Department of French and Italian

The Department of French & Italian at Vanderbilt offers a lively program of study that reflects the University’s commitment to excellence in interdisciplinary research and teaching at all levels. Our diverse faculty includes scholars whose work explores the intersections of race, gender, law, and religion in French, Francophone and Italian literature and culture.

Undergraduate students can choose to major in French or French and European Studies; we also offer a minor in French and a minor in Italian. All students are encouraged to spend a semester or a year studying in France or Italy. In addition, McTyeire International House has a French hall where students can live and interact with native speakers.

At the graduate level, students may pursue the M.A.and Ph.D. degrees in French. Graduate students are fully funded and have the opportunity to teach and to research in a range of settings, including the renowned W.T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies, the new Center for the Americas, the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, as well as the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture. Graduate students also have the opportunity to spend a year in either Paris or Aix-en-Provence.

News from the Department of French & Italian

Nineteenth Century French Studies Colloquium

The 34th Annual International Nineteenth Century French Studies Colloquium will be held at Vanderbilt University October 16-18, 2008. The theme for the colloquium is "Empire, Identity, Exoticism." Contributions that explore the intersection of these themes from a broad range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary methodologies and approaches--from literary to social and political culture to visual aesthetics--in nineteenth-century France are especially welcome. Click here for further information.

Nineteenth Century French Studies Colloquium