French

the Moulin Rouge, Paris.

Bonjour!

With over 220 million speakers worldwide, French is the sixth most common spoken language. It is an official language in 29 countries, ranging from Switzerland, Morocco and Senegal to Haiti, Vietnam and Canada--our biggest trading partner and only a 20-minute drive from campus. French is also one of the  six working languages of the United Nations, one of three procedural languages of the European Union, and the sole language used for the deliberations of the EU’s Court of Justice. 

France supports one of the world’s premier research institutions, the Centre national de recherche scientifique, and has produced some of history’s leading mathematicians, among them Blaise Pascal, Pierre de Fermat and Pierre-Simon Laplace. France is esteemed for its profusion of artistic and cultural monuments, commerce and industry and its leadership in scientific fields ranging from oceanography to aerospace engineering.

The centuries-old relationship of anglophone and francophone cultures is manifest in a rich common heritage. Some 30% of English words are of French origin, and the artistic, literary and philosophical ties between France and English-speaking countries are countless.

Did You Know?

The permanent collection of Buffalo’s Albright Knox Gallery has a wealth of modern French paintings by such artists as Gauguin, Renoir, Van Gogh, Rousseau and Delaunay.

Academics

The RLL French program offers training in the spoken and written language through small, highly interactive classes. Texts, films and special events showcase the literatures and cultures of French-speaking world regions both past and present. French students are strongly encouraged to study abroad for a summer, a semester, or a full year. UB and SUNY offer quality, affordable travel options throughout France as well as in Quebec, Senegal, Morocco and Switzerland.

Undergraduate students (major or minor) may fulfill the UB Curriculum Global Pathway: Language and Culture Track in French by starting at their current level of proficiency, from introductory to advanced intermediate (course names begin with FR), and taking nine credit hours. Graduate students may pursue master's and doctoral degrees in one of three concentrations: French Literature, Francophone Literature or French Linguistics. 

Québec Studies Program

Both undergraduate and graduate students of French can benefit from UB’s unique Québec Studies Program. Through French study at UB, students discover the source language of some 45% of all English words, and can explore the Encyclopédie, medieval French interactions with the Islamic world, the cinema of Québec and Senegal, the novels of Flaubert and Proust, and modern philosophy and theory.

French and Francophone Literature and Culture Faculty

  • Christian Flaugh.

    933 Clemens Hall

    Office Hours

    Tuesday, 3:30-4:30 p.m.;

    Thursday, 9:30-10:30 a.m.

    Phone: (716) 645-0879

    cflaugh@buffalo.edu

    Associate Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Artistic and Scholarly Interests: Francophone, Africana, and Caribbean studies; decolonizations and globalities; disability studies; gender studies; performance studies; subjectivity and embodied knowledge; public representation and perception

    933 Clemens Hall

    Office Hours

    Tuesday, 3:30-4:30 p.m.;

    Thursday, 9:30-10:30 a.m.

    Phone: (716) 645-0879

    cflaugh@buffalo.edu

  • Amy Graves Monroe.

    924 Clemens Hall

    Office Hours: Widely available by appointment

    Phone: (716) 645-0880

    acgraves@buffalo.edu

    Chair
    Associate Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Wars of Religion; Print Culture and History of the Book; Early Modern Philosophy and Political Thought; Satire and Irony; Intellectual History and Literary Theory

    924 Clemens Hall

    Office Hours: Widely available by appointment

    Phone: (716) 645-0880

    acgraves@buffalo.edu

  • Fabiola Henri.

    907 Clemens Hall

    Office Hours

    Monday, Wednesday, Friday 1-2 pm

    Phone: (716) 645-0933

    fabiolah@buffalo.edu

    Assistant Professor of Linguistics
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences
    Adjunct Assistant Professor
    Department of Linguistics
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Research Interests: Creole Languages; Descriptive & Theoretical Linguistics; Linguistic Typology; Extensible Lexical databases and Corpora; Experimental data; Language Change; Language Acquisition; Morphological Complexity

    907 Clemens Hall

    Office Hours

    Monday, Wednesday, Friday 1-2 pm

    Phone: (716) 645-0933

    fabiolah@buffalo.edu

  • Maureen Jameson.
    Associate Professor Emerita
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Specializations: 19th, 20th and 21st century French literature and society; Digital Humanities; French history; Cognitive Science; Science and society

  • Fernanda Negrete.

    921 Clemens Hall

    Office Hours

    Monday, 12-1 p.m.;

    Wednesday, 1.-2 p.m. or by appointment

    Phone: (716) 645-2244

    fnegrete@buffalo.edu

    Associate Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences
    Director
    Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis & Culture
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Scholarly Interests: Literature and the Other Arts; Psychoanalysis, Modern Literatures (in French, Portuguese, Spanish, English) and Philosophy; Sexuality Studies and Critical Theory; Women Writers and Film Directors; Art, Art Theory, and Aesthetics; the Ethics of Psychoanalysis and Schizoanalysis; Environmental Art.

    921 Clemens Hall

    Office Hours

    Monday, 12-1 p.m.;

    Wednesday, 1.-2 p.m. or by appointment

    Phone: (716) 645-2244

    fnegrete@buffalo.edu

  • Adam Schoene.

    On leave Fall 2024

    schoene3@buffalo.edu

    Visiting Assistant Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences
  • Jean-Jacques Thomas.
    Professor Emeritus
    UB Distinguished Professor
    Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
    College of Arts and Sciences

    Specializations: Poetry and Poetics; Formal Plasticity; Linguistics; Semiotics; 19th and 20th century French literature, culture and film; European Modernism; Quebec and Canadian Studies; Francophonie in North America