PhD Program

The Doctoral Program

Emphasizing interdisciplinary, global, and transhistorical approaches, our doctoral program fosters complex and challenging ways of thinking about French and Francophone literatures and cultures, strongly grounded in poetical, textual, visual, and historical analysis. Doctoral students in French at UVA gain both deep knowledge of a specialized field of study and broad familiarity with literatures and cultures in French from their origins to the present.  They also develop strong pedagogical skills through training and experience.

Requirements for the doctoral program include coursework, a series of increasingly focused research statements, qualifying exams, and a substantial independent research project.  Further details are available in the Graduate Handbook .

UVA French PhDs Career Placements

Recent graduates from UVA's doctoral program are currently working as Assistant Professors, Lecturers, visiting, tenure-track, or tenured professors at a variety of institutions, including, Smith College (2021), Rollins College (2020), CUNY Baruch College (2020), Roanoke College (2019), University of Maryland (BC) (2019), University of Southern Indiana (2018), University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2016), Furman University (2015), Dartmouth College, Denison University, Hampden-Sydney College, Hillsdale College, Kenyon College, University of Kentucky, Kent State University, Muskingum University, Université – Paris III, Randolph Macon College, Syracuse University, Wesleyan University, University of Western Florida, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, UVA-Wise, and Vanier College in Montréal.  Others have secured successful post-academic careers in fields such as higher education administration, secondary school teaching, publishing, and foreign policy (updated February 2021).

Dissertation Proposal Form      

Doctoral Committee Declaration Form

PhD Preliminary Exam

PhD Qualifying Exam, Part I (Comprehensive) Reading list - May 2018 Update

Resources

2017 Reading List