Reading List for French Universities

[Sarafina]

I'm trying to find several reading lists that a French student who is starting their first year of uni in France would be required to read for their course. I know a Swiss girl who read the reading lists for first year students starting Oxford and Cambridge to improve her reading skills and to better prepare herself for doing an interview entirely in English when she plans on applying for Oxbridge. I thought that it was a great idea. I'd like to replicate something like that for French.

As for the subjects, I'm interested in Physics, Political Science, French Literature, Japanese Literature, Philosophy, Astronomy and Psychology and Genetics.

Any links would be greatly apperciated.

[Deinonysus]

No idea if this is something a first year French student would read, but since you mentioned a few sciences, the first modern chemistry book, Lavoissier's Traité élémentaire de chimie, (elementary treatise of chemistry) was originally written in French.

(A lot of the science is completely obsolete but it's an interesting historical document)

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/52489/52 ... 2489-h.htm

[zenmonkey]

For French Lit (18th Century) these lists covers most of the material you should see in the first two years:

https://www.senscritique.com/liste/Litt ... cle/185831
https://www.senscritique.com/liste/Top_ ... 1799/51032

Even if a few are translations from English, they would be part of the reading material in French, given that they were excellent period translations (e.g. Gulliver's Travels)...

In the second link you can also see suggestions for other historical periods.

[MrsStarez]

French literature... I studied the classics. This was 20ish years ago!

Molière: Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope, Don Juan

Racine: Andromaque, Phèdre, Bérénice, Britannicus

Corneille: Le Cid, Cinna, Horace

[fcoulter]

Go to a French University's web site, and find the name of the instructors for the intro courses. Email them and ask for a copy of the syllabus.

Or contact the university's book store and ask for the list of required texts.

[Chupito]

French universities work differently than North American ones.

They tend to focus on one subject from the start; a first year student couldn't just take a variety of subjects like you mentioned and then decide on their major later.

Also, at least where I went, we didn't have a reading list the way I've seen in North America. There wasn't one book we read from start to finish, with instructions to read pages X to Y each week. In the lectures, there was no reading required at all. In the lecture+seminar courses, each teacher would just give us an extensive bibliography at the start of the semester, comment it if we were lucky, and let us make our own choices. So the readings varied from one student to the next in the same class. We did have weekly homework that involved some reading but that stuff was distributed by the teachers, not in a book you could buy on Amazon.

Personally I didn't buy or read a single textbook; I'd go to the library each week to consult what a few different authors wrote on a given subject. I had also never seen a syllabus before attending a uni in North America and neither French university I attended included a bookstore, although obviously, there were some in the neighborhood.

Obviously, that's just my experience in my majors and universities. Others might have a different experience. Quebec functions more than way you'd expect, so maybe you can look up lists for Quebec universities.

[fcoulter]

Go to a French University's web site, and find the name of the instructors for the intro courses. Email them and ask for a copy of the syllabus.

Or contact the university's book store and ask for the list of required texts.

Or look at the websites for the individual departments/programs/courses - the syllabi are probably online.

You can tell relative ages. Email is my generation. Posting the syllabi is yours.

What will put kids do, assuming universities as they're presently constituted exist.

Thanks for improving my post.

[fcoulter]

French universities work differently than North American ones.

They tend to focus on one subject from the start; a first year student couldn't just take a variety of subjects like you mentioned and then decide on their major later.

Also, at least where I went, we didn't have a reading list the way I've seen in North America. There wasn't one book we read from start to finish, with instructions to read pages X to Y each week. In the lectures, there was no reading required at all. In the lecture+seminar courses, each teacher would just give us an extensive bibliography at the start of the semester, comment it if we were lucky, and let us make our own choices. So the readings varied from one student to the next in the same class. We did have weekly homework that involved some reading but that stuff was distributed by the teachers, not in a book you could buy on Amazon.

Personally I didn't buy or read a single textbook; I'd go to the library each week to consult what a few different authors wrote on a given subject. I had also never seen a syllabus before attending a uni in North America and neither French university I attended included a bookstore, although obviously, there were some in the neighborhood.

Obviously, that's just my experience in my majors and universities. Others might have a different experience. Quebec functions more than way you'd expect, so maybe you can look up lists for Quebec universities.

In graduate school, many of my courses avoided textbooks and went for readings. Those readings are usually listed on the syllabus.

[fcoulter]

Go to a French University's web site, and find the name of the instructors for the intro courses. Email them and ask for a copy of the syllabus.

Or contact the university's book store and ask for the list of required texts.

Or look at the websites for the individual departments/programs/courses - the syllabi are probably online.

You can tell relative ages. Email is my generation. Posting the syllabi is yours.

What will our kids do, assuming universities as they're presently constituted exist?

Thanks for improving my post.

[Chupito]

In graduate school, many of my courses avoided textbooks and went for readings. Those readings are usually listed on the syllabus.

Yeah, I was talking about undergrad. Grad school is different. But even so, we didn't have a list of readings, nor a syllabus, as far as I recall. We had a general bibliography and then material distributed throughout the semester.