Fall 2025

French 3303 – French Composition and Conversation    
Professor: Dr. Peter Golato, pgolato@txstate.edu

Description: Students will practice speaking and writing in French through analyzing, making, and responding to arguments in a wide range of topics in current French society and culture. They will improve their written style, deepen their understanding of authentic French texts, and increase their ability to understand spoken French. They will also improve their mastery of grammar, enlarge their vocabulary, and acquire more ease and confidence speaking French, in a friendly environment. The topics are certain to trigger ideas and interest, and students will acquire the skills to express their opinions in French.  
 

French 3308 – French Translation I     
Professor: Dr. Gyongyi Pisak, g_p55@txstate.edu

Description: This course offers both a theoretical and a practical introduction to translation from French into English. You will learn about the basic concepts of translation, translation techniques, guidelines for the translation of literary and non-literary texts, translation tools and resources, and the continued importance of translators in a rapidly changing environment. We will be doing lots of hands-on translation of a variety of authentic French texts from poems to legal and business documents, and we will do a practice certification test for the American Translators Association. Take this course to gain an understanding of what it takes to be a translator and to acquire confidence in your abilities to become one. The approach of this course to translation is different from Translation II, so you will be learning something new and translate different texts.  
 

French 3350  – History of French Cinema, 1896-1960  
Professor: Dr. Jennifer Forrest, jf05@txstate.edu

Description: French filmmakers have made invaluable contributions to film style, technology, and criticism since the beginnings of the medium. This course will trace the evolution of French cinema from 1895, the year of the first demonstration of the Lumière cinématographe (camera and projector) to the eve of the Nouvelle vague in the late 1950s. Students will examine the primary stylistic movements (the magical trick films of Georges Méliès, silent genres like the comic chase movie from the first decade, the melo-mystery serials of Louis Feuillade of the 1910s, French Impressionism from the 1920s, Poetic Realism from the 1930s, French film under the German Occupation, and the Cinema of Quality associated with the late 1940s and 1950s. It will also prepare them for a course on French cinema of the French and French-speaking world and for the study of selected topics in French film. Taught in English.

French 4330B - Issues in Contemporary French Media  
Professor: Dr. Carole Martin, cm11@txstate.edu

Description: This course focuses on contemporary French media – printed, broadcast, and online – from the postwar period to the present. After spending a few classes on the reorganization of the French media at the end of WWII, when the French resistance took over the press, students will work as three teams from news organizations in France, as illustrated by lemonde.fr, liberation.fr, and lefigaro.fr to produce written articles, podcasts, and audiovisual programs reacting to the current events in France, as well as these organizations' international coverage from a French perspective. Reading, writing, and speaking skills will be at the core of our work, together with the discussion of topical debates such as the rise of the extreme-right, the reaction to American-exported wokism, and the multicultural dimensions of contemporary French society.