44TH Annual International Conference of the
Society for Interdisciplinary French Seventeenth-Century Studies
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Smith College
Northampton, Massachusetts
November 6-8, 2025
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Click for a PDF version of the program
Click for the conference poster as PDF
Two small exhibits will be on display, one at the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings and Photographs and the other at the Smith College Special Collections.
Thursday, November 6 - Neilson Library Browsing Room
11a.m.-12:30 p.m.: Executive Committee Meeting Lunch
1-1:30 p.m.: General Registration and Coffee
1:30-1:45 p.m.: Welcome Remarks
Jonathan Gosnell, Chair of the Department of French Studies
Hélène Visentin, Professor of French Studies, SE17 President
1:45-3:15 p.m.: POWER, JUSTICE AND TYRANNY I
Co-Chairs: Ann Delehanty (Reed College) & Dinah Ribard (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales)
- John Boitano (Chapman University), Power, Justice and Tyranny in Pascal’s Pensées
- Ainan Liu (Princeton University), ‘Je n’en ai que la honte, il en a tout le fruit': Unjust Exchanges in Corneille’s Médée
- Valérie Dionne (Colby College), La juste colère de Médée
- Catherine Theobald (Brandeis University), Bodies of Power in Early Depictions of Indigenous North Americans
Coffee Break
3:30-5:30 p.m.: EDUCATION OF WOMEN
Co-Chairs: Faith Beasley (Dartmouth College) & Deborah Steinberger (University of Delaware)
- Anouk Delpedro (Université de Fribourg), Les trois Écoles des filles
- Theresa Kennedy (Baylor University), Critical Thinking through Role Play: Madame de Maintenon's Educational Legacy
- Caroline Mogenet (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines), Femmes dramaturges au XVIIe siècle : des autrices sans école?
- Angeline Nies-Berger (University of Rochester), Enjeux de l’ironie polyphonique chez Madeleine de Scudéry
5:30-7:30 p.m.: Pop-Up Exhibition at the Smith College Special Collections
Books relevant to the themes of the conference will be on display in the Neilson Library Seminar Room 304. Guests may view the exhibition on their own or join Erin McGuirl, Curator of Rare Books, for one of two short guided tours at 5:45 p.m. and 6:45 p.m.
5:45-7:30 p.m.: Reception
Neilson Library Skyline Reading Room
Remarks by Justin Cammy, Associate Dean of the Faculty
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Friday, November 7 - Alumnae House Conference Hall
8:30-9 a.m.: Light Breakfast
9-10:30 a.m.: CIRCULATION OF KNOWLEDGE
Co-Chairs: Benoît Bolduc (New York University) & Sanam Nader-Esfahani (Amherst College)
- Anne E. Duggan (Wayne State University), Knowledge about Women and Women as Purveyors of Knowledge: Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier’s Feminist Compendiums
- Abby E. Zanger (Independent Scholar) and Elizabeth Hyde (Kean University), Mapping the Nature of Urban Landscape in Louis XIV’s Paris: History, Print, and the Circulation of Knowledge in a Collection of Plans Historiques of the City
- Julie Landweber (Montclair State University), Circulating Knowledge of Coffee from Arab Medicine and Ottoman Custom into 17th-Century France
- Peter Sokolowski (Merriam-Webster), Vernacular Dictionary Origins in the Early 17th Century
Coffee Break
10:45 a.m.-12 p.m.: CONTEMPORARY APPROPRIATIONS OF THE 17TH CENTURY
Co-Chairs: Jean-Vincent Blanchard (Swarthmore College) & Tiphaine Karsenti (Université Paris Nanterre)
- Sylvaine Guyot (New York University), De l’appropriation comme mise en résonance : à partir de Bérénice de Romeo Castellucci
- Camille Leclère-Gregory, (Bryn Mawr College), Branding Power: Dior’s Versailles and the Performance of Luxury
- Tiffany Premand (Yale University), Dom Juan, de l’ère galante à #MeToo
11 a.m.-3:30 p.m.: Pop-Up Exhibition at the Cunningham Center
Prints from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries will be on display at the Cunningham Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings and Photographs, located on the second floor of the Smith College Museum of Art, directly across from the Alumnae House.
12-12:50 p.m.: Lunch (box lunch provided to all participants)
12:50-1:20 p.m.: STUDENT POSTER SESSIONS
Student posters will be displayed in the Alumnae House Gallery
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Ernest Leong (University of Chicago)
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Lily Piede (Grinnell College)
1:30-3 p.m.: SOUNDSCAPES
Co-Chairs: Mary Beth Allen (University of Connecticut) & Sara Harvey (University of Victoria)
- Ellen R. Welch (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Marvelous Soundscapes: Auditory Strangeness in d’Aulnoy’s Contes
- Rose Pruiksma (University of New Hampshire), Imagined Soundscapes in French Ballet Livrets
- Benoît Bolduc (New York University), La musique particulière du Mariage de Bacchus et d’Ariane (1672) de Donneau de Visé
- Karine Abiven (Université de Rouen Normandie), Femmes et chansons au dix-septième siècle : la voix du peuple ?
Coffee Break
3:15-4:45 p.m.: TEACHING HISTORY THROUGH THEATRE
Co-Chairs: Camille Leclère-Gregory (Bryn Mawr College) & Anna Rosensweig (University of Rochester)
- Deborah Steinberger (University of Delaware), Staging the French Revolution
- David Harrison (Grinnell College), Theatrical and Medical History in Stagings of Le Malade imaginaire
- Stella Spriet (University of Saskatchewan), Torsions de l’Histoire et visée édificatrice: la relecture des textes grecs et romains proposée par Boyer
- Adrienne Eldredge (Tufts University), Emotions at the Comédie-Italienne: Arlecchino/Arlequin of 17th-Century France
5- 6:30 p.m.: CLOSED WORK-IN-PROGRESS WORKSHOPS I
Co-Organizers: Katherine Dauge-Roth (Bowdoin College) & Jean Leclerc (Western University)
Gender and Literature - Alumnae House Living Room
- Mary Beth Allen (University of Connecticut)
- Stéphanie Beauval (University of Chicago)
- Laura Burch (College of Wooster)
- Caitlin Dahl (University of Tennessee)
- Anna Klosowska (Miami University)
Theatrality - Alumnae House Dining Room
- Ann Delehanty (Reed College)
- Maria Flynn (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
- Ellen Welch (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
- Toby Wikström (University of Iceland)
Representations and Knowledge - Alumnae House Library Dining
- Therese Banks (Middlebury College)
- Anouk Delpedro and Arnaud Wydler (University of Fribourg)
- Francis Mathieu (Southwestern University)
- Matthew Senior (Oberlin College)
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Saturday, November 8 - Neilson Library Browsing Room
8:30-9 a.m.: Light Breakfast
9-10:15 a.m.: REPRESENTATIONS OF THE NATURAL WORLD
Co-Chairs: Theresa Brock (Smith College) & Lewis C. Seifert (Brown University)
- Arianne Margolin (Independent Scholar), Jeanne Dumée’s Plurality of Worlds: The Feminine Voice and the Emergence of the Fiction Scientifique
- Katherine Dauge-Roth (Bowdoin College), Different by Nature? Environment and the Theorization of Skin Color in Early 17th-Century France
- Jeffrey N. Peters (University of Kentucky), The Air in Scudéry’s “De l’air galant”
Coffee Break
10:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: CLOSED SESSIONS
Reading Groups
Women and Allegory in Intaglio Print: Nature, Nation, Knowledge - Neilson Browsing Room
Co-Organizers: Abby Zanger (Independent Scholar), Benoît Bolduc (New York University), Elizabeth Hyde (Kean University), and Julia Landweber (Montclair State University)
Access at SE17: Academic Ableism and Communities of Care - Neilson Library Classroom 011
Organizer: Ashley Williard (University of South Carolina)
Work-in-Progress Workshops II - Neilson Library Classroom 011
(For a list of participants, see Works-in-Progress Workshops I session above)
Gender and Literature - Neilson Library Classroom 208
Theatrality - Neilson Library Classroom 209
Representations and Knowledge - Neilson Library Classroom 108F
12:30-2 p.m.: Business Lunch / General Assembly (Open to all members)
2:15-3:45: ORALITIES AND ORAL TRADITIONS
Co-Chairs: Therese Banks (Middlebury College) & Michael Meere (Wesleyan University)
- Louise Barbosa (Northwestern University), Maternal Authority and Female-Centered Realms in 17th-Century Fairy Tales
- Ashley Williard (University of South Carolina), Circulating Conceptions of Madness in the French Atlantic
- Cameron Bonnevie and Michael Meere (Wesleyan University), Talking about Transition in Early Modern France: The Case of Germain Garnier
Coffee Break
4-5:30 p.m.: POWER, JUSTICE AND TYRANNY II
Co-Chairs: Ann Delehanty (Reed College) & Dinah Ribard (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales)
- Fanny Marchaisse (Northwestern University), Once Upon a Tyranny: How Power Shapes the Narrative in La Tyrannie des fées détruite
- Yann Lignereux (Nantes Université-CRHIA), Aux frontières de la tyrannie, la Nouvelle-France du Baron de Lahontan (1683-1693)
- Rupinder Kaur (Vassar College), Pure Joy: Power and Positive Affect in Lafayette’s La Princesse de Clèves
7-9:30 p.m.: Banquet with Jazz Trio
Wiggins Tavern Restaurant at the Hotel Northampton
