The concentration in French and Francophone Studies is committed to the pursuit of an interdisciplinary, linguistically rigorous, and textually informed understanding of French and Francophone literatures and cultures. Concentrators engage actively through their coursework with a wide range of texts and critical perspectives, pertaining to multiple literary genres, media, and contexts. They have opportunities to study different periods of French history as well as Francophone cultures beyond France. The concentration program is designed to encourage and support language-specific study. Literary texts and cultural documents are read principally in the original. Likewise, in most courses, French is the language of class discussions, presentations and research/critical papers. Concentrators thus achieve advanced proficiency in the language. By the time they graduate, they will have learned to read with knowledge and nuance and produced a varied body of critical work in French.