Enhance your French language skills in a Caribbean setting, living with French Creole families near the port city of Fort-de-France, never far on this island of 400,000 inhabitants from beautiful beaches and rugged tropical forests. Experience the cultural hybridity of the former French colony -- once a lucrative (and exploitative) site of sugarcane production, now a full-fledged department of France, proud of its heritage, but still struggling to assert its political autonomy. Classroom curriculum includes French language classes as well as lectures by specialists on local history, economy, geography, religious practices; on-site learning includes hikes through natural habitats, guided visits to important historical and cultural locales, and encounters with a variety of Martinicans, from school children to college students to political figures.
Course Objective:
- Enhance knowledge of French language with particular emphasis on speaking and listening skills, including vocabulary related to Creole cultures.
- Understand and appreciate what makes the French Caribbean a unique world culture, engage in experiential learning through a field project related to the society and culture of Martinique.
- Become self-reflective about experiences in an unfamiliar culture and let go of assumptions. (Such an experience lends to a shift in self-identity, an expanding acceptance of others, and a more cosmopolitan outlook on the world.)
Course Credit:
- FREN 341: Language and Collective Identity in the Caribbean or
- FREN 241: Language and Culture in the Caribbean
- French 341 or 241 may be counted toward the French minor or major.
