The structure of the Sarah Lawrence in Paris Program enables students to immerse themselves in the French language while pursuing a personalized course of study chosen from our offerings in the humanities, the social sciences, and the visual and performing arts. Depending on students’ French language proficiency and area of specialization, the Program offers both in-house seminars at Reid Hall and courses at a variety of French partner institutions.
Each student will have an individual advising session prior to arriving in Paris to discuss and pre-select courses for the semester.
Summary of Course Offerings & Requirements
French Language Course (4 credits)
The French Language course is mandatory for all students.
All students are placed in a language course appropriate for their level:
- Intermediate French
- Advanced French
SLC Seminar (4 credits)
Students are required to enroll in at least one SLC seminar at Reid Hall. (Courses are subject to change based on enrollment)
- Art History
- Film Studies
- French Literature
- Immigration and Multiculturalism in France
All classes will be taught in French. In the art history and literature courses, students with an intermediate level of French will have the possibility of turning in their papers in English, pending the professors and program directors approval.
Two Electives (8 credits)
The remainder of students’ programs may be chosen from our Reid Hall seminars and/or outside electives, based on students’ French language level and academic interests:
- SLC seminars (see above)
- Performing Arts: dance, music, theatre (in French)
- Visual Arts: drawing/painting, ceramics/sculpture, photography (in French)
- French University Courses:
- Sciences Po (French/English–Students with advanced proficiency in French will be required to enroll in classes taught exclusively in French)
- Sorbonne University, (in French, advanced students only)
- University of Paris, Diderot (in French, advanced students only)
Intensive Program Options (8 credits)
Intensive Program in the Arts or the Social Sciences
This option is for advanced French students. All intensive programs are conducted in French and open to advanced students only. Intensive programs must be pre-approved by the Program before students’ arrival in France.
- Filmmaking
- Performing Arts: Dance, Music, Theatre
- Visual Arts: Drawing and Painting, Printmaking, Sculpture
- Social and Political Science (Sciences Po)
Courses at French Universities
The Sarah Lawrence College in Paris Program allows students to take courses at several French universities. Options available to students depend on their level of proficiency in the French language and their academic background. Students who wish to register for classes in French at Parisian universities must demonstrate a “B2” (advanced/independent) level on a language exam taken before their arrival in Paris. This is a requirement set by the French Universities.
Partner Institutions:
- Sorbonne University (courses in French, open to advanced students only): art history & archeology, French language/linguistics, French and comparative literature, geography, urbanism and environmental studies, history, musicology, philosophy, sociology
- Université Paris Cité (courses in French, open to advanced students only): arts and letters, economics, film studies, geography and planning, history, linguistics, literature, sociology, psychology
- Sciences Po (courses in English and in French): economics, history, humanities, international relations, law, political science, sociology. Students with advanced proficiency in French will be required to enroll in classes taught exclusively in French
Our Paris program staff will assist students with registration and course selection at French universities. Each course is complemented by a weekly individual conference organized by the Program.
Seminars & Language Courses
The Sarah Lawrence College in Paris headquarters are located at Reid Hall, a university center shared with other American, French, and English university programs.
Classes are small, and may vary slightly from year to year.
Art History
new
19th Century French Painting (1st semester)
Professor: M. BAUDOUIN
This course will focus on a key period fraught with change, more specifically, artists’ assertion of their individuality in the face of institutions as well as major pictorial movements having left their mark in the history of French art during that era. The course will begin by focusing on Neoclassicism and, more specifically, on the work of Jacques Louis David (1748-1825) - official painter for the Revolution and the Empire – and will end with post-Impressionism’s major artists such as Cézanne and Van Gogh who widely contributed to the emergence of modern art at the start of the following century. The sociopolitical context will provide essential data in the understanding and appreciation of the artists and works studied in class.
A series of visits to Parisian museums will round off the course.
Paris and Modern Art (1905-1960) (2nd semester)
Professor: M. BAUDOUIN
This course aims to study the succession of avant-garde movements born in Paris and which dominated most of the 20th century.
From Fauvism, which launched the century with its free use of color, to the 1960s New Realism movement defined by artists’ reappropriation of reality, Paris attracted a number of important artists whose diverse backgrounds, origins and unique areas of research fueled an exceptionally prolific artistic activity. Cubism, prewar and postwar abstraction, Dadaism and Surrealism are just some of the artistic movements that will be studied and questioned in the course in hopes of equipping students with analytical tools to better appreciate modern and contemporary art as well as help them shape their thoughts on the different movements of artistic production in Paris over the course of the 20th century.
A series of visits to Parisian museums will round off the course.
Film Studies
-
The Feminine/Feminist Voice in French Cinema
Professor Broda
The goal of this course is to determine how French cinema can be studied through a feminist perspective. Students will examine both masculine representations of female characters (predominantly patriarchal) and films directed by women, to see if the point of view is different.The course will begin with historical background (the French Revolution and Olympe de Gouges) and subsequently move towards a more sociological approach (the study of the 19th century and the context of the birth of pre-feminism). The philosophical and poetic dimensions of Simone de Beauvoir’s work will also be examined.
Focusing on the cultural history of cinema, the course will explore films, texts, manifestos, or simply representations of real-life situations of women all throughout the 20th century. Students will also study major and/or forgotten women directors who have shaped our perspectives through this “other” cinema.
-
The History of the Chanson in French Cinema
Professor Broda
French music in French cinema: a topic somewhere at the crossroads between French cinema, French television, and today’s Youtube.The goal of this course is to define what a song is, a melody, and to determine how these mediums are not only works of art but also elements of French culture. Studying songs will enable students to examine a variety of subjects: poetry (poets), melodies (musicians), interpreters (singers), in other words, texts, music and artists that have shaped French social identity.
Through texts, recordings, film and television excerpts, we will survey the images and sounds of French music and the songs that contributed to the foundation of an essential part of French cultural heritage.
This is therefore a course that touches upon French cultural history, French music and French cinema. Students will study foundational songs (like the French national anthem, La Marseillaise) as well as major 20th century artists like Edith Piaf, Serge Gainsbourg, Georges Brassens or Barbara…
The 21st century will not be neglected, whether it be through the study of slam poetry (Grand Corps Malade) or the “French Touch,” symbolized by groups like Daft Punk.
Literature
Professor: M. RÖNNBÄCK
Since the 18th century Paris has been the undisputed political, intellectual, and cultural center of France. Its history has been recorded in countless works of literature, art, and film and these works have in turn been inscribed in the material reality of the city. Through a combination of texts, films, and site visits around the city, this course traces the history of Paris and its representations in literature and film from the French Revolution to the mid-20th century. From the romanticism of Victor Hugo to the surrealism of André Breton, from the catacombs to the Parc de la Villette, we will dive deep into the mythology of a city that never ceases to reinvent itself through violent conflicts and playful distortions, and yet has always remained more obsessed with its own history than perhaps any other city. As the French author Alphonse Karr once wrote: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
A series of excursions in Paris pertaining to the texts and themes studied in class will round off this course.
Literary Translation (2nd semester)
Professor: M. RÖNNBÄCK
The history of literature cannot be separated from the history of translation, a practice which goes beyond borders and helps spread written word to a wider audience. Thanks to translation, literature takes flight and travels around the world and we, readers, are invited to meet and understand the Other. The world as we know it is constantly being translated and retranslated. Yet, the link between literature and translation has often been rooted in suspicion. As they say in Italy, Traduttore tradittore: to translate is to betray. More so even than literature itself, translation suffers the limitations of time and space, of grammar and structure and there remains something untranslatable at the core of every text. Consequently, the history of translation is also the history of the text’s resistance to being translated as well as the history of how translation frees itself from literature’s constraints.
Translation in theory and translation in practice are both distinct and intrinsically linked. This seminar aims to study both sides of this debate as well as the relationship between the two and their link to literature and linguistics. By studying seminal texts in traductology, we will retrace the history of translation theory, which we will then use to translate together various texts from different literary genres. The course will be composed of lectures and class discussions dedicated to the study of translation theory texts, and translation workshops where students will practice translating preselected texts and discuss their choices to better understand the challenges this practice raises.
Sociology
Professor: M. MONGO-MBOUSSA
This course aims to help students understand the history and the stakes of immigration and multiculturalism in France, from 1870 – the birth of the 3rd Republic – to the present day. Following a historical presentation of the various populations (European, African and Asian) that have settled in France since the end of the 19th century, this course will discuss immigration policy, the philosophical approach to naturalization and integration in French society. Students will be invited to ponder notions such as intercultural relations, alterity, assimilation, integration and French “laïcité” (secularist policy).
While this course aims to be a comprehensive introduction to these topics, further attention will be drawn to the complex nature of the relationship between France and Algeria. Topics will include the colonial occupation, “orientalism,” the Algerian war, Islam, and the diverging experiences and identities of various Franco-Algerian communities (pieds-noirs, harkis, beurs). Finally, current events will be analyzed through the study of recent migrant “crises,” the ascension of the xenophobic extreme right-wing, and French and European policies in regard to refugees and asylum seekers.
Black Paris: A Transatlantic diaspora (2nd semester)
Professor : M. MONGO-MBOUSSA
The Black Atlantic, an essay written by the British sociologist Paul Gilroy, describes the dynamics of black diasporas stemming from the Atlantic Ocean – a place of cultural and anthropological dissemination – and undertakes a radical reversal regarding the question of origins. By focusing on the journey rather than the destination, Paul Gilroy favors movement and travel over roots and therefore diverse identities and hybridization. At the same time, the Martinican philosopher Edouard Glissant, inspired by Deleuze and Guattari’s writings on the Rhizome, also tackles the subject of Relation, a direct consequence of the world’s creolization.
This course offers an overview of black diasporas’ modernity throughout the 20th century, using as it’s backdrop the cities of Paris and New York, laboratories for transatlantic identity quests (Africa/France/Americas - USA & the Caribbean). In light of the above, the course will be organized around two separate trends. First, we will study the period of intellectual effervescence that took place during the first decades of the 20th century, when the question of “roots” or “source” dominated the field and was deemed necessary for the assertion of black identity. Second, we will examine the decades following World War Two, during which an increasingly plural line of thinking emerged and questioned the hybrid and mixed identities resulting from migrations (willing or forced) and transatlantic exchanges. Finally, there remains the question of current events and of 21st century francophone and anglophone voices, who have tackled these topics with new social urgency.
We will carefully consider the notions of rebirth, blackness (négritude), double consciousness, creolization, hybridization, afropolitanism, the Diverse, the detour, etc. We will also study the fate of certain key figures in this movement: Dubois, Garvey, Padmore, Price Mars, Locke, Claude Mckay, Césaire, Damas, Senghor, Frantz Fanon, Alioune Diop, Kwame Nkrumah, les sœurs Nardal, Suzanne Césaire, Josephine Baker, Maryse Condé, James Baldwin, Édouard Glissant, Maboula Soumahoro, Pap Ndiaye etc.
French
All students are required to take a French language course. The Program offers courses at both the intermediate and advanced levels; students are placed in an appropriate course based on their proficiency. The Program’s French language courses provide students the opportunity for in-depth study of French language and culture, as well as the training needed to and perform well in their other courses.
Visual Arts
All students in the Paris Program may choose to enroll in a visual arts course. Offerings include classes in drawing, painting, photography, and sculpture. All visual arts classes are conducted in French and take place at studios in and around Paris:
- Drawing and Painting
- Sculpture
- Photography
For more information about studying the visual arts in Paris, please e-mail John O’Connor, Professor of Visual Arts.
Dance
The SLC Paris Dance Program enables students to study European dance history, take technique courses at a variety of studios in and around Paris, and develop their own choreographic voice.
A course in dance includes 3 components:
- Dance History
- Improvisation/Composition
- Technique classes 3 days a week
- History of Dance in France (Semester 1)
Professor Hamlin
This course begins with the first codified and performed technique of French court dancing of the 16th century. Traversing the centuries, we will study the major dance trends from Russia, Germany and the United States that have influenced dance in France, ranging from classical dancing to Music Hall and modern dance. -
History of Dance in France (Semester 2)
Professor Hamlin
This course addresses the development of contemporary dance in France during the second half of the 20th century until the present. We will discuss the importance of transatlantic influences and exchanges, as well as the proliferation of a cross-border dance identity in Europe.Video support and attendance at live performances give students visual references for the choreographic work, and reading material supplements the lectures.
- Improvisation/Composition
Professor Hamlin
This course is based on the method taught by Alwin Nikolais, inherited from Rudolf Laban, Kurt Joos, Mary Wigman, Hanya Holm and Bessie Schönberg, founder of SLC’s dance department. The class is divided into two phases: directed group improvisation and individual composition work. Students work on specific themes each week and develop solo or group compositions to be shown at the end of each semester.
Technique Courses
Technique courses are chosen based on students’ interests, backgrounds, and schedules, under the guidance of the SLC Paris Program Dance Professor. Dance students typically enroll in classes at the following studios:
- The Studio Harmonic, Micadanses and the Centre de Danse du Marais: These three large studios offer a variety of classes from ballet and contemporary techniques to flamenco, Oriental and African dance, character dance, tai chi, yoga, etc.
For more information about the dance program in Paris, please e-mail our program director, Natalie Allen.
Intensive Program in Dance (8 credits)
Advanced students who specialize in dance may apply to the intensive dance program.
The intensive program includes the following components:
- Dance History
- Improvisation/Composition
- Daily technique classes
- Special Project (to be elaborated under the guidance of the SLC Paris Dance Professor, according to students’ interests and goals)
Music
The SLC Paris Program offers qualified students the opportunity to pursue studies in classical music and musicology.
Students who wish to study music in Paris must:
- Demonstrate proficiency in French (advanced proficiency is required for intensive programs and musicology courses)
- Be proficient in “fixed do” solfege
- Familiarize themselves with basic musical terms in French (students might find the book Abrégé de la Théorie de la Musique by A. Danhauser useful)
Students should plan on enrolling for the full year as music schools will not accept students for only the spring semester (except Sorbonne).
For students enrolled in classical music or jazz courses, the curriculum includes several components :
- Individual instruction (instrumental performance, composition, or voice)
- Theory or History
- Performance ensemble
Depending on their level and area of study, students may enroll in courses at the following partner institutions:
-
Schola Cantorum: All instruments and voice; solfege; theory and analysis; composition; history; individual and ensemble performance
- Sorbonne University: advanced academic studies including theory and analysis, history, musicology, and ethnomusicology
-
Ecole Normale de Musique: This is an Intensive Program in Classical Music. Students will need to complete at least 8 credits each semester (1/2 of the curriculum).
-
ATLA: Electronic music; Computer assusted music
For more information about study abroad music programs, please contact John Yanelli, Director of the Music Program at Sarah Lawrence College.
Intensive Programs in Music (8 credits)
Advanced students who wish to concentrate half of their coursework (8 credits) in music may apply to an intensive program. All classes are conducted in French.
Students will audition and be interviewed for individual instruction at the specific institutions to which they are applying when they arrive in Paris. Instrumentalists and vocalists will perform a piece of their own choosing and may be asked to play a technical exercise. They should also be prepared to take diagnostic tests in solfege, theory, and harmony, including sight-reading, sight-singing, and dictation. Candidates will be placed at a level of study corresponding to their abilities. Final programs will be arranged and approved by the Sarah Lawrence Paris Program Director.
There are one intensive program in music available:
Intensive Program in Classical Music
Sarah Lawrence College partners with the highly competitive Ecole Normale de Musique for this program. Students are accepted by audition only. Studies include all instruments and voice, solfege, theory and analysis, composition, history, individual and ensemble performance.
Sample Intensive Program in Classical Music
- History of Music
- Violin
- Reading Music
- Chamber Music
Theatre
Paris’ cultural history and traditions provide an ideal context for the pursuit of theatrical experimentation.
All courses are conducted in French. A typical theater course consists of three components:
- Theory or History
- Acting Instruction
- Movement or Voice
Students may enroll in courses at the following partner institutions:
- Le Samovar: specialized in clown acting/burlesque
- Studio Théâtre: general training in acting for both theatre and cinema
Intensive Program in Theatre (8 credits)
Advanced students who wish to concentrate half of their coursework (8 credits) in theatre may apply to the intensive program. The intensive theatre program is open to full-year students only and requires a specific application process.
Intensive Program in Filmmaking (8 credits)
The Sarah Lawrence Intensive Program at the Ecole Internationale de Cinéma d’Audiovisuel et de Réalisation (EICAR), an International Film and Television School in Paris, allows students to acquire intensive training in the essential aspects of making a movie. The program, open to students with advanced proficiency in French, may be taken for a full year only and carries 8 credits per semester (1/2 of the curriculum).
The study abroad Filmmaking Intensive is composed of two parts:
-
Theoretical: Courses in the history of cinema and the major theories of editing. The first course provides students with a general background in the field. The study of the theory of editing offers a review of the evolution of cinematographic language, developing students’ knowledge and awareness of the use of various narrative and stylistic effects. This knowledge is then put into practice through editing software (Adobe Premiere), special effects software (After Effects), sound editing software (Pro Tools), as well as calibration software (Da Vinci Resolve), all of which are essential in the making of a short movie.
-
Practical: Composed of workshops including HD camera, light (direct and indirect lighting, blonde, and redhead studio lights), sound editing (voice, noise, sound effects, etc.), scriptwriting (basics of dramaturgy, storytelling), and directing (apprehending acting, finesse of directing).
Sarah Lawrence students take classes with French students and work in groups to create 10-minute films that are completed at the end of the semester. After choosing the topic for a short film, students have weekly meetings with a tutor to progress in each stage of the project: writing the film (title, synopsis, screenplay, and note of intention), preproduction (composition of technical and artistic teams, production of documents for filming), shooting of the film, and post-production (image and sound editing, calibration, and mixing).
Sample Intensive Program
- Preparation for Production
- History of Cinema
- Editing Workshop
- Lighting Workshop
- Screenwriting Workshop
Films by Former Students
- Victoire by Anna Quinlan
- Déambulations by Matias Sanchez-Sarmiento
- Ecoute-moi by Sammi Shack
Intensive Programs in the Social Sciences (8 credits)
Advanced students who specialize in the social sciences may apply to the intensive program at Sciences Po, France’s premier institution for the social sciences. Students may enroll in courses in economics, history, international relations, law, political science or sociology. Intensive program students take one lecture course with an accompanying methodology conference, and one seminar. In addition, they receive individual guidance and support during weekly conferences with an SLC Paris professor. The program is open to students with advanced proficiency in French and may be taken for one semester or a full year and carries 8 credits per semester (1/2 of the curriculum). Due to the rigor of Sciences Po, eligible students must demonstrate advanced proficiency both in speaking and in writing.
Sample (semester) intensive program in Politics/International Relations:
- Lecture: Theory of International Relations
- Methodology Conference: Theory of International Relations
- Seminar : Communications and Politics: From the Advent of Universal Suffrage to Social Media
- Weekly conferences with a Paris Program professor