The American University of Paris

The majors and minors within our department draw heavily on the extraordinary number of museums and monuments that you’ll have easy access to in Paris and Europe, thus allowing you a personal and immediate understanding of great works of art that span thousands of years and incorporate countries and cultures across the globe. While expanding your knowledge of the evolution of Art History and the practical techniques of the Fine Arts, you will also benefit from our Fine Arts Gallery, which has hosted over 110 exhibitions and conferences with professional artists from 25 countries, houses a permanent collection of over 100 pieces, and displays the work of past and current AUP students. Learn more about the Art History and Fine Arts department.

In a liberal arts curricular context, our students learn to systematically explain, critically think about, and knowledgably engage in the broad spectrum of communication, media and cultural practices. We aim to graduate students who are informed, ethical communicators; reflective creators and makers of media and culture. Our students use theory, history, and experiential learning to make a positive, lasting impact on our world.  

At a lively intersection of overlapping fields, our teaching is informed by cutting edge research on journalism, multimedia storytelling, and film; advertising, marketing, branding, and PR; anthropology, development, advocacy, and politics; history, ethics, economics, and law. Our professors guide students through the nuances of evolving and hybrid cultures, in the context of globalization and its discontents. Our approach to communication, media and culture is resolutely comparative. It is rigorously academic as well as practical. Students develop strong analytical, reasoning, written and verbal skills. They become empathetic and ethical listeners as well as efficient and effective persuaders. 

The department offers four majors and six minors. The majors are Global Communications, Journalism, Film, and Communication and Public Affairs (to launch in 2020–21). The minors are Anthropology, Fashion Studies, Global Communications, Film, Journalism and Political Communication. The department frequently hosts colloquiums and invited speakers from the world of research, business, politics, and creative industries.  Learn more about the Communication, Media, and Culture department.

We believe that learning to use the English language powerfully and precisely within a world of so many languages and cultures will give you the tools to become a critical and creative thinker, able to analyze and interpret individual literary texts, while making enlightened connections with other works and disciplines. Each of our classes will help you develop an informed awareness of traditions and cultural, historical, and literary variations and progressions.

Simultaneously, intensive writing practice will guide you towards clear and elegant expression as you acquire professional writing skills within the cultural sphere. We champion intellectual ambition, creativity, and imagination. We encourage you to pay close attention to the written word when analyzing historical, social, philosophical, and psychological processes, so that you can explore the capacity of language to inform reflection on human values and societal differences and mobilize your creative imagination. Learn more about the Comparative Literature and English department.

The courses in our department will provide you with a solid knowledge base in such wide-ranging areas as software development, discrete mathematics, and environmental ethics, all the while helping you improve your quantitative and abstract reasoning, and your comprehension, analysis, and integration of knowledge. In keeping with our dedication to the ideals of the liberal arts, our department is committed to interdisciplinary education and research, no matter in which direction you choose to orient your studies. Additionally, our Technology and Cognition Lab, which conducts research funded by the likes of the Mellon Foundation, will allow you to observe and participate in the diverse projects that your professors collaborate on with colleagues from other universities and research labs. Learn more about the Computer Science, Mathematics, and Environmental Science department.

The Department of Economics and Management emphasizes an interdisciplinary and international context that encourages you to examine the social, the national, and the global, from the perspectives of multiple disciplines, so that you are prepared to face your future academic and professional career with a more reflective and ethical comprehension of present-day economics and management questions and challenges. Our diverse faculty has a wide range of academic and professional experience and creates compelling and rewarding classroom experiences. The Department proposes six majors, three minors and a Masters in International Management.  We also offer a joint Masters program in Strategic Brand Management with the Department of Communication, Media and Culture as well as a five-year BA/MSc.

We know how daunting it can be to start learning another language and we’ve designed our curriculum to make studying French in Paris an enriching and enjoyable experience. Our language programs are designed, so that you can apply your speaking, listening comprehension, reading, and writing classroom learning to your daily Parisian life. All language classes are supplemented by a lively multimedia program, regular excursions around Paris, exhibitions, and themed evenings organized by the department. We want to make sure that you stay actively involved in the learning process, whether by sharing your experiences with international students or contributing articles to our departmental blog. Furthermore, our expertise in teaching French as a foreign language and our commitment to dynamic, multifaceted teaching methods extend to instruction in languages like Arabic and Italian. Ultimately, our goal is to help you gain a thorough linguistic grounding as you take full advantage of this vibrant, multicultural city. Learn more about French Studies and Modern Languages department.

We are firm believers that a nuanced understanding of the past cultivates an appreciation of its relevance to the present and future and that there might be no better place for this kind of rewarding exploration than Paris, an essential partner in our curriculum. You’ll soon discover that Paris’s over-2000-year history remains accessible to you today, through its one-of-a-kind monuments, museums, and architecture: history comes alive here in the side streets and the forgotten cafes. So much more than simple dates and facts, history enables us to draw closer to our own humanity and to peoples and cultures that came before. We encourage you to delve into other disciplines like film, French, comparative literature, and politics, so as to gain a deeper understanding of where and how history is located within geographic, temporal, and cultural contexts. The past is a powerful thing and our resources will help you understand that power and how to use it. Learn more about the History and Politics department.

Psychology incorporates an enormous variety of disciplines, themes, and modes of thought, a diversity that our classes reflect and embrace, as we strive to foster dialogue and debate by constantly challenging the validity of any single framework. While examining how culture and social context influence multiple psychological areas, your classes will help you formalize your inquiries into scientific studies, by providing a solid background in the central theories, approaches, and controversies in contemporary psychology. Combine this with easy access to interdisciplinary perspectives and intercultural field experience, as well as resources from French and European scientific institutions, laboratories, and archives, and you will be ready for an academic or professional career in countless programs of study from neuroscience and developmental or clinical psychology to traditional preparations for further credentialing in the field. Learn more about the Psychology, Health, and Gender department.