French Studies (BA) - 2012/2013 entry

This programme provides the linguistic skills needed for efficient negotiation with French speakers, combined with a critical appreciation of the cultural values that lie at the heart of French life. It promotes understanding of three key aspects of French culture – literature, thought and film; French politics and society; and French linguistics – while enhancing skills such as translating, summary-writing, and delivering written and oral presentations.

The programme will enrich you intellectually and linguistically. Past students stress that their studies have increased their practical abilities and confidence in speaking and writing both French and English. We particularly welcome students with experience of French in different parts of the world.

Find out more about studying French at Birkbeck.

• Combine French language study with study of the language and culture of French-speaking countries.
• Aims to raise your French language competence to near-native standard.
• Career opportunities for graduates lie in publishing, teaching, translating, cultural agencies, commerce and banking.
• Watch the Birkbeck language experience video on our Youtube channel.

You take 12 modules: three at Level 4; four at Level 5; and five at Level 6. You will follow one of three language pathways, depending on your level of French at entry. The language module taken in the first year of study is at Level 4 and is always zero-weighted (i.e. it does not count towards your degree). Subsequent modules follow in sequence.

Other modules taken at the three levels are either related to French culture, or are cross-cultural and comparative in focus. French modules are taught primarily in French; culture modules are taught in English.

French modules

Level 4 modules may include:

• Imagining France – Introduction to French Studies (compulsory).

Level 5 modules may include:  

• French Cinema – History, Practice, Analysis
• French Literature – Masterpieces from the Sixteenth Century to the Present Day
• French Thought – From the Renaissance to Postmodernity
• Traditions and Change in French Political Culture.

Level 6 modules may include:

• Classicism
• Contemporary French Cinema – 1980 to the Future
• First and Second Language Acquisition
• France from May 1936 to May 1968 – Themes in French Twentieth-Century History
• French Cinema 1890–1940: Invention, Expansion, Crisis
• French Cinema 1940–1980: Identity, Diversity, Change
• Kith or Kin? Forms of Relation and Community in Contemporary French Literature and Cinema
• Language and Society
• Montaigne
• Realism and the Dialectics of Representation in the Nineteenth-Century French Novel  
• Republic and Nation – French Political Life since 1958
• The French Contemporary Novel
• The French Renaissance.

Culture modules

Level 4 modules may include (you must take one of these): 

• Approaches to Language
• Understanding Culture.

Level 5 modules may include:

• Representations of Love, Desire and Sexuality
• Stories of the Self
• The Twentieth-Century: Key Themes in Comparative European History.

Level 6 modules may include:

• Beating Nature – Artificiality, Imitation and Simulation
• Contemporary European Literature
• Europe and its Others
• Myth, Folk and Fairy Tales
• The Postmodern.

In addition, you may replace up to two modules with modules from another arts or humanities degree programme.

We offer an MA/MRes Modern Languages: French Studies and a variety of related programmes.

Graduates go on to careers in international organisations or businesses, in translation or teaching, as researchers, and as journalists.

Credit transfer

An agreement with the Open University allows for three credits to be granted to OU diplomates, but we do not count grades towards the degree result. We accept appropriate course units from other colleges of the University of London, counting the grades as appropriate. We accept appropriate course-units from other universities, including universities in France, give credit, but do not count grades towards the degree result.

• We suggest you apply as early as possible.
• Interviews June or September.