3 Francophone and French Studies

Deb Raftus

Simplified map of the French-speaking countries in Europe.
Map of the French-speaking countries in Europe.
Map of French-speaking countries around the globe.

Introduction

French is the fifth most spoken language in the world, with 321 million speakers. The number of French speakers is growing, with an increase of 17% since 2014, and 79% of the total French-speaking populations around the world use French daily in 36 countries and territories (Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) 2022, 6). The Francophone world includes France, Francophone Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Maghreb, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, Oceania, Quebec, parts of the US, and the Caribbean. A worldwide map (in French) can be viewed in the 2022 OIF report summary (p. 8–9). French is an official language of 29 countries, the United Nations, the European Union, and other intergovernmental agencies. It is also the second most taught second language in the world (OIF 2022, 4).

As with English (and in competition for dominance with English), the French language has spread worldwide through a history of nationalism, colonialism, and imperialism (Kasuya 2001, 238). The French government has used single-language policies to mandate the use of French, endangering the many regional languages and even penalizing their use through fines or punishment. In recent years, however, France has seen a shift in identity and popular opinion, with support of multilingualism and linguistic diversity. On April 8, 2021, the French parliament adopted the Molac Law in order to promote and protect regional languages such as Basque, Corsican, and Occitan, and allowing for schools to teach the majority of the day in minority languages. The following month, however, the Constitutional Court censured the law, ruling it unconstitutional (Reuters 2021). After widespread protests, France’s Ministry of Education issued a circular stating support for immersion teaching of regional languages (Coffey 2021).

French is actually a language of multilingual communities and countries worldwide. The OIF now explicitly emphasizes the promotion of plurilingualism as its core tenet. It is important to note that the vast majority of French speakers live on the African continent, where most speakers are multilingual, and French is rarely their first language. French is evolving: “several forms that originate in the French language or combine it with other languages (Nouchi in Côte d’Ivoire, Tolibangando in Gabon, for instance) are developing and being used” (International Organisation of La Francophonie 2018, 6). Using the title and slogan Le français est à nous! (French is ours!), a 2019 publication argues for a people’s movement to “emancipate” the French language from an institutional, fixed understanding and move toward supporting French as a living, evolving language (Candea and Véron 2019). For decades, activists and academics have been pushing for un français inclusif (inclusive French), first with a goal to equally represent women within the language, and now to respect and include gender-nonconforming and nonbinary French speakers (Mackenzie 2019, 18).

Within Europe, French is the official language in France, including its l’Outre-mer (overseas departments and regions): French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte and Réunion; Belgium; Luxembourg; Monaco; and Switzerland. ”French is the first language of 12% of the EU citizens (compared with 16% for German, and 13% for English—before Brexit—and Italian). Overall, it remains the 2nd most learnt foreign language in lower secondary school in the EU member countries, after English)” (International Organisation of La Francophonie 2018, 16). While this book focuses on Europe, the majority of the Francosphere resides outside. This chapter will thus stretch beyond Europe, also reflecting the study and teaching of Francophone and French Studies in North American universities.

The Academic Field

The 2020 Ithaka Report Supporting Research in Languages and Literature describes the discipline of languages and literature as being at a crossroads and a critical juncture, with both undergraduate enrollments and tenure-track positions declining:

At the same time, digital methodologies, nontraditional forms of scholarly communication, and alternative career paths present exciting new opportunities to engage wider audiences. The pandemic has also prompted renewed calls for humanistic scholars to contribute to societal dialogues on pressing subjects including collective responsibility, scientific authority, and inequality, including through translational or “public humanities” scholarship. (Cooper et al. 2020, sec. Introduction)

The Modern Language Association (MLA) reports that French enrollments fell by 11.1% between 2013 and 2016, but that 41.5% of all French programs reported either stability or gains. And “a growing number of departments have created tracks, certificates, minors, or majors, often in conjunction with other departments and programs across campus, to appeal to students (and their parents) who want to be assured that a job will be waiting upon graduation.” (Looney and Lusin 2019, 17).

While Francophone and French Studies has a long history of interdisciplinarity, intertwining social sciences and humanities in the curricula and in research, the field is increasing its reach. A snapshot of postings in French on the MLA list in 2021 shows calls for specialization in transdisciplinary fields such as criticism and theory, cultural studies, diaspora studies, transnational or transcultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, post-colonialism, ecocriticism, media studies, digital humanities (DH), visual studies, translation theory, critical approaches to race and ethnicity, and immigration/refugee studies (“MLA Job List” n.d.).

Teaching

Some Francophone and French Studies programs are making significant changes to diversify curricula and practice inclusive teaching. In 2016, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages published Words and Action: Teaching Languages Through the Lens of Social Justice to promote and support curricular change (with a second edition following in 2018). Jessica S. Miller describes efforts at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire to “build a curriculum that reflects the diverse identities of French speakers around the world while affirming those of our learners at the same time,” and emphasizes the need for real structural change (Glynn 2018, 91). The University of Washington French Studies program offers interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate courses in cultural studies, animal studies, eco-criticism, and gender studies. For example, Professor Maya Smith’s A Comparative Look at Immigrant Cultural Production uses “an interdisciplinary approach from fields of sociolinguistics, migrant/identity/cultural studies” with a focus on Francophone countries (“French & Italian Studies | University of Washington” n.d.).

Professors are creating and using open educational resources (OER) to meet their own teaching needs, as well as offering access to course materials at no cost to students. French and Francophone OER can be found (and librarians can add them to guides and catalogs) on websites such as the OER Commons or Open Textbook Library.

In addition to writing traditional research papers in French and Francophone studies courses, students may have the option of creative multimodal compositions, digital storytelling, short films, podcasts, or performances. Academic librarians are thus now teaching and advising on issues of copyright, fair use, privacy, media production, and digital tools along with research skills. Faculty are working to help students gain transferable digital communication and technical skills at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Professor Geoffrey Turnovsky at the University of Washington (UW), for example, created an undergraduate course called Projects, Pathways, and Possibilities in French Studies, taught jointly with a graduate section of Theories of the Text from Medieval Manuscripts to Digital Media. The course explores print and digital texts, and includes a digital humanities project, using Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) to transform a primary source into a digital edition. UW librarians are part of the pedagogy team for the course.

Scholarship

Ithaka S&R reports that, for language and literature scholars, the notion of “text” has expanded broadly to include films, games, cultural artifacts, architecture and more. Scholars identify a core text (or texts) and search for a unique angle to explore, such as a theoretical or historical framework. “When identifying an angle, novelty is value” (Cooper et al. 2020, sec. Core Text, Physical Text). These humanities scholars use discovery tools, archives, social media, and listservs to find sources. “This emphasis on socially curated discovery is an important way in which language and literature scholars differ in their discovery practices from their colleagues in other disciplines. The proliferation of scholarly outputs and discovery tools has made it more important for language and literature researchers to lean on their peers to decide ‘whose voice matters’ within the scholarly conversation” (Cooper et al. 2020, sec. Research Workflows).

“Research in languages and literature increasingly straddles the material and digital—both in terms of scholars’ workflows and their objects and methods of study” (Cooper et al. 2020, sec. Conclusion). Digitized primary sources by institutions such as the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF; National Library of France) or by cooperatives like the HathiTrust Digital Library allow researchers to conduct work remotely, and travel less; visiting is required, however, when there is “a really compelling reason to examine the material object.” Scholars are also raising concerns about “”the Western bias of online databases, metadata, and digitized materials” (Cooper et al. 2020, sec. Research Workflows).

Academic writing in Francophone and French Studies is most often completed as a solo project, while digital humanities and public humanities projects are more collaborative. Scholarly communication is highly influenced by tenure requirements. Assistant professors are pushed towards traditional publications, especially books and articles in prestigious journals and presses, with digital projects often undertaken by graduate students and tenured professors. Conferences and blogs offer scholars opportunities to workshop their ideas before publication (Cooper et al. 2020, sec. Research Workflows).

Traditional Scholarly Publications

As in other humanities disciplines, the primary types of publications are monographs and peer-reviewed articles. Contributions to edited collections and critical editions are also important. It should be noted, however, that the monograph is considered by and large as the most significant and desirable publication format. Quantitative measures, such as journal impact factors, are not important (Cooper et al. 2000, sec. Research Workflows).

Digital Humanities (DH)

Scholars note that the peer review process, and the tenure and promotion process in academia, serve as gatekeepers for scholarly work: “the continued importance of peer review in the eyes of scholars means that digital projects are unlikely to play a prominent role in tenure and evaluation assessments until they can be formally assessed through a comparable process.” The slow progress in formal acceptance and evaluating DH projects for tenure frustrates the DH community (Cooper et al. 2020, sec. Conclusion). Even if DH is not yet widely accepted for tenure, it is well established in Francophone and French Studies, and provides an opportunity for librarian-faculty collaboration. Libraries can potentially offer guidance on DH tools and skills, project and data management, copyright, web hosting, preservation, and open access publishing.

Francophone and French Studies librarians and scholars are working to track DH projects in the field with the following resources:

Public Humanities

Language and literature scholars describe three categories of public humanities work: “creating public-facing online research outputs such as websites; taking on the role of a ‘public intellectual’ [by giving public talks, interviews, or writing an op-ed or magazine article]; and conducting community-engaged research” (Cooper et al. 2020, sec. Research Outputs).

As with DH, public humanities work, such as creating public-facing research outputs, giving public talks or interviews, and conducting community-engaged research, is not yet valued highly for tenure and promotion. Scholars themselves do value community engagement and writing for a more general audience. Created in 1979, Carolina Public Humanities, at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, has offered programs such as “Feast & Famine: A Brief Cultural History of French Food,” with proceeds benefiting Carteret Community College’s Culinary Program Fund (“Carolina Public Humanities” n.d.). Cooper et al.’s Ithaka report describes a “transformation in modes of scholarship [DH and public humanities] among the next generation of scholars.” Academic departments are incorporating public humanities into graduate programs to build these skills, which may, some say, also help students pursuing “alt-ac” careers. New York University, for example, offers a graduate course focused on “Public Humanities and French Studies” (2020, sec. Conclusion).

Scholarly Societies

Following the activities of scholarly societies devoted broadly to modern languages, language teaching, DH, or Francophone and French Studies in particular can help you keep abreast of developments in the field. Conferences offer networking and learning opportunities; they also come with travel and registration costs, but there may be scholarship opportunities. Easier access to community and learning opportunities can be found on websites, mailing lists, and X (formerly Twitter):

Social Media

Ithaka S&R’s Supporting Research in Languages and Literature reports that language and literature scholars predominantly use Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Academia.edu (alongside mailing lists) for networking and sharing. ResearchGate is not as widely used in the humanities as it is in STEM. Librarians can keep up with the research and teaching interests of Francophone and French Studies faculty at their institutions, and discover scholars at others, by following them on these platforms. While the tools may change, new and future faculty will likely curate an online presence, as “a strong ‘digital footprint’ is being added to the implicit list of must-haves for graduate students vying for academic jobs” (Cooper et al. 2020, introduction).

Publishing Landscape

In support of the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair, where France was the guest of honor, Livres Hebdo published a free special issue in 2016 describing the French publishing industry in English. “All About French Publishing” is a digestible resource describing the landscape (with a focus on France), featuring articles about and interviews with publishers and book professionals, ranking the top 200 French publishers, and describing their specialties and subsidiaries (but keep in mind that you can rely on your vendors to keep you current). In addition, the Livres Hebdo website is a helpful resource for keeping current on French book news.

Le Syndicat national de l’édition (SNE; French Publishers Association) reports that print book, audiobook, and eBook sales in France have increased and that reader behavior changed due to COVID-19–related confinements; readership increased and readers diversified their reading practices (Anderson 2020). Sales are up “20.4 percent in 2021 over 2020, and up 24.3 percent over 2019’s sales” (Anderson 2022). Editorial production increased 12.5% from 2020 to 2021, likely due to publishers catching up on postponed titles. eBook publishing is growing at a more moderate pace (3.6%) after an exceptional jump of 13.5% in 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19 restrictions. In 2021, eBook revenue represented 9.3% of publishers’ book sales. Francophone publishing outside of France is also growing, up 17% from 2020 to 2021, and the sale of translation rights increased 17% as well (Syndicat national de l’édition n.d.).

Professional associations offer guidance to publishers and authors as well as list notable titles. With France holding a dominant share of the Francophone book market, the Alliance internationale des éditeurs indépendants (International Alliance of Independent Publishers) advocates for bibliodiversity and for publishers outside of France, bringing together more than 800 independent publishers worldwide (in six languages). Advocates are calling for a “more international and inclusive approach on the part of French publishers” (Trentacosti 2018), describing “a Francophone literary ecosystem that is exclusive in nature and centered on French presses” (Thierry 2020, 68). The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF; National Library of France) offers Nouveautés Éditeurs, a webpage announcing new publications, searchable by keyword, publisher, and more.

Like France’s SNE, many countries and world regions have associations that produce information on recent publications and current publishers:

Publishers

“All About French Publishing” lists the biggest French publishing groups, including ​​Hachette Livre, Editis, Groupe Madrigall, Média-Participations, France Loisirs, La Martinière Groupe, Groupe Albin Michel, and Actes Sud. These conglomerates are home to many familiar publishing houses. Groupe Madrigall, for example, is the corporate holding company for Flammarion and Gallimard. While the book publishing world is too complex, intertwined, and changing, with mergers and acquisitions happening rapidly, to dissect here in tremendous detail, this chapter offers some key publishing names.

Financial rankings are not the most important consideration in collecting for academic libraries; smaller independent and boutique publishers offer important titles. Allary Éditions, for example, founded in 2013, published Riad Sattouf’s graphic novel series L’arabe du futur (The Arab of the Future), which won numerous awards and was translated into English.

North American academics publish widely in university presses in both English and in French. The Association of University Presses offers an annual subject area grid to help scholars find a suitable press. Note that while Francophone and French Studies is not called out individually, there are categories for literature, literary criticism, language, history, and world regions such as European Studies, African Studies, and Caribbean Studies.

Below are examples of recommended publishers for Francophone and French Studies, by publisher location rather than specialization. This list is non-definitive and, for brevity, university presses are not listed by name, but do seek them out by country, region, or state. This list builds on those compiled by European Studies librarians in previous publications (Raftus and Staiger 2020, 23–24). Links are included, but it’s easiest to work through your vendor(s).

Africa

The Americas

Europe

Indian ocean

Oceania

United States and the United Kingdom

Many US and UK university presses have book series devoted to Francophone and French Studies, such as:

Translations

Some university presses offer series of translations of literature from French to English:

A searchable translation database of works is available on the Publishers Weekly site. In addition to the major trade publishers, some specialized translation publishers offer English translations of Francophone and French titles:

One personal tip: If a title has been translated into English, this may (though not always) signal its cultural significance. I often search our collections to see if we have a translated title in French, and order the original French version if we do not.

Comics and Graphic Novels

French-language comics and graphic novels (bandes dessinées) are taught in higher ed curricula, and there is a growing field of related scholarly research. Find helpful guidance and information, including a list of recommended publishers, about European Comics and Graphic Novels in the European Studies Research Guide from the European Studies Section of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) and on the Library of Congress website: Bande Dessinée: Comics & Graphic Novels. The University of Florida offers a “French & Francophone Comic Books at UF” digital exhibit with an informative history and a selection of recent French and Francophone titles (Huet and Valoz, n.d.). Prizewinners are promoted by the Association des Critiques et journalistes de Bande Dessinée (ACBD; Association of Critics and Journalists of Comics).

Prizes

Livres Hebdo offers a comprehensive listing of literary prizes (Tous les prix littéraires) on their website. Of these, the following make up the Grands prix d’automne, or major prizes, in France:

  • The Académie Française (French Academy) Prizes include the Grand prix de la francophonie.
  • The Prix Decembre, originally known as the Prix Novembre, was designed to be a sort of “anti-Goncourt,” rewarding a novel overlooked by the other major literary prizes.
  • The Prix Femina is awarded by a jury composed exclusively of women.
  • The Prix Goncourt, awarded by the Goncourt Academy, is often considered the most prestigious award for a Francophone novel.
  • The Prix Interallié, created by journalists, is awarded to a novel written by a journalist.
  • The Prix Médicis, originally conceived to reward lesser-known authors, is awarded for French-language fiction.
  • The Prix Renaudot for Francophone novels competes with the Goncourt, and is often described as the second-most prestigious award.

The Livres Hebdo list also promotes prizes outside of France, such as the Prix des Cinq continents de la Francophonie (Prize of the Five Continents of the Francophonie), organized by the OIF, and the Prix Senghor du premier roman francophone ([Léopold Sédar] Senghor prize for a first Francophone novel).

Search Google for country-specific prizes as well; use keywords “prix litteraire [name of country]” or “literary prize [name of country]” to explore. Within Europe, for example, you’ll find:

Keeping Current

Working with vendors is the best way to keep up-to-date with the publishing world. Vendor websites offer lists of new acquisitions and thematic compilations of suggested titles.

If budgets allow, attending book fairs will teach you more in one week about the publishing landscape than you can learn in years at your desk. Talking directly with book professionals and perusing their new releases allow for in-depth personalized learning. While attending a fair, visit some local independent bookstores. You’ll find the booksellers to be knowledgeable professionals who can further suggest relevant titles for purchase. Book fairs are discussed further in the section on Collection Development Tools, below.

The New Books Network’s French Studies channel hosts podcast interviews with scholars of France. You can also follow this on X (formerly Twitter) @NewBooksFrance.

Open access

French-language open access (OA) journals have a strong presence, and opportunities for OA publishing are growing. In 2017, France adopted the “Digital Republic Law” (Loi pour une République numérique), allowing humanities and social science scholars to deposit an approved open-access version of their publications after 12 months. The law also includes a text and data mining exception for non-commercial research (“The French Publishers Association” n.d.). There are many OA repositories as well as publishers, such as the following:

  • HAL is an interdisciplinary open archive.
  • OpenEdition, from the Centre pour l’Édition Électronique Ouverte (Cléo), offers access to humanities and social sciences scholarship with a “Freemium” subscription, through which HTML versions are publicly available; institutional subscriptions allow for downloadable PDF and ePub formats.
  • CAIRN offers some of its content openly, with access varying by journal. The CAIRN International Edition offers English-language content.
  • Humanities Commons offers a central repository for OA scholarly publications in Humanities fields.

Faculty and students may also deposit their scholarship at their own institutions. Libraries can activate OA collections in their catalogs or discovery systems through OpenURL, linking to resources such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB).

Collection Development Tools

This section will assume a library is collecting Francophone and French Studies materials primarily in French and English, but scholarship and literature is published in other languages, and the vendors mentioned here do offer materials in other languages as well, as do OA repositories. Some parts of any academic library collection will likely be managed more centrally, such as central approval plans, eBook and eJournal packages, and patron- and evidence-based acquisition programs. Through vendor databases, you can often see if other libraries in your consortium own a title, which can help you stretch your dollars.

North American Vendors/Distributors

North American academic libraries can use EBSCO’s GOBI Library Solutions and ProQuest’s OASIS for purchasing English-language titles and some in other languages, including French. Both vendors are full-service tools which offer approval plans, new title notifications (i.e., “slips”), as well as firm order services for print and eBooks from US, UK, Canadian, and some European publishers. Both also support all major integrated library systems and can provide metadata of acquired titles. Reviews of titles from sources like Booklist, Choice, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly are available on records in GOBI and OASIS.

International Vendors/Distributors

Libraries may also use one or more international vendors to purchase print and electronic French-language content. These vendors are largely small, family-owned businesses that offer specialized services. Copyright and pricing laws vary globally, and vendors are able to acquire materials and provide access to North American libraries. They are available by appointment, and are often at library conference exhibit halls such as the American Library Association’s annual conference. These vendors are a big part of the European Studies librarian community, attending social events, programs, meetings, and discussion groups organized by the European Studies Section (ESS) of ACRL. The SALALM (Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials) community includes vendors who cover Francophone Caribbean countries; Libros de Barlovento specializes in publications from Haiti.

The European vendors listed below offer materials in all formats (books, eBooks, periodicals, films) through approval plans, standing orders, cataloging records, slip notifications or new title announcements, and firm ordering from an extensive database. They also offer “out-of-print” or “OP” searches, and can piece together suggested lists for you based on a given topic.

  • Amalivre, a French full-service vendor based in Paris, offers print books and eBooks on their own platform. They offer French and Francophone titles, including graphic novels, from countries worldwide.
  • Casalini Libri, a full-service vendor based in Italy, specializes in humanities and social sciences print and electronic publications from Europe. For French-language titles, this includes France, Belgium, and Luxemburg. At present, Casalini’s Terrosa platform includes eBooks only in Spanish and Italian, but it does have some French eJournals. In 2020, Casalini acquired Erasmus (with offices in Amsterdam and Paris), which will grow their French-language offerings.

French-language eBooks

You may find French and Francophone Studies eBooks in GOBI and OASIS, and on platforms such as Project MUSE and JSTOR. International copyright is complex, and author rights vary from country to country. eBooks that are available to individuals may thus not be available to North American academic libraries, but publishers are opening up and more platforms are becoming available. The following companies offer eBooks on their own platforms:

Book Fairs

ESS maintains a list of European book fairs, such as the Festival du Livre de Paris (formerly known as the Salon du Livre), Maghreb-Orient des Livres, and the Foire du livre de Bruxelles. Many ESS members have reported on their travels in ESS newsletters. Book fairs are a tremendous way to learn about important authors and publishers. Some allow you to purchase on site, others do not. You can tell the vendors what your department’s interests are, and they’ll load your arms with relevant titles! It’s wise to communicate with your vendor representatives before you go to strategize and avoid duplication.

Reviews and Literary Magazines

There are many general review sources for books, such as Booklist, Choice, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. French Studies, The French Review, and other peer-reviewed journals, however, contain reviews that would be more targeted to Francophone and French Studies. You can also find academic book reviews from searches in your discovery tool, in JSTOR, and in Project MUSE (filtering results to “reviews”) rather than going to individual titles.

Words without Borders, available open access, and World Literature Today, available via a subscription, are two useful literary magazines that specialize in international literature and also contain book reviews.

The New York Review of Books, the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, the New Yorker, and other literary periodicals often review English translations. You could then purchase the English or original French version, depending on your needs and budget.

French language literary magazines offer a glimpse into current publications and contemporary literature. Check out Critique, Lire magazine littéraire (a merger of Lire and Le Nouveau Magazine littéraire), Livres Hebdo, Le Monde de livres, and La Quinzaine littéraire (Raftus and Staiger 2020, 37).

WorldCat (FirstSearch version) can be used as a collection development tool to find great titles based on what other North American libraries have purchased. Nearing your library’s purchasing deadline for each fiscal year, you can search WorldCat to see what has been missed. Here’s an example of what you can do: using “Advanced Search” in  WorldCat, search by broad subject heading (e.g., fiction, or [country name] history), limited to books by date (e.g., the past two years), and to French language and non-juvenile, then ranked by number of libraries.

Disciplinary Resources

If you’re new to this field of librarianship, do a google search for French LibGuides and poke through the research guides at various libraries to become acquainted with key search tools and databases. If you’re not new, you can always find something you didn’t know about as you update your own guides.

The Center for Research Libraries (CRL) negotiates with vendors on behalf of CIFNAL (Collaborative Initiative for French Language Collections) members for consortial agreements and discounts, which are listed on CRL’s eDesiderata list. CRL member libraries should contact CRL if interested.

Journals

The OpenEdition journals catalog and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) can be filtered by theme and subject category to find open access journals. As an example, here is a list of DOAJ French-language journals filtered to the subject “language and literature.”)

There are hundreds of relevant journals from all disciplines (and journals spanning disciplines and borders, such as Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies). It would be impractical to list all here; the select list below focuses on Francophone and French studies journal titles that might be in your budget line. These titles are subscription resources unless otherwise indicated. For better representation of worldwide scholarship in your library’s discovery tool and on guides, it is advisable to provide access to international and interdisciplinary Francophone journals which are generally OA in addition to the core subscription ones.

  • Alternative Francophone, University of Alberta. Open access
  • Australian Journal of French Studies, Liverpool University Press
  • Contemporary French and Francophone Studies: Sites, 20th & 21st Century French & Francophone Studies International Colloquium
  • Contemporary French Civilization, Liverpool University Press
  • CFC Intersections, Liverpool University Press
  • Critique: revue générale des publications françaises et étrangères, a monthly literary journal of book reviews and essays.
  • Dix-Neuf: Journal of the Society of Dix-Neuviémistes
  • L’Esprit Createur, Johns Hopkins University Press
  • Essays in French Literature and Culture, University of Western Australia. Open access.
  • Francosphères, Liverpool University Press. Open access.
  • French Cultural Studies, Sage Publications
  • French Forum, University of Pennsylvania
  • French History, Society for the Study of French History
  • French Historical Studies, Duke University Press
  • French Politics, Culture & Society, Conference Group on French Politics & Society
  • The French Review, American Association of Teachers of French
  • French Studies, Society for French Studies
  • International Journal of Francophone Studies, Intellect
  • Journal of French Language Studies, Cambridge University Press
  • Modern & Contemporary France, Association for the Study of Modern & Contemporary France (ASMCF)
  • Nineteenth-Century French Studies, University of Nebraska Press
  • Nottingham French Studies, Edinburgh University Press
  • Nouvelles Études Francophones,  International Council of Francophone Studies / Conseil International d’Études Francophones (CIEF)
  • Présence Africaine, Présence Africaine
  • Québec Studies, Liverpool University Press
  • Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France, Presses Universitaires de France
  • SubStance, Johns Hopkins University Press
  • Women in French Studies, Women in French
  • Yale French Studies, Yale University Press

Primary Source Databases

Digital collections are proliferating. Brigham Young University Library’s EuroDocs offer links to primary sources in European countries. Look to museum, archive, and national and regional library websites for: bibliothèque numérique (digital library), collections numériques (digital collections), archives en ligne (online archive), or archives numérisées (digitized archives). Some, but not all, of the larger collections will offer English-language search interfaces.

  • African Diaspora, 1860–Present: From Alexander Street; includes materials from the Caribbean and France. Subscription resource.
  • The ARTFL Project (The Project for American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language): A digital collection of 3,500 French texts from the 12th to 20th centuries. Offers OA digital editions, such as the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert, and search tools such as “Tout Voltaire.” Subscription resource with some OA content.
  • La Bibliothèque du réseau francophone numérique: The digital library of the Réseau Francophone Numérique (RFN; Francophone Digital Network); features collections from Belgium, Canada, Egypt, France, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Morocco, Senegal, and Switzerland. Open access.
  • dLOC, the Digital Library of the Caribbean: A cooperative of sixty partners in the US, the Caribbean, Canada, Central and South America, and Europe. Content includes newspapers, official documents, ecological and economic data, maps, histories, travel accounts, literature, poetry, musical expressions, and artifacts. Open access.
  • Early European Books: A European-wide project (following EEBO, Early English Books Online); aims to offer “all European printed material from the early modern period” up to 1700. Content is drawn from major collections like the National Central Library in Florence and the National Library of France. Subscription resource.
  • Electronic Enlightenment: A database of edited correspondence from important enlightenment figures (including Voltaire), linked together to show relationships. Subscription resource.
  • Europeana: An initiative of the European Union; serves as a portal to millions of digitized cultural heritage items, including books, art, music, and film, at institutions across Europe. Open access.
  • Francophone Africa: beyond archives: Digital collections supporting research of French colonization in Africa and its enduring impact. Open access.
  • Gallica: The digital collections of the National Library of France. Browsable by format type, such as  Presse et revues (newspapers). Open access.
  • Portail Mondial des Revues/Global Journals Portal: 1000 non-European and/or diasporic critical and cultural periodicals from the end of the 18th century to 1989. Open access.
  • RetroNews: A digital library of over 600 newspapers, journals, magazines, and reviews from the National Library of France collections, published from 1631–1950. Subscription resource.
  • Underground & Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels: Digitized collection of comics dating from the 1960s to the present, with accompanying interviews and criticism. Subscription resource.

Secondary Source Databases

The European Studies Section (ESS) offers a compiled list of French Periodical Indexes and Guides.

For Francophone and French Studies, relevant subject databases depend on the topic, and most are international in scope. Familiar interdisciplinary databases include the subscription databases JSTOR and Project MUSE. I’ll focus more here on disciplinary and French-language interdisciplinary tools.

  • Bibliographie de la littérature française (BLF; The Bibliography of French Literature): Online searchable index of French and Francophone literature from the 16th century to today, co-edited by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Société d’histoire littéraire de la France, and Classiques Garnier Numérique. Subscription resource.
  • The Bonn Online Bibliography of Comics Research: International bibliographic database from the University of Bonn, Germany, for scholarly literature about comics, graphic novels, manga, and related fields. Open access.
  • CAIRN: Francophone social science and humanities journals and eBooks from French, Belgian, and Swiss publishers. Offers an English-language platform, CAIRN International Edition (includes all issues and their tables of content, with full-text versions in English when available). Subscription resource, with some open access content.
  • Érudit: Full-text humanities and social science open access initiative in French from Québec. Open access with some content only available via a subscription.
  • HAL-SHS: Open archive of humanities and social sciences scholarship, supported by the Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe (CCSD; Center for Direct Scientific Communication) in France. Open access.
  • Klapp-Online: Comprehensive bibliography of French Literature from medieval to contemporary times. Subscription resource.
  • Littératures du Maghreb: Database by Coordination Internationale de Chercheurs sur les Littératures Maghrébines (CICLIM; International Organization of Maghreb Literature Researchers), focusing on the literature of Northwest Africa. Open access.
  • MLA International Bibliography: Literature, linguistics, folklore, culture studies, and film database from the Modern Language Association. Subscription resource.
  • OpenEdition: French organization offering four online platforms for humanities and social science scholarship: journals, eBooks, research blogs, and academic events. Open access; library subscription required for downloadable content.
  • Persée: French portal to digitized journals, conference proceedings, series, and books in the humanities and social sciences. Open access.
  • Repère: French-language index to scholarly resources, produced in partnership with Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ; National Library and Archives of Quebec). Subscription resource.
  • RERO Digital Library: Swiss repository of academic books, theses, articles, and digital objects. Open access.
  • Theses.fr: French-language theses and dissertations from universities around the world. Open access.

Also take note that Historical Abstracts covers all aspects of French and Francophone history, while International Medieval Bibliography (IMB) and Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance cover the Medieval and Early Modern Periods. For French and Francophone film, two important databases are Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text and Performing Arts Periodicals Database. All of these are subscription resources.

Reference Tools

Interdisciplinary encyclopedia collections such as Gale eBooks and Oxford Reference (both subscription resources) are searchable, allowing librarians to link to specific articles (or titles) on research and course guides to highlight topics, such as “Belgian Literature in French” in The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Including open web resources in your library catalogs or research guides can offer important perspectives that might be missing in traditional publications.

French-focused Dictionaries

  • Dictionnaire de l’Académie française: Dictionary of the French language from the French Academy. Contains all editions back to 1694, allowing for comparisons of meaning, spelling and usage over time, and word histories. The 9th (current) edition is still in publication, with three volumes completed to date. Open access.
  • The Dictionnaire des francophones: Open, collaborative dictionary aiming to include all the words of French to reflect the diversity of usage across the world. Open access.
  • Le Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (DHS): Open dictionary of Swiss history. Entries in French, German, and Italian. Open access.
  • Le Grand Robert de la langue française: Referred to by its abbreviated title, Le Grand Robert; considered to be the definitive dictionary of French, akin to the anglophone Oxford English Dictionary. An institutional subscription provides online access, with additional content such as synonyms, etymology, word usage, verb conjugation, idioms, and author biographies. Subscription resource.
  • Le Robert dico en ligne: Freely available dictionary from Le Robert offering definitions, synonyms, and verb conjugations. While less comprehensive than Le Grand Robert, it still offers an impressive 165,000 definitions. Open access.
  • Trésor de la langue française: Historically important 16-volume dictionary of the French language of the 19th and 20th centuries; been digitized and freely available. Provides definitions, history of usage, and etymology. Open access.

Encyclopedias

News Sources and Media Outlets

Europa World (subscription resource) provides an up-to-date directory of media by country, including press, TV, and radio. Statista (subscription resource) provides detailed consumer information by country.

Google News settings can be configured for news from a specific language and country, offering aggregated current content across a variety of sources. Newspaper websites often offer current articles openly. News behind a paywall can be accessed by your library’s subscription global news databases or via interlibrary loan. It can help to browse titles to get an idea of major newspapers. While it is difficult to find a complete, current list, Wikipedia.fr offers “Presse francophone” as a starting point.

In Europe, TV and radio are generally offered by a mix of state-run and independent media organizations. The state-owned France Médias Monde produces Radio France Internationale (RFI) and France 24 (TV news) for international audiences. Other public television channels include ARTE (France/Germany) and TV5 Monde (financed by Canada, Québec, France, Switzerland, and the Wallonia-Brussels Federation).

In France, France Télévisions (aka france·tv) is a French public television provider, offering 24/7 news via France Info (franceinfo:) and other channels. Independent TV includes Canal Plus (aka Canal+), M6, and TF1. Radio France offers seven radio networks in France. France’s overseas departments and territories radio and TV are provided by Outre-Mer 1ère.

French-speaking media in Belgium is offered publically by BX1 and Radio-Télévision Belge Francophone (RTBF), and commercially by RTL TVI.

In Luxembourg, the RTL Group offers multilingual radio and television programming.

In Monaco, TMC Monte-Carlo is part of TF1 (France), with radio broadcasts from Radio Monaco.

Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) broadcasts radio and television in French. Swiss broadcasters have announced plans to end FM radio in 2024.

Catalogs, Bibliographies, Archives

A map of Francophone national libraries and archives with links is provided by the Réseau Francophone Numérique; it includes Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ivory Coast, Egypt, France, Haiti, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Switzerland, Tunisia, and Vietnam.

Within Europe, Archives Portal Europe provides a centralized search tool of archival collections across Europe. Europeana provides access to millions of items from museums, national libraries, and other cultural institutions across Europe.

Belgium

France

Luxembourg

Monaco

Switzerland

Distinctive Print Collections

CIFNAL hosts a database and map of very strong French and Francophone collections at institutions in the US and Canada:

Notable Collections in the US:

Professional Development and Networks

The groups below offer professional development and leadership opportunities to support and grow librarian careers through publications, committees and discussion groups, programming, presentations at conferences, web and social media content, scholarships and grants, and more. If membership costs are too prohibitive, there are still ways to learn and participate. These associations also offer open access publications, public events, and, in some cases, access to mailing lists for non-members.

European Studies Section (ESS) is a section of the Association of College & Research Libraries (a division of the American Library Association), and holds virtual or in-person meetings mid-winter and around the ALA annual conferences. ESS represents academic librarians and specialists supporting European Studies research, teaching, and learning. The Romance Languages Discussion Group helps librarians in these areas keep current and share best practices. ESS also maintains regional research guides with scholarly resources and tools, such as the French Studies Research Guide. ESS publishes a newsletter which is available open access, and hosts an email discussion list, ESS-L, available to both members and non-members.

The Collaborative Initiative for French Language Collections (CIFNAL), a Center for Research Libraries’ global resource program, offers personal and institutional memberships. Benefits of membership include group discount rates on databases and access to stipends for travel to relevant conferences. CIFNAL provides online resources such as a database of French and Francophone special collections, a guide tracking digital humanities projects, and digitized French pamphlets. It also collaborates on dLOC, the Digital Library of the Caribbean. CIFNAL offers occasional conference-type events, such as the recent “New Shape of Sharing” online forum in 2021 and “New Directions for Libraries, Scholars, & Partnerships: An International Symposium” in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2017.

L’Association Internationale Francophone des Bibliothécaires et Documentalistes (AIFBD)  represents librarians, specialists, and information professionals from French-speaking countries worldwide. Its work is conducted in French. In partnership, CIFNAL offers a limited number of stipends to member librarians to attend AIFBD congresses. On X (formerly Twitter) @aifbd_officiel.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) advocates for infrastructure, laws, and financial support to benefit libraries around the world and for “an inclusive, rights-based information society.” IFLA works to promote and safeguard culture and heritage, and publishes reports and guidelines on topics such as library trends and information access. Grants and awards are available for IFLA’s World Library and Information Congress (WLIC) attendance. The IFLA mailing list is open to the public. On X (formerly Twitter) @IFLA.

 

Key Takeaways

  • Reach out to your communities! If you’re stuck on a tricky reference question, you can usually get help via the ESS and CIFNAL email discussion lists.
  • The professional sections are small and it’s very easy to get involved, take leadership roles, or contribute to newsletters. Most meetings are open to non-members and offered virtually.
  • Vendors know the book world best. You don’t need to keep track of the publishing world on your own; leave it to them. Browse their websites, set up a Zoom meeting, ask questions via email, or visit them at conferences.
  • International vendors conduct business in English, so do not hesitate to work with vendors outside the US if you don’t speak French.
  • Team up with acquisitions and cataloging colleagues for your vendor visits. They can ask and answer the technical questions, while you provide information about student and faculty interests and needs.
  • Create private groups on X (formerly Twitter; scholarly societies, professional associations, etc.), and batch or filter mailing list emails to reduce mental load. You can visit when you want to catch up on current news without getting overwhelmed.

References and Recommended Readings

Anderson, Porter. 2020. “French Publishers Issue Report on Digital Book Usage in the Pandemic.” Publishing Perspectives, December 14, 2020. https://publishingperspectives.com/2020/12/french-publishers-issue-special-containment-report-on-digital-book-usage-covid19/.

Anderson, Porter. 2022. “BIEF’s Nicolas Roche on ‘Books From France’ and Paris Book Market.” Publishing Perspectives, February 25, 2022. https://publishingperspectives.com/2022/02/rights-edition-nicolas-roche-on-biefs-new-books-from-france-and-paris-book-market/.

Candea, Maria, and Laélia Véron. 2019. Le français est à nous!: petit manuel d’émancipation linguistique. Cahiers libres. Paris: La Découverte.

“Carolina Public Humanities.” n.d. Accessed December 8, 2021. https://humanities.unc.edu/.

Coffey, David. 2021. “France Allows Immersive Teaching of Regional Languages in Schools.” RFI. December 19, 2021. https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20211219-france-allows-immersive-teaching-of-regional-languages-in-schools-molac.

Cooper, Danielle, et al. 2020. Supporting Research in Languages and Literature. Ithaka S+R. https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/supporting-research-in-languages-and-literature/.

“French & Italian Studies | University of Washington.” n.d. Accessed November 26, 2021. https://frenchitalian.washington.edu/.

“The French Publishers Association.” n.d. Syndicat national de l’édition. Accessed November 28, 2021. https://www.sne.fr/sne-international/.

Glynn, Cassandra. 2018. Words and Actions: Teaching Languages through the Lens of Social Justice. Second edition. Alexandria, VA: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

Huet, Hélène, and Michelle Valoz. n.d. “French and Francophone Comic Books at UF.” University of Florida. Accessed September 22, 2022. https://express.adobe.com/page/QfYKKTreGPg7H/.

International Organisation of La Francophonie. 2018. “The French Language Worldwide: Overview.” Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. https://observatoire.francophonie.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/LFDM-Synthese-Anglais.pdf.

Kasuya, Keisuke. 2001. “Discourses of Linguistic Dominance: A Historical Consideration of French Language Ideology.” International Review of Education / Internationale Zeitschrift Für Erziehungswissenschaft / Revue Internationale de l’Education 47 (3/4): 235–51.

Looney, Dennis, and Natalia Lusin. 2019. “Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Summer 2016 and Fall 2016: Final Report.” Modern Language Association of America. https://www.mla.org/Resources/Research/Surveys-Reports-and-Other-Documents/Teaching-Enrollments-and-Programs/Enrollments-in-Languages-Other-Than-English-in-United-States-Institutions-of-Higher-Education.

Mackenzie, Louisa. 2019. “‘Beyond “French-American” Binary Thinking on Non-Binary Gender.’” H-France Salon 11 (14): 1–21.

“MLA Job List.” n.d. Accessed November 18, 2021. https://joblist.mla.org/.

Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF). 2022. “La Langue Française Dans Le Monde: Synthèse 2022.” Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. https://www.francophonie.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/Synthese_La_langue_francaise_dans_le_monde_2022.pdf.

Raftus, Deb, and Jeffrey Staiger. 2020. Sudden Selector’s Guide to Romance Languages and Literatures. ALCTS/CMS Sudden Selector’s Series 8. Chicago : Collection Management Section of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association.

Reuters. 2021. “France’s Constitutional Council Rejects Bill Permitting Minority Language Schools.” Reuters, May 21, 2021, sec. Europe. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-constitutional-council-rejects-bill-permitting-minority-language-schools-2021-05-21/.

Syndicat national de l’édition. n.d. “Communiqué de presse – Les chiffres de l’édition en 2021.” SNE: Syndicat national de l’édition. Accessed September 19, 2022. https://www.sne.fr/actu/communique-de-presse-les-chiffres-de-ledition-en-2021/.

Thierry, Raphaël. 2020. “Francophone African Publishing and the Misconceptions of World Literature.” In Francophone Literature as World Literature, 66–82. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. https://orbiscascade-washington.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01ALLIANCE_UW/1juclfo/alma99162363521001452.

Trentacosti, Giulia. 2018. “Francophonie: Is French Publishing Too Paris-Centric?” 2 Seas Agency. February 25, 2018. https://2seasagency.com/french-publishing-paris-centric/.

 

Link List

(accessed November 15, 2023)

 

About the Author

Deb Raftus holds a BA and MA in French, and an MLIS. She is the Librarian for French & Italian Studies, Spanish & Portuguese Studies, Latin American & Caribbean Studies, and German Studies at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle. She actively participates in ACRL’s European Studies Section, SALALM (the Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials), CIFNAL, the Collaborative Initiative for French Language Collections, and GNARP (the German-North American Resources Partnership). Deb is co-author of the Sudden Selector’s Guide to Romance Languages and Literatures (2020), published by ALA ALCTS/CSM. Deb is forever grateful to Paula Mae Carns for her generous mentorship and warm welcome to ESS. Outside of work, Deb enjoys Spanish class, reading, baking, jogging, and daily walks with her partner, Michael.

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Handbook for European Studies Librarians Copyright © 2024 by Deb Raftus is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.24926/9781946135971.003