Our concentration in French and Francophone Studies hones your speaking, reading and translation skills while deepening your critical understanding of France and the Francophone world.
You'll receive an immersive language experience by studying literature, culture and film and by engaging in discussions and analyses with faculty and classmates in small, interactive classes. Take these studies a step further by completing a senior thesis in French and earning distinction in the language major. And you'll have access to the support and programs of DU’s Center for World Languages and Cultures along the way.
Outside the classroom, you can join the DU Francoscope Club, explore internship opportunities or study abroad in places like France, Senegal, Madagascar, Quebec, Belgium, Switzerland and Morocco.
Our graduates go on to become artists, computer programmers, translators, NGO directors and lawyers. And with French-speaking Canada as the United States’ most important export market, French-speakers have opportunities to excel in international commerce and business.
Concentration in French & Francophone Studies
The concentration in French & Francophone Studies is available for the major or minor in Languages, Literatures & Cultures. To learn more about the degree requirements, please review the program of study in Bulletin.
Learn About the Languages, Literatures & Cultures Major and Minor
Featured Courses
FREN 2502
La France et ses autres mondes
About this Course
In Les Petits garçons naissent aussi des étoiles (1988), a humoristic novel which retraces the history of an anonymous African country from colonization to its present days, Emmanuel Dongala’s narrator relates: “[t]hey ruled over us, ran the country, exploited us, taught us their language, sent us to their schools, gave us new ancestors called Gauls. That’s why we still speak French, love French food, and still like to spend our vacations in France, even if these days it is easier to get visa to the moon than to that country.” This seminar reexamines these well captured relations in Dongala’s novel between France and its “other” worlds. How and why has France built and maintained its empire in Africa, Asia and the Americas? How do the leaders of the Francophone world cope with the politics of hegemony put in place by the (ex)rulers? How do the former question and reject the latter in their quest for self-affirmation and nation building before, during and after independence? Our wide range of Pan-Francophone textual and filmic selection from prominent writers and filmmakers such as Aimé Césaire, Patrice Lumumba, Sékou Touré, Christiane Taubira, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Kim Lefèvre, Samin Nair, Jacques Kane, Isabelle Boni-Claverie and Raoul Peck will help us answer the aforementioned questions and classic and newly emerging notions of civilizing mission, Francophonie, Francosphere, postcolonialism, neocolonialism, Afropeanism and Afropolitanism.
FREN 3505
Masques du Moi
About this Course
Qui suis-je??? The question of self, identity, and discovering "who I am" has preoccupied many writers, filmmakers, or other artists. Identity, or one's sense of self, can be shaped by families, personal experiences, or social and historical forces. Writers might recount the "true" facts of their lived experience or mix in some fictions as they fashion a story of the self. This course will explore the diverse ways that autobiography and others ways of "writing the self" represent the relation of self, world and word. Examples will come from French and Francophone contexts. The class is conducted all in French and emphasizes discussion, writing, and critical thinking. This course counts toward the Analytical Inquiry: Society and Culture requirement.
FREN 3507
Auteures classiques
About this Course
A comprehensive and analytical study of women authors of France from the Middle Ages to 2000.
