Summer Study Abroad

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> Language Courses | Advanced French Courses | Courses in English | Graduate Course | Costs | Admission Requirements | Dates

Undergraduate Language Courses

Undergraduate students must register for 8 points.

Intensive Elementary French

V45.9010.001 - Staff - 8 points
Open to students with no previous training in French and to others on assignment by placement test. Completes the equivalent of a one-year elementary course.

Presentation and systematic practice of basic structures and vocabulary of oral French through dialogues, pattern drills, and exercises. Correct pronunciation, sound placement, and intonation are stressed.

Intensive Intermediate French

V45.9020.001 - Staff - 8 points
Open to students who have completed the equivalent of a one-year elementary course and to others on assignment by placement test.
Completes the equivalent of a one-year intermediate course. Completes the MAP requirement for NYU students. Prerequisites for NYU students: V45.0010 or V45.0001-0002.
Conducted in French.

Stresses the acquisition and practice of more sophisticated structures of French. Develops fundamental oral and written skills, vocabulary enrichments, and conversational ability. Short reading texts and guided compositions are assigned.

Elementary French I

V45.9001.001 - Staff - 4 points
Not equivalent to V45.0010.
Open to students with no previous training in French and to others on assignment by placement test.

Students enrolled in this course must choose one of the following courses as a second course: French Culture and French Cinema (V45.9881.001); the French Art World in the 19th and 20th Centuries (V43.9664.001); or the History of Photography as a Fine Art (V43.9009.001).
Conducted in French.

An intensive, highly motivating audiovisual course for beginners that introduces students to a wide range of communication patterns and real-life situations. The beginner is given a solid language base that prepares the student for interaction and daily life.

Elementary French II/Intermediate French I

V45.9005.001 - Staff - 8 points
Prerequisites for NYU students: V45.0001.
Open to students with some knowledge of French
Conducted in French.

A continuation of V45.0001, this course completes the equivalent of the second half of Elementary French and the first half of Intermediate French.

Undergraduate Advanced Language Composition and Content Courses Conducted in French

Conversation and Composition

V45.9030 - Staff - 4 points
Prerequisites for NYU students: V45.0020 or V45.0012 or the equivalent.
Students enrolled in this course must take V45.9965 (Topics: Current Events in French Society) as a second course.
Conducted in French.

Systematizes and reinforces the language skills presented in lower-level courses through an intensive review of grammar, written exercises, and introduction to composition, lexical enrichment, and spoken skills.

Spoken Contemporary French

V45.9101 - Staff - 4 points
Prerequisites for NYU students: : V45.0030 (Conversation and Composition) or the equivalent.
Conducted in French.

Helps students develop vocabulary, improve pronunciation, and learn new idiomatic expressions. Provides an introduction to corrective phonetics and emphasis on understanding contemporary French through a study of authentic documents, such as radio and television interviews, advertisements, and spontaneous oral productions.

Written Contemporary French

V45.9105 - Staff - 4 points
Prerequisites for NYU students:: V45.0030 (Conversation and Composition) or the equivalent.
Conducted in French.

Improves written French and provides advanced training in French and comparative grammar. Students are trained to express themselves in a variety of writing situations (diaries, transcripts, narration, letters, etc.). Focuses on the distinction between spoken and written styles and the problem of contrastive grammar. Emphasis is on accuracy and fluency of usage in the written language.

Advanced Composition

V45.9106 - Staff - 4 points
Prerequisites for NYU students: V45.0105 (Written Contemporary French) or permission of the director of undergraduate studies.
Conducted in French.

Aims to refine students' understanding of and ability to manipulate written French. Students practice summarizing and expanding articles from French magazines and papers and learn how to organize reports and reviews in French. Exercises are designed to familiarize students with various styles and registers of written French.

Acting French

V45.9109 - Staff - 4 points
Prerequisite for NYU students: V45.0030, V45.0101, or permission of the director.
Conducted in French.

Use of dramatic situations and readings to help students overcome inhibitions in their oral use of language. The graduated series of exercises and activities is designed to improve pronunciation, intonation, expression, and body language. These include phonetic practice, poetry recitation, skits, improvisation, and memorization of dramatic texts. Readings,discussions, and performances of scenes from plays by renowned dramatists. The students create a performance at the end of the semester.

Topics in French Culture: Current Events in French Society

V45.9965 - Staff - 4 points
Students enrolled in this course must take V45.9030 (Conversation and Composition) as a second course.
Conducted in French.

This course provides students with a clearer picture of current political and social issues shaping French society through an examination of the press, television, radio, and film. Students gain a broad understanding of current events as seen from a French perspective. Emphasis is on intensive practice of both written and spoken French.

French Culture and French Cinema: French Society Through French Films

V45.9781 - Staff - 4 points
Identical with V30.9502.001
Prerequisite: permission of the director of undergraduate studies.
Conducted in French.

This course traces the development of French cinema through an investigation into major works of French film art and the social and historical contexts in which they were produced. Starting with the classics of French cinema and moving forward to the present day, students examine how these films reflect the social and cultural trends of their time. Through a focus on questions of representation and point of view, students consider how recent French history is transmitted through film. Classes are organized around film screenings in and outside of class and assigned readings.

Contemporary French Theater

V45.9721 - Staff - 4 points
Prerequisite: permission of the director of undergraduate studies
Conducted in French.

This course explores French theatre at the end of the 19th century and the major innovations of the great directors in the early 20th century. Some particulars include Jarry's Ubu Roi as a rupture with the past; Cocteau as a major innovator in technique and in treatment of themes from Greek mythology; the theatre of imagination (Giraudoux and Anouilh); the survival of classicism (Montherlant); the theatre of ideas along the existentialist lines of Camus, Sartre, and Anouilh; and the presentation of a new vision of human beings in the world in the theatre of the absurd (Ionesco and Beckett). Plays are analyzed with respect to structure, technique, themes, and language. Readings may vary depending on the theatre season in Paris. This course culminates in a weekend visit to the famed Theatre Festival in Avignon.

With their teacher as their guide, students see several productions, both in the Honor Court of the Papal Palace and in the "off" festival of street theatre, small chapels, and barges moored on the Rhône River. Discussions preceding and following each performance deal with such questions as the impact of the director's vision on the understanding of the play's text, the importance of a particular acting style to the process of identification with the play's central emotions, and the rapport between costume, decor, and lighting design.

Paris Through Its Museums and Monuments

V43.9665 - Staff - 4 points
Prerequisite: permission of the director of undergraduate studies.
Conducted in French.

A historical study of the avant-garde movements that surfaced in Paris from 1850 to today: Nabis, romanticism, impressionism, fauvism, cubism, dadaism, surrealism, abstraction, new realism, op art, new figuration, minimal art, BMPT, support/surface. Representative works associated with these movements are studied in various Parisian museums: Orsay, Rodin, Orangerie, Beaubourg, Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris, Picasso, Jeu de Paume, etc.

Undergraduate Content Courses Conducted In English

The French Art World in the 19th and 20th Centuries

V43.9664 - Staff - 4 points
Conducted in English.

Using the resources of Paris and its surrounding neighborhoods, this course examines a wealth of art movements (realism, the Barbizon School, impressionism, neoimpressionism, postimpressionism, the Nabis, and cubism) as they were formed in the 19th and 20th centuries. The second half of the course focuses on changes in the art world during the first half of the 20th century, with particular attention on the dada movement, surrealism, abstract expressionism, and other movements that influenced and changed major art capitals of the world. Field trips include visits to the Orsay Museum with its superb reconstruction of 19th-century aesthetic life, the 17th-century private palace that now houses the Picasso collection, and the incomparable Louvre, among others.

French Culture and French Cinema: French Society Through French Films

V45.9881 - Staff - 4 points
Identical with V30.9502.001
Conducted in English.

For description, see V45.9781, above.

The History of Photography: French Photography and Cultural Aesthetics

V43.9009.001 - Staff - 4 points.
Conducted in English.

This interdisciplinary course examines the reflexive relationship between French photography and literature, theatre, and modern art. Beginning with the daguerreotype and painterly approaches, the course traces the links between photographic representations of "truth" with important literary and theatrical movements. Units also include photo theory (Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag), photography and literature (including belle époque photo-novels), photography and its role in advertising and preserving French theatrical practice, documentary photography, subjective photography, and photography's role in Haussmann's metamorphosis of the city during the Second Empire. The course takes advantage of the city with field trips incorporated regularly into the curriculum.

Graduate Courses

Applied Phonetics and Spoken Contemporary French

G45.9002 - Staff - 4 Points
June 25-July 13

Concepts of phonetic description, review of French phonetics (basic phonemes, syllabification, intonation, rhythm, pauses, etc.) with special emphasis on the specific problems encountered by English-speaking students. A study of expressiveness in the spoken language.

Contemporary French Novel

G45.9731 - Staff - 4 Points
July 16-August 3

Fiction of the second half of the 20th century. The literature of commitment, reflections on the absurd, the "new novel," and the role of the reader. Principal authors: Sartre, Camus, Beckett, Robbe-Grillet, Pere, Sarraute.

French Politics and Society: Ethnography of Militant Paris

G46.9710 - Viguier - 4 Points
June 25-August 3

This is an Institute of French Studies Course (Course taught in French)

The goal of this course is two-fold: presenting the sociology of the French political life and introducing the student to ethnographic survey. A few weeks after major national elections (presidential and legislative) and a few months before municipal elections in Paris, the political activity will be particularly intense. In reference to the news, we will systematically examine the institutions framing French political life, the space of political stands, the socially-differentiated ways in which the French relate to politics and activism, and finally the specifics of Parisian municipal politics. Under the supervision of the professor and in close collaboration with classmates, students are required to conduct an ethnographic inquiry in "mobilized" Paris: official public assembly debates, electoral or partisan meetings, demonstrations, etc. Students must have a digital recorder with comfortable recording time.

Gender in French History

G46.9210 - Virgili - 4 Points.
June 25-August 3

This is an Institute of French Studies course. Course conducted in French.

Introduction to the analysis of French society and post-war processes of social reproduction and transformation. Local-level ethnographies and national-scale studies are used to explore relationships between individual experience, local variation, and national trends.

Costs

Undergraduate Tuition

$5,464 8 points

Graduate Tuition

$877 per point

Program & Activities Fee

$550

Housing

$1,800 (including breakfast and one other meal)

There is an additional registration and services fee of:

  • $144 students registered at NYU spring 2007
  • $168 students not registered at NYU spring 2007

Admission Requirements

Students taking advanced language courses should complete the application and include one letter of recommendation. The recommendation should be from a professor with whom the student has recently studied and should refer to the student's language skills, academic preparation, and general ability to live and study in a foreign country. The recommendation should be enclosed with the application.

Dates

Undergraduate

Program Dates

June 30 - August 11, 2007

Application Deadline

April 30, 2007

Housing Dates

June 30 - August 10

Departure from New York

June 29

Arrival Date

June 30

Orientation

June 30-July 1

First day of classes

July 2

Last day of classes

August 10

Departure from Paris

August 11

Graduate

Program Dates

June 25 - August 3

Application Deadline

April 30, 2007

Orientation

June 25

First day of classes

June 25

Last day of classes

August 3