American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language
A collaborative enterprise between the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the University of Chicago, the ARTFL Project, directed by Robert Morrissey, is home to one of the world's largest French language databases (FRANTEXT - 2,200 documents, 130 million words) as well as numerous other electronic resources pertaining to the literary and cultural history of France. Reference works, such as the online edition of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie and a substantial collection of French dictionaries - Dictionnaires d'autrefois - are continually being added to the list of products available to subscribers. Currently, more than 320 North American institutions subscribe to the ARTFL Project.
Over the years, the ARTFL Project has grown into one of the leading centers of research and development in the Digital Humanities. The open-source full-text search and retrieval system PhiloLogic, developed as a means to exploit the ever-growing availability of digital texts and text collections, has allowed ARTFL to expand beyond its French origins and into a variety of new fields and languages. Today, ARTFL counts among its many collaborative efforts both institutional entities - Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (CNR), La Maison de Balzac, Montaigne Studies, the Digital South Asian Library, etc. - and commercial enterprises such as the Alexander Street Press. As part of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, the ARTFL Project can offer unique research opportunities to graduate students interested in the inter-disciplinary domain of Digital Humanities.