Research Clusters

FRIT graduate scholars will gain a unique degree in French, Francophone, or Italian Studies by exploring their major field across periods, methods, and genres through a set of research clusters. All FRIT graduate students also organize a set of focused courses in and outside the department to earn a Graduate Minor or GIS (Graduate Interdisciplinary Specialization).

Screen and Performance Studies

• Film studies
• Trauma and medicine in film and dance
• Movement and ideas: dance, the body, and language
• Professors Renga, Toth, Flinn
• OSU Resources: The Film Studies Center, Wexner Center for the Arts, Gateway Film Center, Narrative Medicine Initiative through the Humanities Institute
• GIS in Film Studies, Comparative Cultural Studies, Folklore Studies
• Graduate Minor in Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies or Theatre and Performance

Popular and Material Cultures Across Times and Spaces

• Popular music: medieval, modern, rap, Quebec
• Television studies
• Comics—bandes dessinées (BD)
• Theories of fashion, consumption, distinction, and esthetics
• Professors Heller, Flinn, Marx-Scouras, Renga, Toth, Wong
• OSU Resources: Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, OSU Historic Costume and Textiles Collection
• GIS in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Comparative Cultural Studies, Folklore Studies

Migration Studies—Historic and Current

• Mediterranean studies
• Underrepresented minorities
• Southern Italy
• The Age of Discovery
• French Emigrants During the Revolution
• Theories of Space
• Sea narratives
• Professors Combs-Schilling, Heller, Hoffmann, Flinn, Marx-Scouras, Renga, Toth
• OSU Resources: Global Mobility Project Migration Studies Working Group
• GIS in Comparative Cultural Studies, Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean

Boundary Crossings in Medieval & Renaissance France –Provence—Italy

• Merchant poetics and stories
• Medieval French fashion, material culture, daily life
• Troubadours, trobairitz, trouvères, trovatori
• Travel narrative
• Pastoral, exile, and literary edges
• Professors Heller, Combs-Schilling
• OSU Resources: Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library
• GIS in Medieval and Renaissance Studies

French in the Americas

• Quebecois media, music, writing, culture
• French images of American spaces
• Francophone media
• Intellectual & Literary Dialogues between France and America
• Professors Hoffmann, Willging, Marx-Scouras, Toth, Flinn, Wong
• Resources: Laval Program, Bourguignon collection, The Americas Before 1900 Working Group
• GIS in Comparative Literature, Literacy Studies
• Grad Minor in Comparative Cultural Studies

French & Francophone Writing Now

• The French novel from the World Wars to brand-new publishing
• French creative writing
• Cartoon Studies
• Professors Hoffmann, Willging, Marx-Scouras, Toth, Flinn
• OSU Resources: Project Narrative
• GIS in Comparative Literature, Literacy Studies
• Grad Minor in Comparative Cultural Studies

Second Language Acquisition

• Cognitive, Psychological, Physiological, and Social Aspects of Language Learning (please help!)
• Pedagogy Methods
• Professors Wong, Aski
• OSU Resources: Center for Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Eye-tracking lab
• GIS in Second Language Studies
• GIS in Literacy Studies
• Technology Certification