About us
In 1996, French Studies at the University of Manchester celebrated a hundred years of activity since the foundation of the Chair in French Language and Literature in the 1895-6 session, making it the oldest French department in this country by some years.
However, French had been taught here for almost half a century prior to the establishment of the chair in 1896, because Owens College (the forerunner of the Victoria University of Manchester) had opened its doors in 1851. The first Honours degree in Modern Languages dates from the creation of the Chair in French Language and Literature in the 1896 and in 1913 the first graduates to be awarded Honours in French Language and Literature received their degrees.
Many internationally distinguished scholars have been associated, as professors, lecturers or visitors, with French Studies in Manchester in the last hundred and ten years. But no history of the department would be complete without mention of Eugène Vinaver, who was Professor of French Language and Literature from 1933 to 1966, and who was, by general consent, one of the finest minds ever to have graced the University in any capacity. He, more than anyone else, laid the foundations of the success which French Studies has continued to enjoy at Manchester.
By the 1970s, French Studies was firmly established here as the largest of the Modern Languages departments, with a correspondingly impressive number of academic staff and native speakers as colleagues, and their presence and expertise continue to be one of our great strengths. Another of those strengths is the wide variety of courses which we offer from the medieval to the contemporary period covering most areas of interest in the French-speaking world, taught by proven international and national specialists. We are the oldest of the French departments in this country, and we are still among the best.
Today French Studies admits over one hundred and forty undergraduates per annum either on single honours or joint honours courses. Students are able to benefit from the unusually wide range of expertise on offer as well as being taught by a high proportion of native speakers. French Studies also has strong links with major cultural agencies such as the Alliance Française and with partner universities in Avignon, Grenoble, Lille, Lyon, Rennes, Paris, Poitiers and Toulouse, as well as Brussels, Geneva, Martinique, Sherbrooke (Quebec) and La Reunion.
Recently, our undergraduate curricula have been substantially re-designed to incorporate the latest teaching and learning innovations. Our commitment to teaching is underpinned by our numerous research activities and successes which include organising major international conferences and seminar series, and inviting distinguished speakers in the discipline; attracting major research grants from the AHRC and the Leverhulme Trust, and making a major contribution to international scholarship. In these and many other ways, French Studies at Manchester remains at the cutting edge of the discipline.