement on the basis of their high school work and enter 200-level courses in the freshman year.

The department offers a wide range of 200-, 300-, and 400-level courses in the literatures and civilizations of Italy, France, and the French-speaking world. All periods of literature, from the medieval to the contemporary, are covered, but there are also many courses dealing with the culture and societies of the relevant countries, as well as with film in the modern period.

Students who elect to concentrate in French or Italian are often simultaneously enrolled in special certificate programs, such as European Cultural Studies, Study of Women and Gender, Latin American Studies, or Theater and Dance. French and Italian concentrators may also apply for admission to the certificate program at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Many students who aim to become engineers, microbiologists, economists, or historians also wish to maintain and extend their knowledge of French or Italian. To encourage the wider study of these languages throughout the student body, the department offers the certificate in language and culture. The requirements for this certificate are a minimum of four advanced courses in the language, and the writing of an appropriate piece of independent work using sources in the language and focusing on some aspect of its culture, history, or literature. In appropriate cases—and there are many, especially for historians, art historians, anthropologists, musicians, economists, and students of English and other literatures—the independent work may be a junior paper or a senior thesis.

Studying another language in depth is more than simply a means of acquiring an additional instrument of communication. Learning another language teaches us about language itself. By the same token, it also teaches more effective use of one’s own tongue. Competence in more than one language and mastery of stylistic and rhetorical devices in order to communicate more effectively make language learning a fundamental component of a liberal education.

Studying a foreign literature and culture also provides a means for thinking critically about any literature and culture, including one’s own. As French and Italian are the everyday means of expression and communication of large populations in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, and the repository of several great literatures and cultures, students of French and Italian can expect to acquire both an invaluable skill and a broad education appropriate to the variety of the contemporary world, the increasing intensity of international exchanges, and the growing role of communications in all aspects of modern life. Graduates in French and Italian go on to a wide variety of careers. Some undertake graduate study in literature or other disciplines; others enter the world of business or are recruited into management training programs. Princeton graduates have entered law schools and also have followed pre-med programs and won admission to the most prestigious medical schools in the country. Whether you are planning a career in the humanities, education, journalism, government, science, or business, the study of a foreign language, literature, and culture offers a useful and challenging option in your university education.

Students entering the department are expected to have acquired a sound knowledge of either French or Italian by the end of their sophomore year, usually by successfully completing at least one 200-level course.

Concentrators take eight upperlevel courses in the department. Up to three of these may be courses offered by other departments in specific areas of related interest, such as the history, art history, archaeology, music, literature, or film of the language of concentration. The focus of interest ranges from literature and literary history to the critical study of ideology and culture. Distinguished visiting faculty from the United States and abroad frequently offer additional courses that expand the range of the department’s offerings.

In the fall semester of their junior year, concentrators write their first junior paper (JP) of about 4,000 words, and in the spring semester, their second, longer JP of some 5,000 to 8,000 words. These pieces of independent work, through which elementary research skills are acquired, may be written in English or in the language of concentration, but a summary of the paper in the other language is always required. Both in the selection of topics and in the preparation of the paper, students work closely with a faculty adviser.

The highlight of senior year is the senior thesis, a substantial piece of independent work that crowns a student’s academic experience at Princeton. Early selection of the topic is strongly encouraged, as the department is very willing to assist with genuine and well-thought-out proposals for research travel and other possible costs in the summer preceding senior year or in the fall break. The senior thesis is an opportunity to master a specific area of interest and to write an extensive treatment of a topic.

Recent senior theses have covered a very wide range of academic interests, from literature to politics, from film to race relations:

French

Modern fiction: “Claude Simon: The AntiNovel”

Opera: “Semiotics of Bizet’s Carmen”

Film: “Agnès Varda: glaneuse d’images, artisan du tournage”

Politics: “The Education of Second-Generation North-African Immigrants in France”

French Outside France

“The Writings of Albert Memmi, Tunisian Jewish Novelist and Sociologist”

“La Domination de l’élite urbaine au Sénégal”

Italian

Film: “Lo specchio materno: considerazioni sul rapporto madre-figlia. The evolving craft of the female filmmaker in contemporary France and Italy”

Literature: “Becoming Authors in Twentieth-Century Turin: The Autobiographical Writing of Natalia Ginzburg and Primo Levi”

Study and Work Abroad: Concentrators in French or Italian are strongly encouraged to spend a semester (or a year) in a Frenchspeaking country or in Italy, usually in their junior year. A number of programs are recommended on the basis of positive experience by Princeton students over the years. Courses taken abroad in approved programs may fulfill departmental requirements up to a limit of two courses per term. Course credit in French and Italian can also be obtained through approved summer study abroad.

PrincetoninFrance, a long-established and successful internship program based in the department, offers students an opportunity to spend from six to nine weeks of the summer working in France in a variety of positions: banks, stores, factories, hospitals, summer camps, and even the French Senate. Salaries cover normal living expenses, and scholarship funds are available to help with transportation costs, if needed.

Special Facilities: Princeton’s Firestone Library is one of the great treasure-houses of the world, and its holdings are particularly rich in the Romance languages and literatures. The social science section of the library is unusually well stocked with materials pertaining to contemporary France and Italy. The library subscribes to numerous foreign periodicals, as well as to many French and Italian newspapers and magazines. Further opportunities for research are provided by special collections, such as the Marquand Art Library or the rare books division of Firestone. The latter contains both old and new materials; among the latter, for example, is a valuable collection of pamphlets and other materials documenting life in France during World War II as well as a remarkably full collection of the publications of the Collège de ’Pataphysique.

Concentrators also have the use of the departmental lounge, where they will find coffee and tea, as well as a selection of newspapers and magazines from France, Quebec, and Italy.

If you would like to find out more about Princeton’s Department of French and Italian, please visit its Web site at web.princeton.edu/sites/fit; or write to the departmental representative, Department of French and Italian, 303 East Pyne, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544-5264; or call (609) 2584500.