Mwantuali joined the Hamilton faculty in 1995 after completing his Ph.D. in French at The Pennsylvania State University. He also received a master's in community economic development from Southern New Hampshire University and both a master's and bachelor's in French literature and African linguistics from the University of Zaire. Throughout much of the 1980s, prior to coming to the United States, Mwantuali served as a teacher, trainer and language coordinator at the U.S. Peace Corps Training Centers in Zaire and Burundi. He has written three books in French: Michel Leiris et le Négro-Africain, Paris: Nouvelles du Sud, 1999; and Septuagénaire, University Press of the South, New Orleans, 2000, L’impair de la nation, Yaoundé, Clé, 2007, as well as several articles on French and African literatures. He is working on two books in African literature and one novel (his first in English). Mwantuali's areas of specialty include 20th century French literature, literary criticism, Francophone cultures and literatures, and Bantu philosophy.
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John O'Neal, a faculty member since 1984, earned a master's in French from Middlebury College, and a Ph.D. from U.C.L.A. He was named a knight in the Order of the Palmes Académiques by the French Ministry of Education in 1998, and promoted to officer in 2008. O'Neal directed the Hamilton College Junior Year in France program six times between 1986 and 2004 and has lectured at the Sorbonne and the Ecole Normale Supérieure. He has written extensively in both French and English about 18th-century French literature and thought. O'Neal has authored numerous books and articles, including Changing Minds: The Shifting Perception of Culture in Eighteenth-Century France (2002) and The Authority of Experience: Sensationist Theory in the French Enlightenment (1996). His latest authored book, The Progressive Poetics of Confusion in the French Enlightenment, was published by University of Delaware Press in 2011. O'Neal's most recent edited books are Approaches to Teaching Rousseau's Confessions and Reveries (Modern Language Association, 2003 with Ourida Mostefai) and The Nature of Rousseau's Rêveries: Physical, Human, Aesthetic (from the Voltaire Foundation in Oxford in 2008).
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Back to French overview.
The study of French is of great practical value for those interested in careers in international affairs, business, education, scholarship and other fields that require competency in a major foreign language. Just as important, though, is the appreciation it encourages for other cultures and, by comparison, one's own heritage. We share a world in which dialogue, coherent communication and mutual understanding are critical.
The College's Junior Year in France program is one of the College's most popular and successful study-abroad options. It is highly regarded for its academic excellence and cultural immersion. And, of course, it allows students to spend a full school year in one of the world’s most exciting and vibrant cities.
French is by its nature a broad, interdisciplinary field that draws on a variety of perspectives and traditions: language, literature, the arts, history, politics and cultural study. The diverse, accomplished faculty builds on these perspectives to offer stimulating courses and culturally authentic viewpoints. Classes are small, with intensive one-on-one guidance and discussion.
Have you enjoyed any of these authors and writings — Hugo's Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Arthurian legends, Heloise, Zola, Molière, Racine, Diderot, Rousseau, Baudelaire, Sartre, Camus? They're all French in the original. A working knowledge of French will allow you to read some of the world's most enduring literature the way it was written.
The study of French is of great practical value for those interested in careers in international affairs, business, education, scholarship and other fields that require competency in a major foreign language. Just as important, though, is the appreciation it encourages for other cultures and, by comparison, one's own heritage. We share a world in which dialogue, coherent communication and mutual understanding are critical.
The College's Junior Year in France program is one of the College's most popular and successful study-abroad options. It is highly regarded for its academic excellence and cultural immersion. And, of course, it allows students to spend a full school year in one of the world’s most exciting and vibrant cities.
French is by its nature a broad, interdisciplinary field that draws on a variety of perspectives and traditions: language, literature, the arts, history, politics and cultural study. The diverse, accomplished faculty builds on these perspectives to offer stimulating courses and culturally authentic viewpoints. Classes are small, with intensive one-on-one guidance and discussion.
Have you enjoyed any of these authors and writings — Hugo's Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Arthurian legends, Heloise, Zola, Molière, Racine, Diderot, Rousseau, Baudelaire, Sartre, Camus? They're all French in the original. A working knowledge of French will allow you to read some of the world's most enduring literature the way it was written.
The study of French is of great practical value for those interested in careers in international affairs, business, education, scholarship and other fields that require competency in a major foreign language. Just as important, though, is the appreciation it encourages for other cultures and, by comparison, one's own heritage. We share a world in which dialogue, coherent communication and mutual understanding are critical.
The College's Junior Year in France program is one of the College's most popular and successful study-abroad options. It is highly regarded for its academic excellence and cultural immersion. And, of course, it allows students to spend a full school year in one of the world’s most exciting and vibrant cities.
French is by its nature a broad, interdisciplinary field that draws on a variety of perspectives and traditions: language, literature, the arts, history, politics and cultural study. The diverse, accomplished faculty builds on these perspectives to offer stimulating courses and culturally authentic viewpoints. Classes are small, with intensive one-on-one guidance and discussion.
Have you enjoyed any of these authors and writings — Hugo's Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Arthurian legends, Heloise, Zola, Molière, Racine, Diderot, Rousseau, Baudelaire, Sartre, Camus? They're all French in the original. A working knowledge of French will allow you to read some of the world's most enduring literature the way it was written.
The study of French is of great practical value for those interested in careers in international affairs, business, education, scholarship and other fields that require competency in a major foreign language. Just as important, though, is the appreciation it encourages for other cultures and, by comparison, one's own heritage. We share a world in which dialogue, coherent communication and mutual understanding are critical.
The College's Junior Year in France program is one of the College's most popular and successful study-abroad options. It is highly regarded for its academic excellence and cultural immersion. And, of course, it allows students to spend a full school year in one of the world’s most exciting and vibrant cities.
French is by its nature a broad, interdisciplinary field that draws on a variety of perspectives and traditions: language, literature, the arts, history, politics and cultural study. The diverse, accomplished faculty builds on these perspectives to offer stimulating courses and culturally authentic viewpoints. Classes are small, with intensive one-on-one guidance and discussion.
Have you enjoyed any of these authors and writings — Hugo's Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Arthurian legends, Heloise, Zola, Molière, Racine, Diderot, Rousseau, Baudelaire, Sartre, Camus? They're all French in the original. A working knowledge of French will allow you to read some of the world's most enduring literature the way it was written.
