Rather than replicate the excellent and detailed information about our graduate program that you will find in our booklet, The Graduate Program in French at Harvard, I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you about some of the special qualities of our program and our larger community, as I see them as a relative newcomer whose initial perceptions are still quite vivid..

Most important, I think, especially for a graduate student, is the collegiality that reigns among the colleagues in the program and that is generated, in turn, among our graduate students. This spirit makes our intellectual life together a particularly satisfying one, both for faculty and for our students. We look forward to getting to know you in courses, and also, to sharing our intellectual passions and areas of expertise, which we hope to extend to you as a resource as you make your way through to the dissertation. Along that way, we'll invite you to workshops and parties, and to formal and informal get-togethers that we hope will make your studies in French and its interdisciplines a rich personal experience as well as an intellectually challenging one. We will encourage your participation in intellectual, cultural, and gastronomic pursuits outside the seminar room as well.

For several years running, we have organized, often in collaboration with the Center for European Studies (whose orientation is primarily toward political and social questions), interdisciplinary conferences, including the 1998 conference on "Legacies of J'Accuse: The Public Intellectual in France, 1898-1998 and Beyond"; the 1999 conference on "France in Europe, Europe in France: Culture, Politics, Society, and European Integration"; a 2001 conference on the occasion of the centenary of writer and intellectuel engagé André Malraux; a 2003 conference on Montaigne titled "The 1770s: Dating Cultures" and a 2005 conference on "Sartre and his Others." This year we will be organizing a colloquium called "Global French." We sponsor a Seminar on French and Francophone Studies at Harvard's Center for the Humanities. The Seminar, open to colleagues and students all over the Boston area, invites distinguished lecturers from the Francophone world and the U.S. to present their work, meeting monthly in an informal setting.

Another wonderful accessory to the program is Harvard's Widener Library. While we encourage (and make it possible for) our students to spend time abroad as they work on their dissertation, the truth is that our very own library has superlative resources, including an incredibly learned and helpful research staff. Whatever books or journals the library doesn't have, it will get for you on interlibrary loan. I hope also that you will have the occasion to become acquainted with the Houghton, Harvard's rare book library, which is a mine of treasures.

I want also to mention Cambridge, that truly cosmopolitan city on the banks of the Charles, where you can buy a newspaper from Paris or from Peoria at the newsstand facing the Harvard Coop, have a cappucino or a beer at one of numerous cafes and bars around the Square, and generally, experience a veritable carnival of books, food, films, and theater, following your particular passions. Greater Cambridge offers the Boston Symphony, the Museum of Fine Arts, windowshopping on Newbury Street, the beaches of the North and South Shore and Cape Cod, feasting on lobster and antiquing in Essex or Ipswich, and the ski slopes of Vermont and New Hampshire. You will add to this list many, many personal discoveries, if you join us and study here. Do click on our booklet, The Graduate Program in French at Harvard to find out the details, and don't hesitate to contact us if you have questions.

Sincerely,
Janet Beizer
Director of Graduate Studies in French

Last updated on November 13, 2007