The Wake Forest University Department of French Studies is committed to innovative, engaged teaching and to excellence in research. Our faculty represent scholarly areas of specialization in French and Francophone literature and cultural studies, in film, and in linguistics. Our department has a major and a minor, a concentration in French for Business, and well-established faculty-led study abroad programs in Tours and Dijon.
The French Studies faculty are dedicated teachers and mentors who are invested in the success of our students. In our department, all faculty – from the most senior professors to the junior faculty who joined our department most recently – teach courses at all levels, from elementary French to our major/minor core courses and seminars. The success of beginning French students is as crucial to our departmental identity as that of students in our capstone seminars. Student engagement and mentoring are at the heart of our vision for the department.
We firmly believe that the study of global languages and cultures is a hallmark of a quality liberal arts education. Knowing another language is key to understanding social, historical, and political events in their contexts. In particular, our program aims to provide students with the opportunity to develop the linguistic and intercultural skills that enable exploration of the French and Francophone world, to engage in critical thinking, and to hone their analytical skills.
The department has a wonderful sense of community. I made friends with my fellow students and found important mentors in French Studies professors.
Julia Mroz, French Studies minor (’20)
Statement of Inclusive Excellence
The Department of French Studies is committed to an inclusive environment in our department for all faculty, staff, and students, and to the representation of diverse perspectives in our curriculum and scholarship. Diversity is inherent to the field of French Studies. The French-speaking world is vast, multiethnic, and culturally and economically varied. The WFU French Studies faculty is a diverse group, and our research specializations and teaching interests represent the diversity of the Francophone world, geographically and temporally. We aim to engage students at all levels of French study and from all backgrounds with those rich and varied perspectives. More broadly, we share a common understanding of and a strong commitment to the importance of diversity and inclusion to our teaching and research.
I gained an understanding of the way that learning another language is learning another culture. This minor has meant the opportunity to step outside of my national context into a truly global one. It has provided me with the opportunity to transform not only my perspective on the francophone world, but on the entire world.
Alexander Holt, French Studies minor (’20)
