When Rice University French studies lecturer Nelly Noury-Ossia finally led students through the streets of her hometown, it felt like a dream realized — for her and for the students who had studied with her since their earliest “Bonjour.” The seven-week Rice in France program, part of the School of Humanities’ Rice in Country initiative, usually keeps students rooted in one place. In Toulouse, France, they live with host families, take intensive French classes, volunteer locally and immerse themselves in everyday life. This year, after five weeks down south, they packed their bags and boarded a train to Paris and into the heart of their professor’s past.
Noury-Ossia was born in Iran and came to France as a child when her parents fled during the revolution. They didn’t arrive in Paris by choice, she said; they arrived because they had to. But what began as a disorienting new life eventually became her identity.
“Now I can say this is my home,” Noury-Ossia said. “I’m also very grateful to France and Paris because they gave us refuge. They gave us a place where we would be safe.”
That lens of Paris as more than croissants and couture shaped every part of the course she designed for the new location. Rather than romanticize the city, Noury-Ossia asked students to interrogate it.
“The main goal of my course is to understand: ‘What does it mean to talk about a global Paris?’ Let’s put the global in perspective,” Noury-Ossia said. “This is a wonderful opportunity for me to do this while we are in the Rice Global Paris Center, which is so historical and beautiful.”
Her own education in Paris, including a degree from Sorbonne University, forms the foundation of how she teaches French language and culture.
“I teach French, but it’s just not the language; it’s cultures, it’s the history, civilization as we call it,” Noury-Ossia said. “When I talk about school, it’s my experience as someone who went to school in Paris. When I talk about transportation or multiculturalism, it’s my experience in Paris.”
This summer’s cohort included students who’ve traveled that same educational arc from the basics to discussing global identities in French. Half the group began with Noury-Ossia in her French I class nearly two years ago. Among them was Rice senior Spencer Rembert, who said he first enrolled in French on a whim during his sophomore year, but that whim turned into a fuller pursuit.
“I think it was (Noury-Ossia’s) passion that really drove me to see Rice in France or just learning French more as an option,” Rembert said. “Then (associate teaching professor Maryam) Emami really inspired me to do Rice in France.”
Even so, he wasn’t sure what he was signing up for, especially when it came to the language expectations.
“I signed up for Rice in France, and after the interview with them, knowing we’re going to be speaking in French all the time, I was really scared,” Rembert said. “But both of them really supported me during the school year and then when we got to France. It’s been great so far.”
In Toulouse, he lived with a host family who took the immersion experience seriously, especially his host father.
“When I got there, he said, ‘Right now you’re French, and you’re not American,’” Rembert said. “‘American Spencer? We don’t know who he is.’”
The insistence on speaking in French even when things got hard helped Rembert strengthen his skills fast.
“One thing that has helped me a lot is whenever I ask any of them a question, they won’t give the English translation,” Rembert said of his professors. “They always explain it in French as well, and that has been probably the most helpful thing for me.”
By the time the group arrived in Paris, Rembert said they were ready — not just linguistically but mentally.
“I really appreciate how the Paris Center is in one of the more historical places of Paris,” Rembert said. “You can see that, but you can also see the modern nature of it and the Rice influence.”
That mix of past and present — of rooted history and global movement — is what Noury-Ossia hoped her students would experience.
“It’s not just about being in the City of Lights, the city of fashion, of croissants, pain au chocolat, berets,” Noury-Ossia said. “It’s to be really in this global center where we have so many identities, so many ethnicities, languages. We talk about multicultural cities, and Paris for me is really this epitome of what multiculturalism means.”
Standing in the city where she became herself and where her students are becoming something new, Noury-Ossia said this summer felt like the moment she’d been waiting for.
“I always had this dream of taking students to the Paris where I grew up,” Noury-Ossia said.
Learn more about Rice in Country here.