Postgraduates in the Department of French are a part of an active research community made up of both full-time and part-time MA and research students. This is supplemented by a programme of visiting lecturers and scholars from Britain, France, the United States, Australia and Francophone Africa. The department holds regular lunchtime postgraduate seminars at which students give informal papers, discuss research issues, and hear talks from invited members of staff. Our postgraduates are in contact with other students across the country, and are active in attending and hosting postgraduate conferences. Recently, postgraduate seminars and conferences have been held in collaboration with the University of Exeter, with publication of the proceedings.

A strong network of partnerships and exchanges has been set up with French Universities. A co-tutelle agreement for joint supervision of certain doctoral students is now in place with the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales. Our postgraduate students have the opportunity to benefit from an exchange agreement set up with the Ecole Normale Supérieure, or to take up one of our exchange lecteurship posts at the Universities of Martinique, or Bordeaux I and II.

The department is highly IT-literate and makes sophisticated use of equipment and resources. Members of staff are involved in several significant internet-based initiatives. Within the University, postgraduates in the department benefit from the facilities of the Graduate School, which offers a venue for working (computers and workrooms) and meeting to all graduate students in the Arts Faculty. It provides training courses in critical theory and research methodologies and techniques, and hosts a series of inter-disciplinary seminars.