• 2025-04-26 - This year’s FRIT Annual Distinguished Alumni Lecture was delivered by French SLATE Alumna Dr. Samira El Atia (PhD 2003) who is Professor of Education and the Associate Dean of Research, Graduate Studies and International Affairs at the bilingual Campus Saint-Jean of the University of Alberta. She specializes in language assessment and evaluation of the competencies of bilingual learners...
  • 2025-04-21 - On April 19, 2025, a jury of 10 university students announced Madelaine avant l’aube by Sandrine Collette as the winner of the fourth US Goncourt Prize Selection. Hosted at Villa Albertine in New York City, the award ceremony resulted from months of study and debate conducted by students at 10 American universities including the University of Illinois. This year, participating...
  • 2025-04-12 - - Amelia Reggi was awarded a 2025-2026 SLCL Dissertation Completion Fellowship for her thesis project, "Bodies in Crisis: Idealized Femininity and the Curse of Womanhood in the Early 20th Century Italian Novel and Play” (Director of research: Professor Emmanuel Rota)https://frit.illinois...
  • 2025-03-28 - Friday, April 11 6 pm - Lucy Ellis Lounge, 1080 LCLB, and LCLB Atrium The year 2024 marked 150 years since the arrival of Italian immigrants in Brazil, a significant event that deeply impacted the country's culture, society, and economy. Italian immigration to Brazil, beginning in 1874 with the ship "La Sofia," fostered a rich...
  • 2025-03-14 - Heartfelt congratulations to Professor Eda Derhemi who is this year's faculty recipient of the SLCL Diversity and Engagement Award in recognition of her efforts to foster local, national, and international outreach activities and extensive work with linguistically endangered communities around the world in an effort to promote diversity and inclusivity. This award, initiated in 2021,...
  • 2025-03-09 - Congratulations to Professor Daniel Maroun on having been selected as a Humanities Research Institute faculty fellow for the academic year 2025-26. His proposal, “The Politics of Kinship: Writing Queerness, Filiation, and Race in Contemporary France,” responded to this year’s theme...
  • 2025-03-02 - Congratulations to PhD Candidate Julia Gorham (French SLATE) who successfully defended her doctoral dissertation “L2 French Students’ and Instructors’ Experiences of Critical Literacies Pedagogy: A Mixed Methods Program” on March 6, 2025 at 11 am in 2090B, LCLB. Members of her committee were: Professors Aurore Mroz (FRIT, Director and Chair), Daniel Maroun (FRIT), Xun Yan (Linguistics, ESL...
  • 2025-03-01 -                               This is a March Madness bracket type competition that starts with 16 songs (in French!) that advance by international student voting. You can self-enroll on Canvas to see the playlist, make your own bracket to predict the winning song, participate in discussions, and vote for...
  • 2025-02-26 - Evening French Conversations to brush up on your spoken French! Event Type Social/Informal Event Location 1080, Lucy Ellis Lounge, LCLB Contact Sacha Craig (acraig22@illinois.edu), graduate teaching assistant i French  
  • 2025-02-12 - Two of our faculty members have been recently featured in LAS News for their ongoing teaching and outreach initiatives. Professor Aurore Mroz, founder of the Cercle Francophone aims to develop and maintain French English bilingualism and biliteracy in Francophone and Francophile children in the Champaign-Urbana community by offering, free of charge, series of two-hour-long sessions of...
  • 2025-01-18 -   Congratulations to our Italian Basic Language Program that has been awarded a grant by the Italian Ministry of Culture for the second year in a row. Administered by the Italian Cultural Services in the United States, the grant will support our program's course offerings of eight-week online summer courses in Italian 101 and 102 (Elementary Italian I and II) in 2025. These courses...
  • 2024-12-27 - Congratulations to Professor Aurore Mroz who was awarded one of the Villa Albertine's (French Institute for Culture and Education) prestigious French in Higher Education grants for 2025-2027 grant cycle. Professor Aurore Mroz'...
  • 2024-12-22 - After a successful Fall 2024 semester teaching about the Italian capital, Rome (ITAL 156), and Italian Culture in a European and global context, including the mafia (ITAL 406) Professor Ciro Incoronato is gearing up to teach the Italian program's minority general education course ITAL 250 'Minority Identities in Film and Culture: The Italian American and African American Experience'.  A...
  • 2024-12-22 - Professor Aurore Mroz and two PhD students, Macha Petre and Scarlet Peterson, presented an innovative public engagement project, Le Cercle Francophone (The Francophone Circle), at the Chancellor's Inaugural Public Engagement Summit at UIUC on December 13. Their...
  • 2024-12-22 - FRIT office manager Anne Olmstead and office support specialist Linh Tran were recognized with a small gift by faculty and graduate students at this year's FRIT Holiday Luncheon on Wednesday, December 11 from 11 to 2 pm. Each year, the buffet-style Luncheon opens at 11 am and runs continuously until 2 pm, and it is open to faculty, students to sit and chat or just grab a sandwich or fruit to...