The Department of French is a thriving point of contact between American, European, and African scholarship in the field of French and Francophone literature and cultures. The faculty currently comprises ten professors whose specialties range from medieval literature and culture to twentieth and twenty-first century literature and intellectual history. Approximately thirty graduate students are currently studying French at Columbia. Our PhD program, consistently ranked in the top five programs nationally, is designed to prepare graduates for a career in productive scholarship. Students undergo rigorous and comprehensive training in literary and cultural history and theory before specializing in one area of research. Students admitted to the PhD program must obtain the MA and MPhil degrees along the way. The program is designed to permit a well-prepared student to earn the MA degree in four semesters, the MPhil degree in three years, and the PhD degree in five years. Students who enter the PhD program after completion of the MA or its equivalent elsewhere are evaluated during the second semester of residence at which time they may be granted up to two Residence Units (equivalent to the Residence Unit requirement for the MA) and appropriate exemptions from certain requirements.