Course summary

Lancaster’s joint French Studies and History degree is taught by the Department of Languages and Cultures in conjunction with the Department of History. This degree includes an international placement in year 3. Your French Studies programme gives you the opportunity to acquire high-level language skills while gaining a thorough understanding of the country’s historical, cultural, social and political background in a global context. In History, you will develop your critical abilities studying modules in British, European and American world history. Your first year comprises an exploration of the French language and its cultural context as well as the core History module ‘From Medieval to Modern: History and Historians’. Alongside this, you can choose the History module ‘People, Places, and the Past’ or a minor subject from another department. Building on your language skills in Year 2, you will have the opportunity to study the culture, politics and history of the French-speaking world in more depth, as well as selecting modules which are international in scope and promote a comparative understanding of Europe and beyond. You will combine these with the core module, ‘The Nature and Practice of History’, and select options such as ‘A History of Paris, c. 1730 to the Present’ or ‘Three Colours, One Flag, One Empire: the French Colonial World, 1791-1962’. Spending your third year abroad in a French-speaking country gives you the opportunity to develop your language proficiency while deepening your intercultural sensitivity. You can study at a partner institution or conduct a work placement. In your final year, you consolidate your French language skills, and study specialist culture and comparative modules, such as ‘Imagining Modern Europe: Post-Revolutionary Utopias and Ideologies in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century’. You will also select History modules such as ‘Europe’s Age of Extremes, 1914-45: Film and Memory’ or ‘The Shock of the New - Modernity and Modernism in American Culture, 1877-1919’. Beginners Languages Studying a language from beginners level is somewhat intense in nature so we only allow students to study one language from beginners level. Please bear this in mind when looking at our first year module options. If you apply to study a degree with a language from beginners level, your optional modules will only include higher level languages and modules in other subject areas.