2012 Quebec Summer Seminar
Seminar on Franco-American and Quebec Culture and Heritage
Summer 2012
6 to 7 credits #491 & 494
University of North Dakota Department of Languages and Literatures
Click here for estimate of cost
Virgil Benoit, professor of French
Open to teachers of French and advanced students of French language in any discipline.
Students in this four week seminar will travel from Grand Forks ND to Quebec City, crossing Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario before reaching Quebec. Students commit to French language immersion, group approaches to learning, travel as a form of field work and encounters as a form of examining culture. Specific activities include orientation, readings, presentations, meetings and discussions with Franco-Americans, Franco-Ontarians, and Québécois while en route, and a two-week stay in Quebec. Participants prepare a research project to transfer knowledge, or inform Quebec and Midwest communities about each other. Host communities in Quebec and the Midwest are chosen on the basis of history, culture, French language, interests and concerns bordering on culture, education, trade, and economic development.
Daily writings and one other form of documentation of the trip such as lesson plans for the class room, photo, video, painting, interviews, journalism, etc. are required to assure that information gathered during the seminar can be recorded and make its way into a format to be shared between Québec and Midwest communities now and into the future. The seminar begins with four days of orientation at the University of North Dakota which includes discussions of reading, viewing documentaries, trip preparation, travel to Franco-Manitoban communities and an overnight stay in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba.
One additional credit, above the six, is given to those particpants who give a report on their research to a Québec and/or a Midwest community at a locally organized forum on Quebec and US relations. IFMidwest, located at the University of North Dakota, will assist in organizing the forums.
In 2012 the number of participants is limited to six and one professor. Travel is by State of North Dakota van.
For more information contact:
Virgil Benoit, professor of French University of North Dakota
http://arts-sciences.und.edu/languages/
Tel: 701 777-4659
Email: virgil.benoit@email.und.edu