IU’s recognition in 2021 as a Center of Excellence of the French Embassy in the US confirmed the outstanding place of our French program at the national level while also reaffirming the integral role our program plays in enriching our university’s academic landscape and the real-world career experience of our students. This is crucially important as France ranks third for job creation among foreign companies in Indiana while being a top trade partner for our state. Through access to annual funding and a select network of logistical support and resources offered by the French Embassy especially through its “Villa Albertine” program, the Center brings regular opportunities to IU students from all schools for applying to academic programs in France and benefitting from career training opportunities. These include internships at the French Consulate in Chicago and in business settings in France (Paris, Toulouse…). Furthermore, thanks to wide-ranging, public-facing collaborative events, the Center operates as a platform connecting local and international, academic and non-academic areas of interest and expertise.
Throughout the 2024-2025 academic year, the Center has participated in, and spearheaded events organized by the French program and other programs and centers at IU such as Theatre & Dance, American and African American Diaspora Studies, African Studies, and the Babel Theater Project. The Center also regularly relays information to IU students the Kelley Business School, the Maurer School of Law, the O’Neill School for Public and Environmental Affairs or the Eskenazi School of Art and Architecture etc. regarding opportunities for study, internships, and employment in France. One IU student was a candidate for the City/Cités, an architecture internship program in Paris, and, once again, one of our BA students, Jane Barrett, was selected for a 2025 summer internship at the Chicago Consulate which she will attend with additional funding provided by FRIT.
We are particularly proud of the consequential visit of playwright Penda Diouf who between September 14 and 18, 2024, was at the center of four major events: a playwriting workshop, a Babel Theater Project that offered a reading of her play “The She-Bear,” Diouf’s own reading of her play “Tracks,” and a conversation on the poetics of the Black diaspora. Later in Fall 2024, the Haitian poet John Wesley Delva offered a lecture and discussion held on November 19 around the legacy of the poet Aimé Césaire and the continued relevance of the founding father of the Négritude movement for writers and readers today. During Spring 2025, we welcomed the visit of Richard Golsan (Texas A&M), an authority on the “afterlives of Vichy”, to quote the title of one of his most popular books on the trials of World War Two such as Klaus Barbie and Maurice Papon. On April 9, 2025, Prof. Golsan delivered a lecture on another urgently relevant topic: “Terror and Justice in France: the Charlie Hebdo, V13, and Nice Truck Attacks on Trial.” Last but not least, April 21, 2025, we hosted Benjamin Hoffmann, Professor of French at Ohio State University also known for several novels published with Gallimard, who engaged in a fascinating conversation with IU faculty and students around his own works and his vision of literature’s role in today’s world during an event entitled “Lieux de fiction.”
This summer, Erin Candeias, our Director of Language Instruction in French, will participate in the “French for All Summer Institute” to be held in June at the University of Wisconsin – Madison as one of the annual events under the heading of “French for Higher Education” focused on enhancing teacher training and expanding their portfolio in professional French (for business, international studies, medicine or law). In the next academic year, we are already looking forward to the visit of Alain-Philippe Durand, Professor of French and Dorrance Dean of the College of Humanities at the University of Arizona who will hold a public lecture and workshop in which he will share his valuable insight and successful experience in enhancing the profile, visibility, and popularity of humanities programs.
The College of Arts