PhD in French Studies Requirements

First Year

• Fall: University Fellowship; enroll for 12 credits.
• Spring: University Fellowship; enroll for 12 credits (total credits: 24).
• Summer: Prepare MA exam reading list, for October of your second year, possible Research Assistantship.
• If you are not a native speaker of French, you may take French 411, Advanced Writing. In addition, you will enroll in 400-level literature seminars each semester, for a total of four courses per semester while on fellowship.

Second Year

• Fall: MTE (Mentored Teaching Experience); enroll for 9 credits. Take your M.A. exam in October.
• Spring: MTE; enroll for 9 credits (total credits: 42). 
• Summer: Satisfy a foreign language requirement.
• In your second year, you will begin your language-teaching training with French 501, “Seminar in Teaching of Romance Languages.”

Third Year

• Fall: MTE; enroll for 9 credits. (Total credits: 51). You have finished your coursework.
• Spring: MTE; register for GSAS 9000. Individual Examination List due week after spring break. Prepare for your PhD exams.
• Summer: Satisfy a second foreign language requirement and prepare for your PhD exams

Fourth Year

• Fall: MTE; register for GSAS 9000. Take your Ph.D. exams and write your dissertation prospectus.
• Spring: MTE; defend your dissertation prospectus, file your “Title, Scope, and Procedure” form with the Office of Graduate Studies. Dissertation research and writing. 
• Summer: dissertation research and writing, in residence or abroad.

Fifth Year

• Fall: MTE; register for GSAS 9000. Dissertation work. Complete at least one dissertation chapter by 1 November in order to qualify for Dissertation Fellowship in the following semester.
• Spring: Dissertation Fellowship; dissertation research in residence or abroad. Register for GSAS 9000. 
• Summer: dissertation research and writing, in residence or abroad.
• Students making suitable progress toward the degree may receive the first semester of their Dissertation Fellowship, enabling them to spend the period from December to August of their fifth year in France or another Francophone country, conducting their research. They will also write at least one additional thesis chapter in order to remain in good standing and receive the second semester of fellowship support.

Sixth Year

• Fall: Dissertation Fellowship. Register for GSAS 9000. At the end of the semester, with approval of the DGS, use this form to declare your intent to graduate.
• Spring: MTE; dissertation. Receive your diploma in May.

The number of credits transferred from MA degrees earned outside of Washington University may not exceed 24 credits. We transfer your credits at the end of your first year of courses here, following an evaluation by the faculty (the Department Chair and Director of Graduate Studies) of your performance here.

The following map is based on the transfer of 21 credits from your MA coursework.

First Year

• Fall: University Fellowship; enroll for 12 credits.
• Spring: University Fellowship; enroll for 12 credits (total credits: 24).
• Receive an additional 21 credits for your previous coursework (total credits: 45).
• You will enroll in 400-level literature seminars each semester, for a total of four courses per semester while on fellowship.

Second Year

• Fall: MTE; enroll for 9 credits.
• Spring: MTE; enroll for 6 credits. (Total credits: 60. You have finished course work.) Individual Examination List due week after spring break. 
• Summer: Summer: Satisfy foreign language requirement, possible Research Assistantship. Prepare for your Ph.D. exams.
• In your second year, you will extend your language-teaching training with French 501, “Seminar in Teaching of Romance Languages.”

Third Year

• Fall: MTE; register for GSAS 9000. Take your Ph.D. exams and write your dissertation prospectus.
• Spring: MTE; register for GSAS 9000. Defend your dissertation prospectus, file your “Title, Scope, and Procedure” form with the Office of Graduate Studies, and dissertation research and writing.
• Summer: Research in residence or abroad in advance of an outside grant proposal, possibly with the help of a WU pre-dissertation grant; work on second foreign language requirement.

Fourth Year

• Fall: MTE; register for GSAS 9000. Complete at least one chapter of your thesis by 1 November, in order to qualify for the Dissertation fellowship next semester.
• Spring: Dissertation Fellowship; dissertation research in residence or abroad. Register for GSAS 9000.
• Summer: dissertation research and writing, in residence or abroad.
• Students making suitable progress toward the degree may receive the first semester of their Dissertation Fellowship, enabling them to spend the period from December to August of their fifth year in France or another Francophone country, conducting their research. They will also write at least one additional thesis chapter in order to remain in good standing and receive the second semester of fellowship support.

Fifth Year

• Fall: Dissertation Fellowship; dissertation writing in residence as a member of our “dissertation writers’ seminar.” Register for GSAS 9000. At the end of the semester, with approval of the DGS, use this form to declare your intent to graduate.
• Spring: MTE; dissertation writing in residence. Receive your diploma in May.

Please click here to view the Shadowed mentored teaching opportunities with French faculty. 

Peruse the Office of Graduate Studies overview of the MTE/MPE Experiences.

• PhD students entering without an MA generally are eligible for 6 years of financial support, whereas students entering with an MA from another university are generally eligible for 5 years of financial support. 
• During the first year of their program, students normally take four courses each semester. Thereafter, students generally take three courses each semester and also teach (TA) one additional class each term prior to their PhD exams.
• For students entering the program without an MA, 17 courses (graduate seminars), generally taken over five semesters.
• For students entering with an MA, 20 courses (graduate seminars), including a maximum of 7 transferred, generally taken over four semesters.

A comprehensive knowledge of French literature (including theory) and language, shown by superior performance in course work, the writing of papers, and the successful completion of the written and oral examinations.

Students who do not already hold a Master’s degree in French literature will receive one from Washington University in the course of their study for the PhD, upon successful completion of the MA exam.

Students take the Ph.D. exam at the start of their third year if they entered with an M.A., and at the end if they entered with a B.A. The Ph.D. exam will test students’ knowledge of a teachable range of French literature while giving them experience in two typical scholarly processes: course creation, and the pursuit of a project through several publication forms.

First, students will create syllabi for a two-semester survey introduction to French literature. These courses will cover the medieval to the contemporary periods, and the genres of prose, poetry, and theater. Students will in addition write justifications for their 
choices of works, and provide additional annotations about what secondary works they read to inform what they would do in the classroom with each item on the syllabus. The document will not include specific lesson plans for the works involved. The whole French tenure-line 
faculty will vote to pass or fail this written document, with two votes of “fail” requiring its revision.

Second, students will submit two “qualifying papers”: potentially publishable articles of 25 to 30 pages, revised from seminar papers in two different periods. The revisions would expand the original topic or the student’s earlier research, and provide full scholarly apparatus. We encourage but do not require that students attempt to publish these in refereed journals. Faculty in the two areas evaluate these papers.

The oral exam of two hours, conducted by the full French tenure-line faculty, treats the survey syllabi and qualifying papers. Students will be prepared to justify their choice of works for the syllabi among those on the MA and Ph.D. reading lists.

In preparation for the exam, students should become familiar with the topics on the literary history list and the works on the MA and Ph.D. reading lists, as well as the secondary literature list.
 

Successful completion of the written exam is the prerequisite for the oral exam, which takes place about two weeks after the completion of the written exam. This oral exam of two hours consists of questions on all periods and areas of French literature, with between 15 and 20 minutes of questions per area.

Option A, two secondary languages

Reading knowledge of German (unless the department makes an exception), and of one other foreign language other than English which pertains to the student’s proposed area of dissertation research. To demonstrate competence, the student may

• take the EST examination administered through the Graduate School office, obtaining a score of 650 or better;
• take an examination prepared by a Washington University language departments with the approval of the Director of Graduate Studies in French (customarily, the student selects a text relevant to his or her field and translates with a dictionary an 800-word passage from this text); or
• complete with grades of B+ or better the two-semester course sequence on reading/translation offered to graduate students by Washington University

Option B, one secondary language

Advanced literary competence in a language other than French or English, demonstrated by taking two 500-level literature courses in that language (these courses will count toward the 72 units required for the PhD).

The topic, to be worked out with dissertation director and committee members, requires approval of graduate faculty at the time of oral portion of PhD exam. The exam incorporates a discussion of the dissertation proposal and an analysis or relevant bibliographic material. The subject should be compelling. Minor authors on whose works little bibliography exists do not generally hold the same weight professionally as works on major authors. The French faculty therefore encourage students to select topics involving multiple works of an established author or authors, or, in the case of minor or less known authors and works, a topic of sufficient breadth to rely on a significant body of primary and secondary sources (for example, in the case of a newly discovered woman author, the body of works relating to the long tradition of women’s writing of which this author’s works form part).

Translations and creative writing do not fall within the purview of the dissertation.

Dissertation topics typically relate to one of the six traditional fields of French literature (medieval, Renaissance, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries). They may, however, combine several of these if the topic lends itself to doing so. Students need to adopt a theoretical frame, whether that of literary history, new historicism, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, feminism, etc. Dissertations may have an interdisciplinary focus (literature and art, philosophy, science, law, or other field). A dissertation is above all an argument, proposing among other things an interpretation of a body of works. The student attempts to persuade his or her readers (the committee, but eventually readers of the resulting book) that they will understand something important by interpreting texts and events in the events in the way he or she explains them.

This committee, which the Office of Graduate Studies calls the “Research Advisory Committee,” consists of three members:the director, the second reader, and the third reader. The director should be specialist in the student’s chosen field (typically a particular century, but on occasion a theoretical perspective). The second and third readers may also be specialists in the same field, or may be specialists in fields that contribute to the dissertation in other ways. For example, a student working on Butor’s treatment of women would select a dissertation director who is a twentieth-century specialist, but may select one or both of the other readers from any other century. This student may pick Prof. X, who specializes in an early period because of her particular emphasis on women’s studies and Prof. Y, a nineteenth-century specialist, because of his work on theory. A student may select a second or third reader from another field because he or she has been an important mentor. Students should consult with the professor asked to serve as Director about selecting other committee members who can provide the proper balance to the committee. The selection, however, ultimately rests with the student, who is responsible for asking faculty to serve as second and third readers. The second reader will read chapters before the third reader, and should be selected with this order in mind.

Upon successful completion of their PhD exams, students will write their dissertation prospectuses for oral examination no later than the beginning of the semester following the one in which they have passed the PhD exams. For example, if they pass the PhD exams in November, they would defend their dissertation prospectus no later than the following January. The candidate's thesis advisory committee will be the examiners; the candidate will submit the prospectus to them at least two weeks before the defense.

• Language: Students should write in their native language when it is either English or French; students whose native language is other than English or French should select to write in whichever of the two languages she or he is more proficient.
• Style: Department recommends MLA Style for all theses written in English. Those written in French may use either this style or any accepted French style.
• Schedule of production: Students should work closely with their dissertation directors to establish not only an outline for dissertation but also a realistic calendar for completion.
• Procedure for revisions and approvals: Dissertation writers should submit their chapters one at a time to the dissertation director, or in some previously agreed-upon division into sections. The director will suggest revisions. When the director approves these revisions, the student should submit the text in question to the second reader. The second reader will evaluate it, making recommendations for revisions. When these revisions are complete, the second reader will review them. When the second reader gives provisional approval for the chapter,* the student will submit it to the third reader. The third reader will similarly read and make editorial revisions. When the chapter is approved by the third reader, the student should return it to the director for final comments.

* In many cases readers will need to see how future chapters develop before being able to give final approval on early chapters. Provisional approval, though, signals the professor’s general acceptance of the chapter.

Incomplete work for courses can prove a major hindrance to the advancement of graduate students, as well as a considerable burden to faculty. The French PhD program takes measures to minimize their use and duration.

Students should consider that in all phases of their careers, deadlines will tend to group in short periods of time (typically at the end of each semester), and that they must therefore plan to start work on end-of-semester assignments well in advance. Having three papers due in a single week justifies neither an extension nor a grade of “incomplete.”

Instructors have no obligation to accept late work for graded credit. No student may presume a right to receive a grade of incomplete if he or she does not finish the work for a course by the deadline set by the instructor: such students may, at the discretion of the instructor, receive no credit for the work not submitted on time.

An instructor should not agree to give a grade of incomplete without having received a statement from the student of a deadline, agreeable to the instructor, by which the work will be done. The student will communicate the deadline to the Director of Graduate Studies and to his or her advisor, if different. This deadline may be no later than the end of the following semester, for work for a fall course, or the end of the summer, before the start of the fall semester, for a spring course. Instructors who do not receive the work by the agreed-upon deadline may extend the deadline up to the limits specified here, but are not obliged to do so. Having accepted a plan for completing the missing assignments, the instructor will submit a final grade for the class within 30 days of receiving the missing work. In grading this work, instructors should keep in mind whatever extra time the student had to prepare it, from which other students did not benefit. Students who do not meet these deadlines will receive course grades based on whatever work they submitted on time; in a graduate course where a student has not submitted the final paper, this will likely result in a failing grade.

Students may have no more than two incompletes at any given time. The program may recommend for dismissal any student with three or more. Moreover, students may not have more than three incompletes over the entire period of their programs, and the department may recommend for dismissal any student who exceeds three.

Students with incomplete coursework will not take their PhD exams until they have received final grades for it. In no case may a student with an outstanding incomplete advance to “ABD” status.

All students in the French PhD. program must satisfy the academic performance requirements of the Office of Graduate Studies in Arts and Sciences, published in the school Bulletin’s “General Requirements” section.

Procedures followed in the French PhD program will also comply with the Office of Graduate Studies in Arts & Sciences Policy on Probation and Dismissal for Academic Reasons. 

The French faculty follow a formal procedure for confidential and continuous evaluation of graduate students, embodied in paper forms or other written commentary that faculty who teach graduate seminars file with the Director of Graduate Studies at the end of every semester. On these forms, faculty comment on the quality of students’ work, and especially on whether the work leads to any reservations about their capacity to do graduate work. In cases where the DGS finds serious concerns in these evaluations about a student’s ability to complete the program, the DGS consults with faculty about a plan for the student’s improvement, and then writes a letter to the student to convey the substance of the evaluations, and to outline the steps that faculty expect him or her to take to remedy the problem in a probationary period, generally the following semester. At the end of that time, in cases of insufficient improvement, the DGS, in consultation with the faculty, may recommend a student for dismissal for poor academic performance. While faculty admit all graduate students expecting that they will complete the PhD, the French program uses the AM exam in the second semester of students’ second year as a moment of evaluation for continuation in the program. Students who fail the exam may take it again once, at the end of that semester. Students retaking the exam will be placed on academic probation in the interim. In all cases, faculty consult after the AM exam about whether to allow the student to continue. Students not allowed to continue, but who have met the minimum standard for passing the AM exam, leave with that degree.

Students usually take their Ph.D. exam in the second semester of their third year, and no later than the second semester of their fourth year. Students who fail the Ph.D. exam may take it again once, usually at the end of the semester in question, and will be placed on academic probation in the interim. Failure to pass the Ph.D. exam a second time results in a recommendation for dismissal from the program.

The French program places a high value on the quality of students’ teaching, and evaluates this regularly. Students generally receive written teaching evaluations in each semester they teach by at least one faculty member. The program communicates these evaluations to the students, the course head of the class taught, and the Directors of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies. The Directors conveys serious concerns to the student involved, and suggests steps that faculty expect him or her to take to remedy the problem in a specified time. The program may recommend a student for dismissal for poor performance in teaching.

The program tries to maintains a professional and collegial atmosphere. Students who do not behave in ways consistent with this goal may receive verbal and written warnings, and the DGS and faculty may recommend dismissal of students who do not change their behavior. The DGS will refer to the Dean of the Office of Graduate Studies patterns of disruptive behavior, as well as offenses against the provisions of the Office of Graduate Studies Bulletin or other University policies and rules of conduct. Serious offenses may result in immediate dismissal.