This summer, four doctoral students affiliated with the Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government studied language, culture, and political thought abroad in France. First-year constitutional studies students Luke Thompson, Kody Richards, and Zachary Coddington, as well as political science student Matthew Arildsen, all received grants from the CCCG to make their summer programs possible. Thompson, Arildsen, and Richards attended Academia Tocqueville, a 12-day intensive seminar in Paris examining the French political tradition. Founded in 2023 with the help of Luke Foster, an assistant professor of government at Hillsdale College and former CCCG postdoctoral fellow, Academia Tocqueville teaches students “to understand the answers French thinkers have offered to the most difficult questions of the modern era.” Outside the classroom, students explored Paris and experienced French culture through art, local cuisine, and even wine tasting. For Thompson, Academia Tocqueville naturally filled a gap in his previous studies in political theory. In the United States, political theory traditionally concentrates on American and English thinkers. Thompson, however, was drawn in by Foster’s vision of an “immersive educational experience that seeks to remedy the unfortunate neglect of parts of the French intellectual tradition in American colleges.” By the end of the program, Thompson’s expectations were exceeded. “The two weeks we spent intensively surveying some of the highlights of French political thought since the Revolution were some of the most formative intellectual experiences of my life,” he said. “And will surely serve as the basis for future study and conversations back here at Notre Dame.” Studying the French political tradition offered Richards, whose research focuses on American constitutionalism, a deeper understanding of the overlap between our own tradition and the French. "One of the most impactful practices was studying French works that have been...