Interested in graduate studies in French? Please consider UIC’s Master of Arts program. We offer a small, supportive academic community within the cultural wealth of Chicago.
Intellectual community
We work closely with our students and offer intensive mentoring. Students and faculty collaborate to develop an individualized course of study for each student.
The faculty’s scholarly interests are diverse and passionate. Recent faculty honors include a Mellon Foundation fellowship, a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques, a Rising Star Award, and multiple university teaching awards. Recent faculty publications include Yann Robert’s Dramatic Justice: Trial by Theater in the Age of the French Revolution and Ellen McClure’s the Logic of Idolatry in Seventeenth-Century French Literature. And we are delighted to welcome Rose E. Gérazime, a specialist in Francophonie with particular interest in Haitian literature, to our faculty.
We are proud to be one of only a few departments in the United States where the faculty teaches exclusively in French at the graduate level. Recent graduate courses have been devoted to Vigilantes, Brigands, and Terrorists: Justice in a Time of Revolution, The World According to Molière, Limits of the Human in 19th-Century France, The Algerian War and its Cultural Heritage in France, and Seduction from the Middle Ages to the Revolution.
Through close collaboration with our faculty, students develop a broad knowledge of French studies while honing their research skills.
Funding
The great majority of our graduate students are awarded teaching assistantships that come with a generous stipend and a full tuition waiver. Working closely with experienced teachers and the Language and Culture Learning Center, TAs learn and practice cutting-edge teaching techniques while teaching courses with a substantial online component.
On-campus opportunities
The intellectual environment at UIC is dynamic and interdisciplinary. Particularly notable is UIC’s Institute for the Humanities, which sponsors a wonderful variety of lectures, colloquia, and seminars. Our MA students may also work with other programs, such as Gender and Women’s Studies, Moving Image Arts, and Black Studies to enhance their learning experience.
We organize exciting events every year. Recent examples include roundtables with Andreï Makine and Valère Novarina, as well as a lecture by Dany Laferrière, all world-famous authors. With the French Consulate, we hosted the 2019 Biennale de la langue française, drawing speakers from across the world. The School of Literatures, Cultural Studies, and Linguistics also sponsors an annual conference—featuring nationally known keynote speakers—at which both faculty and graduate students present their work in progress.
Connections to the world
Our program seeks to help students build bridges to people and places outside the UIC campus. Our students have recently held internships at the Consulate General of France in Chicago, the Chicago French-American Chamber of Commerce, and at the renowned Newberry Library, where our students regularly present at the annual Center for Renaissance Studies Graduate Student Conference. Housed in the heart of Chicago, UIC is close to the splendid Art Institute, Lyric Opera, the Gene Siskel Film Center, and vibrant theater life. Our students can also participate in a graduate-level exchange program with the Mission Interuniversitaire de Coordination des Echanges Franco-Américains (MICEFA) in Paris.
Beyond the MA
Our graduates are regularly accepted into top Ph.D. programs, recently including the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Duke University, New York University, Brown University, Emory University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Colorado-Boulder, and Princeton University. Other graduates go on to teach in private and public schools, from the elementary to the post-secondary level, or apply their French studies to enriching their practice of law, architecture, or business. Our alumni as diverse as they are accomplished.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, or if you’d simply like to talk about our program. The deadline to apply for admission and teaching assistantships is January 15, 2023. My colleagues and I look forward to hearing from you!
With my best wishes,
John Ireland
Director of Graduate Studies in French
jireland@uic.edu