Professional Development
Student-Faculty Research Collaborations
Conferences and lectures
Career Opportunities
Student-Faculty Research Collaborations
At our Student-Faculty Forum, which meets several times per semester on Friday afternoons, individual students and faculty members present their current research for discussion in an informal setting. For a full listing of topics from recent years, click here.
For information on our student Research Groups and other opportunities in French, click here. (Information on Italian coming soon.)
Conferences and lectures
The number and variety of conferences and lectures in Bloomington are overwhelming. IU has always been a popular site for national and international meetings, many of which are devoted to the humanities. Most campus conferences are held at the Indiana Memorial Union, which houses meeting rooms, eating areas, a hotel, and the spacious Whittenberger Auditorium.
Symposiums and conferences such as: the 32nd Annual Nineteenth-Century French Studies Colloquium Discoveries, Inventions and Rediscoveries (2006), Politics and Persuasion (2006), In Other Wor(l)ds: Crossing Borders (2005), The 7th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (2004), The 33rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (2003), French in the US colloquium in collaboration with the Agence universitaire de la francophonie (2003), Renaissance Humanism and Italian Literature Symposium (2002), and our annual Graduate Student Organization (GSO) Colloquium give opportunities to both French and Italian graduate students to attend or give lectures, and discover new insights in the contemporary research.
The Department pursues an active program of lectures by distinguished visitors from other centers of learning. The hallmark of these offerings, ranging in scope from Tristan and Yseut to the latest writers and theorists, is variety and innovation. Typical are the lectures of Barbara Wright (Trinity College, Dublin), who spoke about her biography of Fromentin; the poet Bernard Noël, who read his own poetry; and leading French historian Alain Corbin, who discussed the concept of lieux de mémoire. The Department is especially proud of the Gertrude Force Weathers Lecture Series whose recent participants include award-winning novelist Pierrette Fleutiaux, French Canadian linguists Marie Labelle and Paul Hirschbühler, and Yale scholar Naomi Schor. Lectures were given by many other guest speakers among which: Bernard Guidot (Université de Nancy II), Christophe Charle (University of Paris I), Jane Burns (University of North Carolina), Edward Hughes (University of London), Richard K. Emmerson, Director of the Medieval Academy, John McWhorter (University of California), Catherine Perry (University of Notre Dame), George Hoffman (University of Michigan).
Italian conferences and lectures also encourage the graduate students to find new spheres of research and interest. Some of these were: "Il rapporto Petrarca-Boccaccio: nodo fondamentale della tradizione letteraria italiana" (2006) by Giuseppe Velli from the University of Milan, " Umberto Eco, the Middle Ages, and the Historical Novel" (2006) by Theresa Coletti from University of Maryland, "Images of Memory and Mystical Experience: Jacopone da Todi and his 17th-Century Publisher" (2005) by Lina Bolzoni from Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, "Le "Scintille" di Tommaseo: un manifesto letterario e civile nel 1841" (2005) by Francesco Bruni from University of Venice, "Between the Danube and the Sea: The Itinerary of a Writer", (2004) by Claudio Magris famous writer, essayist and critic.
In past years, conferences on francophone African literature, film and literature, the French colonial presence in America, the eighteenth century, theories of reading, Haitian Creole, semiotics, dissident literature, and the Middle Ages have been organized with the participation of the Department. The Indiana University Patten Lecture Series has also attracted important speakers such as Donna Haraway ('90-'91), Noam Chomsky ('93-'94), Edward Said ('95-'96), and Marjorie Perloff ('97-'98).
Through the Barr Koon fund, the Department is also able to support a wide variety of French and Italian cultural activities including some of the movies presented by the local Ryder Film Series, a lecture on Francophone African culture by Tal Tamari of the CNRS, and a lecture and master class by French saxophonist Jean-Marie Londeix. In addition, the University's Institute for Advanced Study has attracted such figures as Edward Hughes of the University of London; Mihaela Miroiu, Professor and Dean at the National School for Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest; and Miklos Haraszti, the Hungarian public intellectual, writer, human rights activist, member of parliament. The College Arts and Humanities Institute also hosts renowned scholars and authors, such as NYU historian and critic Tony Judt and Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee.
For more information on more recent conferences and lectures, please check our News and Activities Page.
Career Opportunities
The M.A. programs accommodate students who wish to continue their study of French and Italian without making a definite commitment to the teaching profession at the university level. Our M.A. students have found employment in diverse fields such as software translation, publishing, and secondary school teaching. While the M.A. program at IU need not lead to the Ph.D., students who distinguish themselves in achieving the M.A. should give serious consideration to pursuing a doctoral degree. A career of research and teaching in a college or university brings with it the rewards of professional recognition, intellectual challenge, and a chance to make a positive impression on the lives of students. Indiana University has had especially good success in placing its Ph.D.s, who now teach at Bowdoin, University of Illinois, University of Minnesota, Bryn Mawr, University of Texas, State University of New York, University of Wisconsin, University of Maryland, and the University of California at Davis, among others.
Like our M.A. graduates, Ph.D. graduates have found that their degrees can be useful to a career outside the teaching profession as well, since French and Italian are important international languages. Departmental alumni have gone into academic administration, library work, business, law, politics, foreign service, and other professions. Both the Department and the University offer guidance for students and alumni interested in non-academic employment. In Bloomington, graduate students in French/Italian may prepare for this alternative by minoring in fields like journalism, telecommunications, law, education, public and environmental affairs, and library science.
The Department offers a Career Placement Service which may be used by graduate students to develop a dossier of letters of recommendation. For a minimal fee, dossiers will be sent to prospective employers.
Department of French and Italian
Ballantine Hall 642, 1020 E Kirkwood Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47405-7103
Telephone: (812) 855-1952; Fax: (812) 855-8877
email: Department of French & Italian
Last Updated:
06-Feb-2008
Comments: Nancy Stoute
Copyright 2008,
The Trustees of Indiana
University