MA and PhD in French Studies at Tulane University
The French Studies program at Tulane University invites applicants to its MA and PhD programs for the academic year 2024–2025.
Graduate study at Tulane fosters a comprehensive and integrative approach to French Studies, providing students with intellectual depth and interdisciplinary dynamism all in a truly singular location. Our position at the northern tip of the Caribbean, our overlap with Francophone communities, our regional history and our city’s archives offer significant untapped resources for research on New Orleans, Louisiana, the Caribbean, the French Atlantic and the rest of the Francophone world.
All students admitted to our program receive full funding in the form of fellowships, teaching assistantships, full tuition remission, and a stipend. Students also have access to competitive summer research funding and conference travel grants during the school year. Our program also offers students the opportunity to spend a year in Paris through our exchange program with l’Ecole Normale Supérieure-Ulm.
Our areas of strength include faculty specializations in Francophone and Afro-Caribbean Studies, medieval and early modern studies, cultural studies, critical theory, humanitarian law & ethics, gender studies, film and media studies, linguistics, European and African philosophy, performance studies, creole studies, and migration and diaspora studies.
- Jean Godefroy Bidima (Ph.D., Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne): continental philosophies (French and German continental philosophy of the 20th century, Spanish Enlightenment), intersections between literatures and arts of the Francophone world, African philosophies, legal anthropology (conflict resolution and restorative justice), medical ethics
- Fayçal Falaky (Ph.D. New York University): 18th-century French literature, culture and politics
- Thomas Klingler (Ph.D., Indiana University): French linguistics, creole studies, Louisiana French and Creole, dialectology, lexicography
- Felicia McCarren (Ph.D., Stanford University): Cultural Studies, cineman, performance history and theory
- Jonathan Morton (D. Phil., University of Oxford): medieval French literature and intellectual history
- Oana Sabo (Ph.D. University of Southern California): 20th- and 21st-century French & Francophone literature, migration and refugee studies, digital literary studies, visual studies (photography), critical theory
- Chelsea Stieber (Ph.D. New York University): Haitian studies, 19th-century Caribbean literature, history, and culture
- Edwige Tamalet Talbayev (Ph.D. University of California, San Diego): Maghrebi literature, Mediterranean studies, water, the environmental humanities
Interdisciplinary study is further fostered through the Department's course offerings in Arabic and Haitian Creole, and through its strong ties to other programs and departments at Tulane, including History, Political Science, Africana Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Latin American Studies, Medieval & Early Modern Studies and Middle East & North Africa Studies.
Housed in the Department of French and Italian, the French Studies program maintains a rich intellectual life, organizing conferences and hosting numerous distinguished scholars every year. In addition, our students have access to rich archival resources on campus and in the city of New Orleans, including the Amistad Research Center (primary source materials pertaining to the history of slavery), the New Orleans Notarial Archives (documents in French dating to the early eighteenth century) and, of course, the cultural and linguistic laboratory that is French Acadiana. The department also houses the leading peer-reviewed journal Expressions maghrébines under the editorship of Edwige Tamalet Talbayev—a testimony to our program’s long-standing leadership in the field of Francophone Studies.
The deadline for applications is January 12, 2024. We especially welcome applicants from historically underrepresented backgrounds. We accept students with B.A. or M.A. degrees. We do not require our applicants to take the GRE but candidates are expected to demonstrate a sufficient level of English and French.
For further information on our graduate program and the application procedure, please see our brochure.
You are also welcome to contact our director of graduate studies, Thomas Klingler.