User:J.Lepeltier/Sub-Faculty of French, University of Oxford

The Sub-Faculty of French, University of Oxford, is a section of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages. French is primarily taught in the different Colleges of the University, but most lectures and library holdings are situated in the Taylor Institution or Taylorian.

The Sub-Faculty of French has ongoing links with other Oxford institutions, notably the Maison Française d’Oxford (MFO) and the Voltaire Foundation. The journal French Studies, now the leading UK journal in the field, was founded in 1947 in Oxford and currently has its editorial office in the Taylorian.

Oxford's French sub-faculty is the biggest French department in Britain, with 31 permanent members of staff covering all areas of French literature and language. The quality and range of the department's research has been recognised by outstanding results in the last two Research Assessment Exercises. In 2001 the department received the top grade of 5*. In 2008 it performed better than any other French department in the UK. 65% of its research activity was graded 4* (world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour) or 3* (internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour). In terms of the teaching it provides, French at Oxford was ranked top of all UK University French departments in the league tables published in the Times newspaper in May 2010.

Studying French at Oxford
Places to study French are given to around 200 students each year. French can be studied as a sole degree course, with another European language, or as a part of a joint degree alongside a Middle-Eastern language, History, English, Classics or Linguistics. The sub-faculty offers teaching across the whole range of French literature (and, to a lesser extent, cinema), divided roughly into ‘Medieval’, ‘Early Modern’ and ‘Modern’ periods.

History
Modern languages, as opposed to ancient ones, were not taught in Oxford for much of the University’s history. In 1724 a donation by George I was to provide teaching in French and German to train future diplomats, but the scheme soon failed. Another endowment, by Sir Robert Taylor (1714-1788), was contested by his son so that the University only received the sum (of £65,000) in 1835. The money was invested and it was only in 1844 that the Hebdomadal Board proposed that Modern Languages should be taught within the University. In 1844 the construction of two contiguous, grandly harmonious buildings was almost complete. The first, the Randolph or ‘University’ Galleries, was to house galleries for statues and paintings, and is now called the Ashmolean. The matching second building was to house lecture rooms and libraries for the study of European languages, and is now the Taylor Institution. Initially there were only two Taylorian Teachers, one in French and one in German. In 1847 Jules Bué was appointed to teach French; he also produced the first French translation of Alice in Wonderland. A statute for the Founding of the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages was approved by Congregation in 1903. The Marshall Foch Professorship of French Literature (held in conjunction with a Fellowship at All Souls) was established in 1918 thanks to a donation of £25,000 by Sir Basil Zaharoff. The same ‘Zaharoff fund’ also provides for the annual Zaharoff Lecture, for which the Sub-Faculty invites an eminent figure from French literary studies.

Notable members
Malcolm Bowie, Marshal Foch Professor 1992-2002, renowned Proust scholar

Jean-Jacques Seznec, Marshal Foch Professor 1950-1972, author of La Survivance des dieux antiques (1940)

Michael Sheringham, Fellow of the British Academy, Marshal Foch Professor 2004-present, who has published on surrealism, modern French poetry, autobiography and the everyday.

Enid Starkie, who taught at Oxford 1934-1965, known for her work on the French poets

Jean-Yves Tadié, Marshal Foch Professor 1988-1991, renowned Proust scholar

Alain Viala, Professor of French, author of La France galante which won the R. H. Gapper Book Prize in 2009