Program Details
Patti McGill Peterson Center for International and Intercultural Studies
FYS - Global Francophone Cultures Academics
The spring semester is designed for students with minimal exposure to French who are interested in developing competency in the language and in exploring three distinct francophone cultures. Half of the academic program for the spring semester is intensive work in French language. The other two courses, which focus on France, are taught in English.
Courses:
- First Year Seminar An Ethnographic Eye (1.5 units)
It is often excellent ethnographic research that distinguishes scholars studying abroad from travel bloggers and tourists. According to Bochner and Ellis, "Ethnographers inscribe patterns of cultural experience; they give perspective on life. They interact; they take note, they photograph, moralize and write." This, too, is our task this semester. Our intellectual, experiential and research mission demands keen attention to surroundings, behaviors, movements, sounds and smells.
As we study and travel together, our goal is to produce a coherent, seamless research essay that brings myriad experiences together and gives them meaning. Meaning comes from our focus--the one aspect of culture that spawns an intellectual and creative fire in us. It is that particular aspect of culture we want to examine and explore closely. Through reading, research and actual experience in francophone cultures, we will generate a multitude of possibilities for essay topics.
- French 107 or 108 : French language and conversation (2 units)
- French/AFS 279F: La Francophonie (1 unit)
This course will examine the origins and evolution of La Francophonie with primary emphasis on France, Quebec and Sénégal. We will study texts essential to an understanding of theory and movements connected with La Francophonie. We will also address some of its social and cultural manifestations, including contemporary films, and undertake field trips related to the theme of the course. The course will explore the dynamic tension between the presence of a common language and the distinct Francophone identities of peoples linked by a history of colonialism and by political, economic and cultural ties today.