A Short Description of the Ph.D. Program

The doctoral program in French is designed to train students to undertake original research, to engage in scholarly and critical writing, and to prepare for teaching careers at the college and university level. The following information is intended only to provide a brief overview of the program’s main features and requirements. For complete information, please see the Guide to Higher Degrees in French. For information on the application process, please click here.

For students entering with a B.A. in French, the doctoral program normally takes six years to complete. (Students entering with the M.A. will typically spend four years in the program.) This time may vary, depending on each individual student's preparation; it is divided as follows:

The M.A. Phase

• During the first four semesters of graduate study students complete a minimum of eight courses, five of which must be graduate level (200 level). All M.A. level coursework must be completed with at least a 3.5 GPA. In the fourth semester students take a written master's exam, based on a tailored list of representative works from the French and francophone traditions. Upon successful completion of coursework and the M.A. exam, candidates are awarded the M.A. and then considered for admission to the Ph.D. phase of the program.


• Please note: The Department does not admit students whose final educational goal is the M.A. degree.

• In four semesters students complete six more courses, five of which must be at the graduate level (200 level). During the last semester in the Ph.D. phase students take their qualifying exams, based on a set of specialized reading lists developed in close consultation with faculty members. These exams, which contain both written and oral components, are intended both to test general knowledge of a period and to provide students with a chance to develop ideas that will be useful in the definition of the dissertation topic.

• Following successful completion of the qualifying exams, students are advanced to candidacy and enter the dissertation phase of the program, which consists of four semesters. Students first write a dissertation prospectus in consultation with their dissertation committee, and then proceed with the dissertation itself.

Program Features:

• The Ph.D. program in French has been formulated to allow students maximum flexibility to pursue their scholarly interests while guaranteeing the acquisition of broad competency in the discipline of French and francophone literature and culture. Students are both expected to acquire expertise in the works of all periods and given the freedom to develop interdisciplinary and specialized perspectives.

• Incoming students are assigned a faculty mentor as well as a graduate student "buddy" so as to ease their transition into departmental and professional life. We view student-faculty contact as one of the cornerstones of our program's success.

• The department provides all Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs) with in-depth pedagogical training, including pilot classes and pedagogical theory. Many of our students find themselves wanting to do supplementary work in planning innovative new language courses, and are able do so through the resources provided by the Berkeley Language Center. Many advanced graduate students serve as instructors in neighboring departments such as Art History, English, and Comparative Literature; these instructorships offer the opportunity to plan and execute a literature or culture course of your own design.


• The GSI Teaching and Resource Center provides weekly teacher-training workshops throughout the semester; individual teaching consultations; grants for GSIs to improve the quality of teaching at Berkeley; and a summer institute for preparing future faculty.

• The Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures (RLL) is a doctorate in three Romance languages and literatures (French, Italian and Spanish, including Spanish-American), prepared with emphasis in the literature or in the linguistics or philological history of one of the three. The RLL Program offers students the opportunity to tailor a course of study in French, Spanish and Italian to their interests. Applicants to the RLL program with a French emphasis are evaluated by French Department faculty and the program's requirements are different from those listed above. For more information on the RLL Program, click here.

• Students may consider the option of pursuing a Designated Emphasis (DE) in Critical Theory, Film Studies, or Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Students pursuing a Designated Emphasis take certain prescribed courses within these disciplines, and write a dissertation that partially encompasses the chosen field of study. In addition to providing students an institutional mechanism for incorporating this sort of work into the Ph.D. program, the Designated Emphasis assures prospective employers that you have demonstrated expertise in these fields, and it will appear on your final degree. The Program in Medieval Studies also offers a joint degree in French and Medieval Studies.

• A number of interdisciplinary centers and groups regularly bring noted scholars and artists to campus. The Center for the Study of Sexual Culture, brings together researchers with a common interest in the ways sexuality takes on different meanings in different cultural contexts.


• The French Studies Program organizes lectures, visits by scholars, and conferences involving France and the French tradition(s) across the disciplines of the Humanities and the Social Sciences.


• The Townsend Center for the Humanities promotes research and ongoing conversation among and within academic disciplines. It hosts art exhibits, lectures, and conferences and sponsors a large number of working groups, which meet informally and are run and attended by both graduate students and faculty. The Center also provides funding to support student journals.

• Fostering intellectual life among students is a priority. Click here for information on current student interests.

• The Department is committed to helping graduates secure academic employment. This includes workshops on aspects of the job market in both spring and fall, reviewing and editing of curriculum vitae and letters of application, mock interviews, and works-in-progress talks that help candidates learn to present their research.

• The Department has an excellent record in placing students who apply nationally and internationally for positions; in the last several years our students have been offered tenure-track appointments at Wellesley College, Davidson College, Georgetown University, Reed College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the Universities of Colorado, Minnesota, Southern California, South Florida, Texas (Austin), Washington, Hawaii, and Michigan.

• Each year, a limited number of outstanding admission candidates are nominated to the campus-wide multi-year fellowship competition. Successful nominees receive two years of fellowship support and two additional years of appointment as a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) in French. Students who are not awarded a multi-year fellowship may be awarded a one year fellowship or a Graduate Student Instructorship in French with coverage of non-resident tuition, when appropriate.

• Applicants should note that there are a few non-UC Berkeley sources of funding for graduate education. These include the Ford Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellowships, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, the Javits Fellowship Program, and the Soros Fellowships for New Americans.

• The Department offers a number of resources for financing graduate study, including fellowship packages, fellowships for continuing students, and Graduate Student Instructorships. It also awards grants for summer study and travel.

• UC Berkeley also provides funding support on a competitive basis to humanities students at various points in their graduate career. The Academic Progress Award provides fellowship support for students who are preparing for their Qualifying Exams. The Graduate Division Summer Grant provides summer financial support. The Dean's Normative Time Fellowship provides a full year of fellowship support for students who advance to candidacy within normative time (four years in humanities departments). The Townsend Center funds a competitve dissertation fellowship for humanities students.

• Students are encouraged to spend time studying in France, and may apply to participate in the Department's exchange programs with the Ecole Normale Supérieure or the Université de Paris VII. These programs have always been sufficient to assure every student the opportunity to study abroad.

Requirements:

Course Requirements

• Students must complete 14 courses, including one course in the history of French language (French 201) and one course in literary criticism (French 270). Students must also fulfill a historical comprehensiveness requirement. This entails completion of a graduate seminar in Medieval literature; three seminars in 16th, 17th, 18th century or early modern studies; three seminars in 19th, 20th century, Francophone Studies, or Modern Studies. Outside of these requirements, students are allowed, and indeed encouraged, to pursue their interests in other departments. Students wanting to improve their general background are also permitted to take up to four undergraduate courses for credit towards their degree.

• The proseminar (French 200) is taken during the first semester of graduate study at Berkeley. This one-hour-a-week class, which does not count toward the Ph.D. requirement, is designed to give new graduate students a broad view of the department's faculty, the courses they teach, and their fields of research. In addition, it introduces students to aspects of the graduate career, issues pertaining to research methodologies and critical debates across the profession.

• The foreign language requirement is fulfilled either through coursework or through examination. If students elect the coursework option, they must complete two upper-level undergraduate or graduate level courses with a grade of B or better. Equivalent recent coursework at the undergraduate or M.A. level from other institutions can be used to fulfill the requirement. If students elect the examination option, they must pass a translation exam.

• The language chosen is usually a classical or modern European language. In cases in which students’ research interests make it desirable, coursework in other languages (e.g., Arabic, Wolof) are also accepted.

If you have any questions regarding the graduate program in French or in Romance Languages and Literatures with an emphasis in French, please contact the Graduate Officer.

For more information on the graduate program in French,
please contact the Graduate Assistant.
Email: frenchga@berkeley.edu
Phone: (510) 642-2714
Office: 4207 Dwinelle