From our Resident Director
Dear Students,
Welcome to Maryland-in-Nice for 2009-2010! I am looking forward to being your Faculty Resident Director this year.
Students on our program take most of their classes at the Centre Universitaire d'Etudes en Français Langue Etrangère or “CUEFLE,” a section of the University of Nice devoted to French studies for international students (for information, you may wish to consult http://portail.unice.fr/jahia/page8964.html). Prior to the beginning of courses at the CUEFLE, we have arranged for two weeks of intensive French language instruction. Evaluations of student performance in this “pre-stage” will determine course placement at CUEFLE (or, in the case of the most advanced students, at the Université alongside French students). Of course, we also aim to facilitate contacts with les Niçois: to this end, I will require each and every one of this year’s students to pursue an extracurricular activity in conjunction with the weekly seminar I will teach as Resident Director (e.g. music, drama: for opportunities at the Université, consult http://portail.unice.fr/jahia/page324.html; for sports: consult http://www.unice.fr/Scripts/WebObjects/SIUAPSWeb; other possibilities according to your interests and abilities: start researching now and tell me what you find!)
In addition to courses at the CUEFLE, the RD seminar, and extracurricular pursuits, there will be a program of outings and excursions to places both near (Nice’s wonderful museums, concerts, and theaters: see http://www.nice.fr/Culture) and a little bit further away (probably Avignon; the Chateau d’If; the Gorges du Verdon…?), as well as a few “participant-observer” exercises that will get students out and about in Nice on their own.
One of my scholarly interests is travel literature, and I plan to focus this year’s RD course on that genre. Travel writing obviously has direct relevance to our situation as residents of the U.S. spending a semester or a year in France, and the French-language works we will read -- from several different historical periods – will not only teach us something about French culture and history, they will also provide us with key points de repère for thinking about our own experiences as travellers. Students accepted into the program can expect to receive the course syllabus and one or two preliminary readings via e-mail by around August 15. Until then, I can be reached with any questions about the 2009-2010 program at the e-mail address below.
à bientôt,
Andrea Frisch
afrisch@umd.edu