Member News Briefs

Dear colleagues,

As current members of the MLA French 17th-Century Forum Executive Committee, we write to explain why we have not yet circulated, and do not plan to circulate, CFPs the 2026 Toronto Conference. Instead, we are outlining our response to the MLA Executive Council’s recent actions.

We join our voices to oppose the MLA Executive Council’s refusal in January 2025 to allow for an open debate of MLA Resolution 2025-1 calling for the endorsement of the 2005 Palestinian BDS Call. The MLA Executive Council’s decision not to forward the resolution to the Delegate Assembly for consideration runs counter to the organization’s long-held mission and values, particularly its commitments to academic freedom and shared governance. We recognize and support the authors of the Resolution 2025-1 and the colleagues who have issued statements of resignation and/or in protest of the Executive Council’s actions. We are grateful for all those colleagues whose actions brought about change. 

We are encouraged that the MLA Executive Council issued a statement on February 25th decrying the violence against “schools, universities, and academic institutions in Gaza.” While the statement rightly laments harm against places associated with education, it disturbingly contains no reference to the harm done to humans. When human rights are gone, there is no humanity, there are no “humanities” to defend. Under these conditions, there can be no substantive “Modern Language Association,” which has as its mission to “advocate for the humanities, [and] promotes the study, teaching, and understanding of languages, literatures, and culture.”

Some of us have elected to resign from the Forum Executive Committee in solidarity with colleagues who have done the same and in protest of the MLA continued insufficient actions. Some of us will stay in our positions on the French 17th-Century Forum Executive Committee in order to confirm our commitment to representing our colleagues and our field, but will not contribute to the 2026 Toronto Annual Convention. Those of us who remain on the Forum await further concrete and detailed steps by MLA and its Executive Council. Together, we stand in solidarity. We recognize all members who choose to resign, who choose to stay but withhold labor for Toronto, and all the different paths to resist MLA Executive Council’s unjust actions. We take these actions in solidarity, but also with intellectual and political modesty, recognizing that our actions are small in comparison to the distress and harm experienced by our colleagues.

We urge the Executive Council to follow through on its promise to change the MLA constitution to allow members to discuss resolutions before the Executive Council reviews them and to allow resolutions to represent the views of the members rather than the association. As such, the Forum Executive Committee members who are not resigning will entertain nominations for the Delegate Assembly, the democratic means by which to govern our Association, as well as Forum Executive Committee membership for future years. If you are interested in either role, please contact awilliar@mailbox.sc.edu. Finally, we urge the MLA to build on this momentum to make sustained change and demonstrate lasting commitment to the values of equity, inclusion, and advocacy. 

Sincerely,

Jeffrey N. Peters (outgoing chair)

Ashley Williard (incoming chair)

Laura Burch 

Therese Banks 

Congratulations to Dr. David Harrison, Professor of French at Grinnell College, who was enthusiastically elected Executive Director of the Society for Interdisciplinary French Seventeenth-Century Studies (SE17). He will serve as Executive Director-Elect in 2025 and, at the start of 2026, will succeed Katherine Dauge-Roth, Associate Professor of Francophone Studies at Bowdoin College, who has led the Society since 2005.

An accomplished scholar of 17th-century French literature whose interests range from Saint-Simon’s Mémoires to Madame de Villedieu’s narrative fiction, David has also recently co-authored the award-winning translation and bilingual pedagogical edition of La Princesse de Clèves (Lever Press, 2022; co-authors: Hélène Bilis, Jean-Vincent Blanchard, and Hélène Visentin), for which he translated the English edition and provided several critical essays. In addition to his publication record and areas of expertise, David also brings to this role a wealth of experience in university administration, having served as department chair and as the Director of the Center for International Studies at Grinnell. David's aim, in his own words, is to rekindle “the delight that we find in the objects of our study” and to ”make SE17 the site for celebrating such pleasure and nourishing the friendships that develop out of it.”

Avis de Soutenance

Mathilde Mougin soutiendra sa thèse intitulée « De l'expérience des corps à la fabrique d'une "science" de l'homme : discours pré-anthropologiques dans la littérature de voyage (1578-1721) ».

La soutenance aura lieu le jeudi 21 décembre à l'Université d'Aix-Marseille et le jury sera composé de : 

Gilles Bertrand, Professeur, Université Grenoble Alpes, Rapporteur

Marie-Christine Pioffet, Professeure, York University, Rapporteuse

Grégoire Holtz, Professeur, Université Paris Saclay, Examinateur

Rafael Mandressi, Directeur de recherches, CNRS, Examinateur

Ashley M. Williard, Associate Professor, University of South Carolina, Examinatrice

Frédéric Tinguely, Professeur, Université de Genève, Président du jury

Sylvie Requemora, Professeure, Aix-Marseille Université, Co-directrice de thèse

Anne Carol, Professeure, Aix-Marseille Université, Co-directrice de thèse

 Résumé :

Cette thèse a pour objet l’étude de la représentation du corps et de l’être humain dans un ensemble de récits de voyage de la fin du XVIe siècle et du XVIIe siècle réalisés en Amérique (Jean de Léry, Marc Lescarbot), aux Antilles (Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre), en Orient (Robert Challe, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, François Bernier), en Afrique (Pierre-Martin de La Martinière, Pidou de Saint-Olon, Froger), ainsi qu’en Europe (Montaigne), complété par un corpus iconographique tiré de la littérature géographique contemporaine (Atlas de Blaeu, recueils de costumes, etc.). Qu’il soit le fruit d’un voyage en Amérique, continent incarnant alors l’exotisme le plus radical (Léry, Lescarbot), ou d’un voyage en Orient (Tavernier, Bernier), dont la plus grande proximité n’annule pas la distance morale, le récit de voyage restitue une expérience du corps inédite en même temps qu’il accorde à l’autre une place privilégiée. L’Amérindien, le Turc, le Moghol, l’Africain sont en effet autant d’avatars d’altérité que le voyageur s’emploie à décrire, en même temps que de potentiels alter ego avec lesquels il établit un contact et une interaction à l’occasion d’un séjour plus ou moins long en terre étrangère. Ainsi, le corps est à la fois un opérateur de décentrement et un centre épistémologique par lequel le voyageur accède à de nouveaux savoirs sur l’homme qu’il met en forme dans son récit aux dimensions pré-anthropologiques, et dont la forme homodiégétique constitue un espace privilégié dans lequel s’élaborent et s’affinent sa méthode ainsi qu’une réflexivité propre à la « science ». En effet, soucieux de décrire fidèlement les populations rencontrées, les voyageurs envisagent tout d’abord l’aspect physique de celles-ci, puis leurs ornements et vêtements pour les inscrire dans leur environnement social, avant de détailler leurs coutumes en matière d’unions, de nourriture, de culte ou encore de justice. En outre, les voyageurs manifestent véritablement le désir de produire une « anthropologie » comprise plus généralement comme une « science » de l’homme, insérant pour cela le matériau ethnographique collecté dans une pensée plus large de l’être humain. Ils proposent alors une taxinomie des « espèces » humaines qui participe à une racialisation progressive de l’altérité, jusqu’alors surtout envisagée à travers le prisme de la tradition de la caractérologie morale des climats.

The aim of this thesis is to study the representation of the body and the human being in a set of travel narratives from the late 16th and 17th centuries, written in America (Jean de Léry, Marc Lescarbot), the Caribbean (Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre), the Orient (Robert Challe, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, François Bernier), Africa (Pierre-Martin de La Martinière, Pidou de Saint-Olon, Froger), as well as in Europe (Montaigne). This study is supplemented by an iconographic material drawn from contemporary geographical literature (Blaeu's Atlas, costume collections, etc.). Whether resulting from a journey to America, a continent that embodied the most radical form of exoticism at the time (Léry, Lescarbot), or a journey to the Orient (Tavernier, Bernier), where greater proximity does not prevent moral distance, the travel narrative conveys a unique bodily experience while granting a privileged place to the other. The Amerindian, the Turk, the Mughal and the African are all avatars of otherness that the traveler sets out to describe, as well as potential alter egos with whom they establish contact and interaction during a more or less extended stay in foreign lands. Thus, the body is both an agent of decentering and an epistemological center through which the traveler gains new knowledge about humans, which is shaped in their pre-anthropological narrative. The homodiegetic form of the narrative constitutes a privileged space for the elaboration and refinement of the traveler's method as much as a reflexivity specific to 'science.' As they endeavor to provide a faithful description of the encountered populations, travelers first consider their physical appearance, then their ornaments and clothing to contextualize them in their social environment, before detailing their customs regarding unions, food, worship, or justice. Furthermore, the travelers genuinely express the desire to produce an 'anthropology,' understood more broadly as a 'science' of humankind, incorporating the ethnographic material collected into a broader thought about the human being. They propose a taxonomy of human 'species,' contributing to a progressive racialization of otherness, which until then had been viewed mainly through the prism of the tradition of moral characterology of climates.

URL de référence : https://cielam.univ-amu.fr/evenements/soutenance-these-mathilde-mougin-21-decembre-2023

We are thrilled to announce that Christophe Schuwey, Clara Dealberto and Jules Grandin L'Atlas Molière (Paris, Les Arènes, 2022) has been shortlisted for the Literary Encyclopedia 2022 annual book prize. Congratulations to the winners : Albrecht Classen, Freedom, Imprisonment, and Slavery in the Pre-Modern World (De Gruyter, 2021) and
Sabiha Huq, The Mughal Aviary: Women’s Writings in Pre-Modern India (The University Press Limited, 2022). 

We are pleased to announce that La Princesse de Clèves by Lafayette: A New Translation and Bilingual Pedagogical Edition for the Digital Age ed. Bilis, Blanchard, Harrison, and Visentin (Lever:2022) has been named a PROSE Awards finalist by the American Association of Publishers for 2023.