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Bourse d'Etudes Doctorales : French and Francophone Studiesin an interdisciplinary, trans-lingual and trans-cultural context (Miami, USA)

Bourse d'Etudes Doctorales : French and Francophone Studiesin an interdisciplinary, trans-lingual and trans-cultural context (Miami, USA)

Publié le par Université de Lausanne (Source : University of Miami)

BOURSE D’ETUDES DOCTORALES

PhD in Literary, Cultural and Linguistic Studies

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

 

French and Francophone Studies

in an interdisciplinary, trans-lingual and trans-cultural context


FRENCH AND GLOBAL LITERACY

At the University of Miami, French and Francophone Studies are an integral part of the Ph.D. Program in Literary, Cultural and Linguistic Studies which constitutes the graduate division of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.

Our Ph.D. Program is not divided into sub-sections by languages. It actually assembles scholars who conduct graduate teaching and advising across language borders. Its courses in Critical Theory; Teaching Methodology; Early Modern Studies; Gender, Queer and Sexuality Studies; Socio-linguistics; Professionalization, among other ones, are alternatively taught by colleagues from different language fields; and French, Spanish and Portuguese graduate seminars on any topic, genre and / or period are often or may be conceived in a comparative and inter-lingual way.

While students in French and Francophone Studies take seminars related to the literature(s) and culture(s) of their concentration, they also have the opportunity, if linguistically qualified, to develop projects involving (an)other language(s) such as Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. In addition, German and Japanese are also taught in our Department at the undergraduate level, as are Hebrew and Kreyol, and we have faculty members knowledgeable in Basque, Catalan, Netherlandic and Serbian. We actively encourage research that crosses, bridges and / or intersects languages, literatures, media, geographical areas, and periods.  Through the Directed Independent Language Study Program, whose director’s office is located within our Department, individualized training in more than thirty other languages is offered, including Catalan; Egyptian, Levantine and Moroccan Arabic; Turkish and Persian / Farsi; Cantonese; Quechua; Kikongo, Swahili, Wolof and Zulu.

The topics of  past, recently defended or currently in progress dissertations in (or related to) French and Francophone Studies are very indicative of such interdisciplinary, trans-media, trans-lingual and/or trans-historic methodologies: Space and Mobility in Quebecois Arabic Immigrant Literature;  Borges y Ricoeur: Convergencias en la frontera de la filosofia; L’impertinence du geste à la lumière du daguérréotype dans  A la Recherche du temps perdu de Marcel Proust; L’image de l’homme sauvage dans trois récits de voyage français au Brésil (1600-1750); Pour une esthétique du texte illustré (1866 - 1928); Ghostly Traces: Sade and the Spanish Gothic Novel; Weaving In and Out Africa in Gide’s Work; Haiti, Brazil and the Ethnopoetics of Cultural Identity; The Politics and Poetics of Ekphrasis in 19th Century French Art Novels; May 68 and French Literature Production in its Relation to Brazil; The Limits of Human Nature as Depicted in French World War I Narratives; Homoerotic Travel Writings and Films from France and the Maghreb; Towards an Anthropo-Poetics of Travel Representation from French 19th Century Poetry to Contemporary Photography and Cinematography; Phantom Arabic and Dis-located French in Literature and Cinema from the Maghreb and France; Abject Blackness and Arabness Across the Atlantic in African-American, French, and Francophone Maghrebi Literature; Shifting Masculinities from Francophone North Africa; Terrorist Imaginaries in Francophone Maghrebi Literature and Cinema; “Adopted Maghrebi” French and Spanish Writers, and Maghrebi Diaspora Voices from France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands; Non-sovereignty and Artistic Productions in Puerto Rico, Martinique and Guadeloupe; The Cinematography of the Body in the Work of Argentinian-French Film Director Gaspard Noé; Ethical Issues in Post-colonial Francophonie from France, the Maghreb and the Antilles; Literary, Cinematographic and Ethnographic Representations of MENA Female Same Sex Desire; Hip-Hop and Rap in French, Francophone and American Contemporary Urban Culture, Film and Video-clip Productions; Black Queer Representations between Sub-Sahara Francophone and Anglophone Africa, the Francophone and Hispanic Caribbean, and Brazil.

STRUCTURE AND DESCRIPTION OF THE PROGRAM

The Program offers two tracks, which can also be combined by doing a major in one and a minor in the other: Literary and Cultural Studies and Critical Studies of Language / Linguistics.

A variety of geographic, temporal, and theoretical options allows students to carry original interdisciplinary research projects, often with a trans-national / trans-regional focus.

The Program’s strong theoretical component grounds our students in a range of fields across periods, literary genres, cultural discourses and media (cinema, the visual and performing arts), permitting the linkage of French and Francophone Studies with Africana; Caribbean; Mediterranean, Maghrebi and Middle Eastern; Italian; Peninsular; Latin – American; Luso - Brazilian; Chinese and Transatlantic Studies. Among the areas of expertise of the faculty participating in our Literary, Cultural and Linguistic doctoral program which covers all periods from medieval / early modern to 21stcentury, are: bilingualism; gender, queer, trans and sexuality studies; comparative race and ethnicity studies; (im)migration and diaspora studies; indigenous studies; theater and performance studies; postcolonial and decolonial studies; subaltern studies; sociolinguistics; environmental humanities; media, film and visual studies; science and technology studies; translation studies; literary and critical theory; cultural and cultural policy studies; social movements studies; digital humanities.

In addition to being involved in a highly interdisciplinary academic environment within our Program itself, students are required to develop competency in a cognate field related to the scholarly pursuits leading to their dissertation topic. They will therefore take at least two courses with professors from another Department and be exposed to their disciplinary methodologies. Recent examples of cognate specialization include anthropology, communication studies, film studies and cinematography, urban studies, religious studies, history, philosophy, musicology, and sociology.

Our Program offers also two graduate certificates to prepare students beyond their specialization, which may be fulfilled with course electives:

•   The Graduate Certificate in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching  

• The Early Modern Studies Concentration, an interdisciplinary certificate offered in conjunction with English and History.

 

Starting with their second year, graduate students teach one undergraduate course per semester in their language area(s) of expertise, in a progression going from basic to intermediate instruction, and they do have the opportunity to team-teach and co-teach advanced literary, cultural, and / or linguistic courses in conjunction with a faculty member.

 

RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT

 

The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures sponsors each year numerous lectures, workshops, film series, and conferences across languages and disciplines, often bringing leading national and international scholars, writers, intellectual figures and socio-cultural activists. 

 

In French and Francophone Studies, international conferences have been organized on Otherness in the 17thCentury; The Location(s) of French; The Modernities of Victor Hugo; The Africas of Arthur Rimbaud; Jean Genet’s Amorous Captivities; and Abdellah Taïa’s Engagement and Desire. Writers such as Edouard Glissant, Azouz Begag, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Rachid O., René de Ceccatty, Abdellah Taïa, Gisèle Pineau, Gerty Dambury, among several others, have been invited; as well as scholars from France (Françoise Gaillard, Philippe Sellier, Pierre Brunel, Béatrice Didier, Jacques Chevrier, Romuald Fonkoua, Hadrien Laroche, Albert Dichy, Jean-Christophe Valtat,  Ridha Boulaabi, Claude Coste, Nacira Guénif-Souilamas, Réjane Sénac, etc.), Belgium (Guy Haarscher), Canada (Eva Kushner, Monica Heller, Lori Saint-Martin), the UK (Christopher Prendergast, Jean-Pierre Boule),  Haiti (Nadève Ménard), Morocco (Aziz Daki, Ghita El Kayat), Tunisia (Alia Baccar), Malta (Dominique Lanni), Israel (Ruth Amossy) and the U.S. (Victor Brombert, François Rigolot, Joan DeJean, Frieda Ekotto, Alyson Waters, Jean Michael Dash, Valerie Orlando, Pierre Saint-Amand, Hakim Abderrezak, Mehammed Amadeus  Mack, Denis Provencher, Pannil Camp, Carrie Noland, Deborah Jenson, etc.), to name just a few.

 

Moreover, our Department as a whole, which has been the academic home, among numerous other scholars of international reputation, of Nélida Pinon (Luso-Brazilian), Jean-Pol Madou (French), Jose-Maria Beneyto - Perez (Spanish, German and French), Barbara Woshinsky (French), Anne Cruz (Spanish), Hugo Achugar (Latin-American), Gerard Aching (French and Spanish Caribbean) and David Ellison (French and German), has hosted interdisciplinary lectures by prominent scholars, writers and intellectual figures from the Americas and Europe, such as Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Leenhardt, Isabel Allende, Blandine Kriegel, Tom Conley, Rolena Adorno, Didier Eribon, Edmund White, Parvati Nair, Nestor Canclini, Patricia Ybarri, Jasbir Puar, Carlos Decena, Joseph Massad, John Keene, Andrew Ross, Ben Sifuentes Jàuregui, among innumerable others; and international conferences and symposia on topics going from Literary Translation to Transforming Cities Through Innovative Aesthetics and Cultural Action. It also created, and still organizes in cooperation with English and History, a pluridisciplinary conference on Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Studies

 

Graduate students collaborate with faculty on these endeavors and host their own annual interdisciplinary / multi-lingual conference. Recent conference themes have included: Outrage Around the World; Cyberaesthetics and Narrative; War and Conflict; Spaces of Relation; Poetics and Politics of Love; Translation and Transitions; and Transnational Futures.

In addition to regular departmental events, students and faculty participate in the initiatives of the Center for the Humanities, the Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas, the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, the Miami European Studies Center, the Programs in Africana Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies, along with several Research Study Groups (Early Modern Studies, Theater and Performance Studies, Queer Studies,  Digital Humanities, etc.).

Graduate students have been highly successful in securing competitive funding from some of these entities, as well as from the Department, in order to support travel, national and international conference participation, research, and writing.

Competitive scholarly travel grants and flexibility in their teaching duties permit graduate students to do work in situ and also to take one semester off to conduct research abroad while maintaining their financial support. French and Francophone Studies graduate students have pursued research in France, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, the Netherlands, Brazil, and the Francophone Caribbean.

For all departmental events: https://mll.as.miami.edu/department-events/index.html

FACULTY TEACHING AND ADVISING IN OR IN CONJUNCTION WITH FRENCH AND FRANCOPHONE STUDIES

- Susanna Alles Torrent: Old French and Medieval French Literature; Medieval and Early Modern Romance Studies; Mediterranean and Arabic Studies; Italian Studies; Transatlantic Studies; Translation Studies; Digital Humanities

- Steve Butterman: Franco-Brazilian Exchanges; French Queer Literature (Sade, Genet); Post-colonial and Decolonial Studies; Sexuality, Trans and Queer Studies

- Christina Civantos: Maghrebi Francophone and Arabophone Literature; Arabic and  Mediterranean Studies; Arabic Diaspora Studies

- Logan Connors: 17th, 18thand 19th Century French Literature; French and Francophone Theatre; Cultural Studies of the ancien régime; Theatre & Performance Studies; History of the Emotions; Early Modern European Literature and Culture; Literary and Critical Theory

- Maria Galli Stampino: French and Italian Renaissance; Theater and Performance Studies; Women’s and Gender Studies

- Ager Gondra: Teaching Methodologies; Language Acquisition; Bilingualism

- Ralph Heyndels: Classical, Modern and Contemporary French and Comparative Literature; Cultural Studies; Sociology of Literature; Mediterranean, Francophone Maghrebi and Trans-Arabic Studies; Immigration Studies; Postcolonial, Decolonial, Queer and Sexuality Studies; Literary and Critical Theory 

- Cae Joseph-Massena: Francophone Africana and Caribbean Studies; French Post-colonial and Decolonial studies; Voice and Musical Studies; Queer Afrocentric Narratives; Cultural Productions and Activism

- Andrew Lynch: Socio-linguistics; Languages in Contact; Ideologies of Language; Queer Linguistic Studies

- Lillian Manzor: Trans - Caribbean and Francophone Studies; Performance Studies, Gender Studies

- Yolanda Martinez-San Juan: Trans – Caribbean, Francophone and Diasporic Studies; Gender, Queer, Trans and Sexuality Studies; Literary and Critical Theory; Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies; Post-colonial and Decolonial Studies 

- Gema Perez-Sanchez: Moroccan Diaspora and Immigration Studies; French Feminist and Queer Theory; Trans-national Queer Activism; Literary Theory

- Aleksandra Perisic: 20th Century Literature of the Francophone Caribbean and Francophone Africa; the Black Atlantic; Literature and Immigration; Globalization Studies; Transnational Feminisms

 

- Allison Schifani: Urban Cultural Studies; Social Movements; Digital Humanities

 

- George Yudice: French Critical Theory (Foucault, Deleuze, Lyotard, Rancière…); Cultural Policy Studies; Post-Hegemony Theory

 

Faculty doing teaching and research related to French and Francophone Studies in other Departments and Programs:

 

Numerous scholars in a variety of Departments and Programs across the College of Arts and Sciences and the University are conducting research related to French and Francophone Studies. Several are or have been associated with qualifying examinations and / or dissertations produced in our doctoral program. While being exhaustive would be by far too long, one can mention William Rothman (French Cinema); Edmund Abaka (Africana Studies); Michael Miller (French History); Claire Oueslati-Porter (Cultural Ethnography of the Maghreb); Otavio Bueno (French Philosophy); Donette Francis (Caribbean Studies); Mihoko Suzuki (French Renaissance); Jafari Allen (Cultural Anthropology; Gender and Queer Africana Studies); Louis Herns Marcellin (French Cultural Sociology; Foucault, Bourdieu), Ed Talavera (Cinematography), etc.

 

Supporting faculty in French and Francophone Studies: 

 

- Kevin Fin, Senior Lecturer of French (Business French; Francophone Literature of Quebec)

- Elisabeth Lleveria-Powell, Lecturer of French and Spanish

- Rachida Primov, Senior Lecturer of French, Director of the M.L.L. Language Laboratory (language teaching technologies)

- Mari Williams, Lecturer of French and Japanese 

 

For the entire M.L.L faculty: https://mll.as.miami.edu/people/index.html

For the faculty by fields of study: https://mll.as.miami.edu/people/faculty-by-fields-of-study/index.html

 

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS OF FRENCH AND FRANCOPHONE STUDIES GRADUATE ALUMNI:

All our graduates in French and Francophone Studies who have sought an academic position have found one. Our most recent alumni have been hired at first rank institutions such as Bucknell University, Emory University, Georgetown University, Pfister College and Colby College. Past alumni hold or have held university research and / or teaching jobs at University of Puerto Rico; Bowdoin College; California State University, Fullerton; Long Island University; Middle Georgia State University; Oakland University; Utah Valley University; Florida Southwestern State College; Broward Community College; The Florida Center for the Literary Arts; Miami Dade College; and the University of Miami. Several of our former students in F&FS have also landed jobs at cultural and secondary education institutions in the U.S. and abroad. 

OUR UNIVERSITY AND MIAMI

The selective University of Miami, with over 17.000 students, is distinctively ranked among the U.S. private research universities and it is comprised of a distinguished faculty. Its beautiful Coral Gables campus is located in an affluent residential municipality of the greater Miami and connected by metrorail and public transportation to the University’s medical campus; the South Miami, Brickell and Coconut Grove neighborhoods; Downtown Miami; the Design District and Wynwood Art District; Key Biscayne; and South Beach. It features a first-rate library and internationally recognized collections, along with an art museum, a concert hall, a theater and a cinema. 

Miami benefits from its sub-tropical weather and Caribbean location and is one of the most global, diverse, dynamic, and plurilingual city of the United States. In addition to English, Spanish, Kreyol, French, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and Russian are spoken all around the Miami metropolitan area, which is home to a complex configuration of immigrant communities, and is also a vibrant cultural hub offering a gamut of museums (Perez Museum of Art; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Frost Museum of Science; The Wolfsonian; Bass Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, etc.); cultural venues (Arsht Performing Arts Center; Miami Beach Cinematheque;  Little Haiti Cultural Center, etc.); world class performing arts (New World Symphony; Miami City Ballet; Florida Grand Opera, etc.); festivals and major events (Art Basel Miami Contemporary Art Fair; International Miami Film Festival; France Cinema Miami; Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival; Miami Book Fair International; Tout-Monde Festival, etc.). It also provides for a remarkable urban environment ideal for the comparative study of languages and cultures. 

For further information: https://welcome.miami.edu

OUR GRADUATE STUDENTS IN FRENCH AND FRANCOPHONE STUDIES

Our Ph.D. Program students come from all over the United States and the world. French and Francophone Studies doctoral candidates have joined it with academic degrees from the Catholic University of Louvain – la - Neuve; the University of Swansea ; the University of Tours; Florida International University; the University of Pau; California State University, Long Beach; the University of Paris-Sorbonne; Moscow State University; Denisson University; the University of Bordeaux; City University, London; American University; Florida Atlantic University; the University of Wisconsin; the University of Orléans; Chouaïb Doukkali University, El Jedida; the University of Tunis; the University of Sousse; the University of Grenoble; Yale University; the University of Modena; Hassan II University, Casablanca; Mohammed V University, Rabat; Carlo Bo University, Bari; the University of Trieste;  Moulay Ismael University, Meknes; the University of Buenos Ayres; the University of Tehran; the University of Bologna, etc.

ADMISSION CONDITIONS / FULL FINANCIAL SUPPORT/ U.S. STUDENT VISA FOR INTERNATIONAL CANDIDATES 

Admission is very selective and decided upon by the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures Graduate Studies Committee.  

In addition to native or near native fluency in French, an excellent written and oral command of English is required. The knowledge of another language than French and English, while not required, is highly appreciated. Current French and Francophone graduate students are also fluent in languages such as Arabic, Italian, Farsi, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. 

The on line application process calls for providing the selection committee with a developed and articulated statement of purpose in which the candidate briefly describes her/his academic training and achievements; the specific reasons why s/he has identified our Program as the one s/he would like to be associated with; which fields of scholarly interest s/he intends to explore while pursuing her/his doctoral studies in French and Francophone Studies within our Program; and how such research goals match the latter’s interdisciplinary scope, theoretical and methodological strengths and areas of expertise. Two writing samples, one in English and the other in French, are also required. 

The equivalent of a Bachelor degree (4 years of University), or preferably a Master’s degree (5 to 6 years of University) in French or comparative literature; literary, cultural and / or linguistic studies – including in (an) other language(s/) than French (American Studies, Arabic, Chinese, English, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish); the humanities (history, philosophy, classics, religious studies, etc.); the social sciences (cultural sociology or anthropology, psychology, etc.); the arts (film, theater, visual arts studies, etc.); the sciences; or any combination thereof, is required.

All admitted students are financially supported (9 month per year teaching assistantship and / or fellowship, and full remission of tuition for the entire duration of the 5 year curriculum). Highly selective College of Arts and Sciences doctoral fellowships may provide for a funded sixth year. Teaching Assistant stipend is currently of +/- $ 22.500. Competitive fellowships carry higher stipends. 

We are a Ph. D. only Program and do not admit students seeking a M.A. degree. We do not admit students without granting them University of Miami financial support.

All admitted non U.S. candidates are processed for a U.S. student visa. The first stage of this process is generated by our University’s administration.

The deadline for applying is December 1. Some required legal documents, such as the certified English translated copies of the diplomas and the official transcripts may arrive a little later, but the application itself should be uploaded for no later than December 1. 

To apply on line: https://www.applyweb.com/miamigrd/index.ftl

For further information: contact Ralph Heyndels at  rheyndels@miami.edu