Graduate Study in French and Francophone Studies (with dual-Ph.D. option in African Studies) at the Pennsylvania State University

Willa Z. Silverman Discussion

The Department of French and Francophone Studies at The Pennsylvania State University is recruiting outstanding candidates for advanced study leading to the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. Since our program is selective, we are able to provide all of our full-time students with generous financial support and full tuition grants. We welcome applicants from historically underrepresented groups, for whom additional internal fellowships are often available.

Penn State’s French and Francophone Studies graduate program is unique for its long-established Ph.D. specializations in Literature and in Culture and Society with an interdisciplinary orientation that fosters innovative approaches to a broad variety of objects of study. Digital scholarship also figures among our areas of strength. Faculty expertise spans women’s, gender and sexuality studies, colonial history and Francophone studies, linguistics, early modern studies, theatre and film studies, material culture and aesthetics, cultural theory, anthropology, popular and media culture, and Jewish studies. We offer distinctive dual doctoral degrees in French and Francophone Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies (a top-ranked department nationally) and in French and Francophone Studies and African Studies. A third dual degree, in French and Francophone Studies and Language Science, will be launched very soon.

Our students receive extensive pedagogical training and teach courses in language, literature, culture, and linguistics at all undergraduate levels. Grants to support our students’ conference travel and dissertation research are available through a variety of internal sources, including Penn State’s Institute for the Humanities.  In addition, the Department offers the opportunity to participate in year-long exchange programs with the Université de Strasbourg and the Université Lumière Lyon 2. Finally, students in FFS benefit from numerous initiatives, academic programs, and centers within Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts, including the Rock Ethics Institute; Committee for Early Modern Studies; Centers for Global Studies, for Humanities and Information, and for Democratic Deliberation; and a graduate minor in Social Thought.

For further information on the Department of French and Francophone Studies, its graduate program and the application procedure, please visit our website at http://www.french.psu.edu or contact Willa Z. Silverman, Director of Graduate Studies and Malvin E. and Lea P. Bank Professor of French and Jewish Studies, at wzs1@psu.edu. We look forward to hearing from you!