单选题 At eight o' clock every morning from Tuesday to Saturday, French television viewers can watch a subtitled version of the previous evening's CBS news from New York. Not long ago, this would have provoked growls of protesting about America's cultural invasion of France. But the remarkable fact is that Mr. Dan Rather's arrival on French television screens has gone virtually unremarked.
This calmness requires an explanation. Is it that France has simply given up trying to protect itself from a seductive flood of American films, food, television programmes and music? Not quite. Calmness need not mean submission. The French film industry, for example, is calling for help against competition from French television, whose programming is padded out with old American films and series. Is it rather that France has overcome its old cultural fears and dislike of America? Again, no. On the whole, French people have always had a rather positive image of America. True, the French can be snobbish about American culture—often intensely so; but, whether of right or left, this snobbery is usually confined to elites. The anniversaries of the 1787 American constitution and the 1789 French revolution are giving many French and American academics an excuse to celebrate how much the two republics have in common.
No, the calmness on the French side has a lot to do with a growing knowledge of America in France. As piecemeal, factual views of America replace more fanciful or all-or-nothing ones, France is waking up to the fact that the cultural trade between it and America is more of a two-way street than the periodic excitement about "American cultural imperialism" suggests.
American studies in France are enjoying, if not a boom, at least a slow and comfortable growth, according to Professor Rene Vincent, the director of the Revue Francoise des Etudies Americans. This has taken a while. French universities did not take America seriously enough until some years after the Second World War, when young French scholars on Fulbright scholarships came back to France to teach American literature and history.
Even then, America lurked in Britain's shadow in French universities. But American study has won its independence from les Anglicistes. And, as it does so, American study in France is drifting away from literature towards history and politics. Helping, of course, is the fact that learning English in France is now widely felt to be indispensable to getting ahead. About half of France's universities now offer courses in American studies. At the French equivalent of post-graduate level, some 50 doctorates on American topics are awarded each year.
But American studies in France still have a long way to go. Paris has flourishing British, German, Latin-American and Spanish institutes; it will soon have an Arab institute. But there is no American institute. Talks about starting one have dragged on for years.
One reason for the lack of enthusiasm—and money—on the American side is the absence of a large community of French immigrants in the United States. Though the Fulbright programme provides many university exchanges, there is no proper equivalent of the West German Marshall Fund. There are plenty of American banks and companies in Paris, but the trickle-down from American business is small. The Franco-American Foundation promotes scholarly exchanges but has a tiny budget. Another case of sad neglect is the once-famous American library in Paris. Set up after the First World War, it is so short of money it opens only part-time.
This neglect is all the more regrettable because many of the best American universities have a keen interest in France. Despite the fact that Spanish might seem the obvious choice, French is still, at least on the east coast, the favoured foreign language in universities. For politics, Harvard's French studies programme is famous. At the beginning of October, New York and Columbia Universities brought to America a large part of the teaching faculty of France's Institute des Etudes Politiques for three days of talk with American experts about the state of France.
Yale has long been an American centre of "French studies". As an import point for French philosophy and literary theory, Yale's dockside has been worn bare by the sheer volume of traffic. However quickly schools changed in Paris, Yale was able to tool up on the latest one: structuralism, Lacanian theories of psychoanalysis, deconstructionism. Johns Hopkins in Baltimore is another big entrepot for French ideas in the United States.
Historians of the school stress geography, population and social change, not the dramas of princes. Binghampton University in New York has a Braudel Institute; Harvard University Press is publishing a "History of Private Life" edited by Mr. Georges Duby and the late Philippe Aries, both colleagues of Braudel. The Statue of Liberty has not been France's only gift to America.

单选题 What does the passage mainly discuss?

A. American cultural imperialism.
B. Growth of American studies in France.
C. French influence on the American political system.
D. Similarities between France and America.

单选题 Why does the author mention CBS news on the French television?

A. To indicate that watching news is common in the evening.
B. To explain America's cultural invasion of France.
C. To give an example of the acceptance of American culture.
D. To show that France has submitted to America.

单选题 Which of the following statements best strengthens the statement "American studies in France are enjoying growth"?

A. Talks about starting the first American institute in Paris have dragged on for years.
B. The Franco-American Foundation is seeking for more budgets.
C. The American library in Paris opens only part-time.
D. About half of France's universities now offer courses in American studies.

单选题 The author's attitude toward American studies in France can be best described as ______ .

A. satisfied
B. hopeful
C. disappointed
D. doubtful

单选题 According to the passage, which of the following statements is true but not directly mentioned?

A. Speaking English in French companies is still considered culturally offensive.
B. American universities have a keen interest in France mainly because of its increasing economic clout.
C. The Fulbright Programme helped promote American literature and history in French universities.
D. The Statue of Liberty is so far the best acclaimed gift sent by France to America.