Upcoming Events
April 17th
Jean Pierre Le Dantec presents "Poétique des jardins"
Table Ronde: Wednesday, April 17th
206 Burrowes Building
April 18th
Foster Auditorium, Paterno Library
6 p.m.
The Department of Landscape Architecture
The Department of French and Francophone Studies
The Institute for the Arts and Humanities
The Department of Art History
The University Libraries
are pleased to sponsor:
Jean-Pierre Le Dantec
The Art of the Garden and the City: from the Baroque Period to Today
Welcome to the Department of
French and Francophone Studies
Welcome to the Department of French and Francophone Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. We offer a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in French language, linguistics, French and Francophone literature, culture and history. We are committed to engaging in innovative scholarship, fostering an intellectual climate that encourages research connections between disciplines, and are dedicated to excellence in instruction at all levels. We invite you to explore our website and learn more about the opportunities and events in our community of dedicated scholars, devoted teachers, and promising students.
Student Spotlight!
The Dept. of French and Francophone Studies is delighted to congratulate graduate students Sandra Rousseau (left) and Sophia Khadraoui (right), for their recent awards. Sandra Rousseau has been awarded the Harold F. Martin Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Award, a competitive university-wide teaching prize for outstanding teaching that is jointly sponsored by the Graduate School and the Office of the Vice President and Dean for Undergraduate Education. Sandra was also recently awarded third place in the Arts and Humanities category at the 2013 Graduate Exhibit. Sophia Khadraoui is one of two College of the Liberal Arts graduate students to win the Outstanding Teaching Award for Graduate Students. The award is given to students whose accomplishments in the classroom are deemed to be exceptional and who have thus made a significant contribution to the educations of undergraduate students at Penn State.
Undergraduate Research Fair
This semester two of our undergraduate students participated in the 2013 Undergraduate Research Fair. Congratulations are in order for Julia Schrank as she won first place in the Arts and Humanities category as well as first place for the Library's Information Literacy Award for her research for her Schreyer Honors College thesis on "Menus objets ou menus, objets d'art".
Suzanne Richards, pictured left with Dean Long, presented her project "Henri Vever and the Parisian Art World of the Late Nineteenth Century".
Both students are the students of Professor Willa Silverman. Toutes nos félicitations!
Summer Internship in Paris
My name is Meghan Kane and I am a junior and French minor at Penn State University. Although I am a Food Science major and am not required to take classes for a second language, I decided my freshman year to pursue a minor in French, because of my love for the culture and language. The minor just started as something for me and a way to balance out my science-based classes; but it evolved into so much more than that.
French major working to help families affected by 9/11 at her summer internship
Majoring in English and French, I had anticipated perhaps interning for a publishing company in New York or finding a job in a writing or writing-related field in a city for this summer. I perused Hearst Publications, Condé Nast, and even Madison Square Garden for various opportunities. I wanted to work somewhere big--high profile, serious office. It turns out that I found myself in the complete opposite setting, yet content and proud of the job that I landed.
Liberal Arts Grad Students Win Outstanding Teaching Awards
Three Liberal Arts graduate students have been recognized with the 2012 Harold F. Martin Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Awards. We are pleased to announce that Brandy Brown, a Ph.D student in the Department of French and Francophone Studies, is among them.
For more, visit the Student Spotlights page!
Faculty Spotlight!
The first time she went to Paris at 16, a homesick Willa Silverman thought she might hate it.
Instead, she found herself going back, again and again and again. Over the past 40 years, her trips to France have given her a life-long fascination for French culture and history.
"I've been to France in different capacities, for a great mixture of professional and personal reasons,” says Dr. Silverman. “I will never say no to a trip to France."
She has picked up many things in her travels — a second language, a teaching career, a love for farmers markets and a fine appreciation of French cuisine — and a piece of history: a yellow star from World War II – given by her host mother, who had survived the war as a Jew in France.
Read the whole article at the Schreyer Honors College website!
