This upper division seminar constitutes the final core requirement in the Applied Modern Language and Culture degree program. Students majoring in Applied Modern Language and Culture will enroll in this course in their final year of study. The capstone seminar will further develop and sharpen the connection between the students’ professional or technical fields and their linguistic and cultural knowledge of the language of the track The course will involve a variety of written and reading assignments, and/or project which involves professional fields. May be repeated up to twice.

This is the first course of a two-course sequence at the intermediate level. The sequence provides students with the tools necessary to increase their ability to function in French. Communicative activities, contemporary texts, vocabulary study, and grammar are used to expand all communication skills, especially oral proficiency. This sequence continues to address issues of contemporary French life and culture as well as the cultures of the Francophone world.

This course trains students to read and write in French at an advanced intermediate level of competency. Through gradual presentation and recognition of French grammar forms and vocabulary, students learn to comprehend, discuss, and analyze a wide variety of French texts, including songs, scripts of movies and TV series, comic books, skits, news items, canonical narratives, as well as some technical and scientific materials. Students also learn to write and express their ideas in grammatically correct French and to explore different genres and forms of writing. The course also expands students’ knowledge of French and Francophone cultures. Conducted in French.

A comparative study of French films and their American remakes from the 1930s to the 21st century to determine what these films reveal about the cultural and cinematic contexts from which they emerge. The course examines differences as well as similarities in the construction of identities in France and the United States. Devotes particular attention to the (re)construction of race, space, gender, and national histories. Conducted in English.

Heritage films are central to the French cinematographic production. They enable the transmission and the reevaluation of a tradition that lies at the core of French cultural identity. This course examines a selection of French films adapted from both canonical and non-canonical texts representative of major events, trends, social issues, and artistic movements that contributed to shaping modern France. Students will become familiar with world-renowned French novels, short stories, comic books, and films. The course deals with topics such as aristocratic culture, racial identity in France, the myth of the resistance and the legacy of the Second World War, France’s rural past, the French colonial experience, women and bourgeois culture, the long-standing tradition of comic books and comedy in France, the Tradition of Quality, the French New Wave, and heritage films. The course also examines the interconnectedness of French culture and the cultures of the United States, England, and former French colonies. It notably explores how the French colonial experience informed the development of French cinema, and how French heritage films were both inspired and reinterpreted by British and American cinematographic industries to reflect the cultures and values of those societies. Conducted in English.