A certain tendency of french/Francophone studies in the united states

In 2010, the elimination of several humanities programs at SUNY, Albany-Classics, French, Italian, Russian, and Theater-generated a wave of reactions in the national media (Adler; Huckabee; Jaschik). With this clearly in mind, the New York Times launched a debate on the topic, "Do Colleges Need French Departments?" One can make the following observation: NYT did not title its piece: "Do Colleges Need Classics, French, Italian, Russian, and Theater Departments?" The fact that the best-known American newspaper would resume the cutting of several programs in a university to the single case of French proves that there is a long history of complex Franco-American relations (and a need to analyze these relations) that cannot be ignored.