Research Guides: Introduction to Areas of Study (HC): French

French

Mathilde Edey-Gamassou rides as Joan of Arc in the 2018 parade in Orleans (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) BBC News article.

Blogs and News

hypotheses
Extracts from recent French blogs on a wide range of cultural topics.
InvisibleParis
Features views of the city and aspects of its lesser known history.
Le Monde
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One of the most important European newspapers (in French), covering international topics as well as national issues. Follow the instructions in Tripod for connecting online. Logoff when you are finished (se déconnecter). Allows only one user at a time.
The Paris Blog
Views on Paris written by Anglophone ex-patriots.
Le Togo Littéraire
Website with book reviews of authors from Togo. Created and maintained by Professor Koffi Anyinefa in the Haverford College French Department.

Companions

The companion and handbook genre is a publication type that has flourished in the last decade. The goal is for leading scholars to provide a thorough description of the subject matter of a field while also giving the most current interpretations of key questions. Each essay in a companion reflects an important subject facet and identifies the books and articles which are crucial for a greater understanding. Companions for French include:

Cambridge Companions
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Oxford Handbooks
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Databases and Digital Collection

Agence universitaire de la francophonie
This organization promotes education and sponsors research in areas relating to Francophone studies. See in particular the projects and resources tabs on the site.
Gallica
Gallica is a digital library of French and francophone culture maintained by the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Contains numerous electronic texts, images, maps, animation, and sound files in French.
Isidore
This research database sponsored by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique makes much recent French scholarship available full text.

Literature Resource Center
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Provides biographies, bibliographies and scholarly articles on novelists, poets, essayists, and other writers, with in-depth coverage of highly-studied authors.

Journal Indexes

Persée
Offers open access to French scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences.

MLA International Bibliography
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Database of scholarly books and articles related to literature, language, linguistics, film, theater and folklore. Includes scholarship from 1926 to the present.
Cairn
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A comprehensive collection of French language periodicals in the social sciences and humanities disciplines. Includes 374 journals from 40 publishers, mostly European. Can also be searched without a subscription (with some free content) for those not at Bryn Mawr College.

Major Journals

French Cultural Studies
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Journal of French Language Studies
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Modern & Contemporary France
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The journal takes a multi-disciplinary approach with interest in transnational and comparative perspectives.

Associations and Conferences

American Association of Teachers of French
See the Convention page for plans for the coming year as well as programs with abstracts from previous conferences. The organization also publishes a journal, the French Review. Available at BMC HC and SC
Modern Language Association
See the conference program archives for presentations about French literature and .languages.,

Staying Current

France and Francophone Digital Humanities Projects
The library at the University of Florida has identified projects worldwide.
Francophone Literature
A resource list from the library at New York University
H-Net France
The discussion group H-Net France provides a discussion group along with thoughtful and detailed reviews of new books in cultural history as well as in fields relating to politics and social history.

More Resources at Haverford

Subject librarians make research guides for individual classes and for topics. Browse for information on different subjects. See this introduction to research guides video for more information. Research guides for courses in French include:

FREN 105 Directions de la France contemporaine

FREN 213: Approches Critiques et Théoriques