Member News Briefs

Bravo to Hélène Bilis for several recent accomplishments and new undertakings:

1. Her book -- Passing Judgment: The Politics and Poetics of Sovereignty in French Tragedy from Hardy to Racine  --  is forthcomingwith University of Toronto Press in January 2016.

2. Hélène received an Alliance to Advance Liberal Arts College (AALAC) Mellon Grant for a workshop entitled, “Blended Learning Approaches to Teaching Early Modern France in a Liberal Arts Context," in coordination with Hélène Visentin, David Harrison, Thomas Parker, and Jean-Vincent Blanchard. The workshop is scheduled for October 2015.

3. Hélène has been appointed editor of medieval to 17th-century France literary studies for the H-France Forum.

Congratulations to Michael Call for his new book, The Would-Be Author: Molière and the Comedy of Print, recently published with Purdue UP. Please see the description below :

Book Description

This book is the first full-length study to examine Molière’s evolving (and at times contradictory) authorial strategies, as evidenced both by his portrayal of authors and publication within the plays and by his own interactions with the seventeenth-century Parisian publishing industry. Historians of the book have described the time period that coincides with Molière’s theatrical activity as centrally important to the development of authors’ rights and to the professionalization of the literary field. A seventeenth-century author, however, was not so much born as negotiated through often acrimonious relations in a world of new and dizzying possibilities.

The learning curve was at times steep and unpleasant, as Molière discovered when his first Parisian play was stolen by a rogue publisher. Nevertheless, the dramatist proved to be a quick learner; from his first published play in 1660 until his death in 1673, Molière changed from a reluctant and victimized author to an innovator (or, according to his enemies, even a swindler) who aggressively secured the rights to his plays, stealing them back when necessary. Through such shrewdness, he acquired for himself publication privileges and conditions relatively unknown in an era before copyright.

As Molière himself wrote, making people laugh was “une étrange entreprise” (La Critique de L’École des femmes, 1663). To an even greater degree, comedic authorship for the playwright was a constant work in progress, and in this sense, “Molière,” the stage name that became a pen name, represents the most carefully elaborated of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin’s invented characters.

ISBN : 9781612493855

http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/titles/format/9781612493855

Congratulations to Francis Assaf for his recent publications.

Book chapters:

"Première journée : voir, dire et savoir". Un Autre dix-septième siècle : mélanges en l’honneur de Jean Serroy. Patis : Champion, 2014. pp. 41-51.

Articles:

“Abraham de Vermeil, poète maniériste.” Maniérisme et literature (Didier, Souiller, ed.), Series “Comparaisons”. Paris: Orizons, 2013 (ISBN: 978-2-296-08850-4): 219-236.

“Les Paratextes du Francion, ou la mise en fiction de l’écriture.” PFSCL XLI, 81, 2014 : 302-314.

“Les Horreurs du Grand Siècle : un échantillonnage du crime sous les deux premiers Bourbons. Rivista di Letterature Moderne e Comparate, Vol. LXVII, Fasc. 2, aprile-giugno 2015, pp. 119-138.

"La pompe funèbre de Louis XIV à Madrid, 1716 : image et fascination du pouvoir royal." In Fascination des images, images de la fascination. Paris : Presses de l’université de Paris-III Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2015.

"Les Derniers jours de Louis XIII : chronique d’une mort annoncée." PFSCL XLII (2015) : pp. 253-262.

Please join me in congratulating Steve Fleck on his new promotion ... to retired!

Steve Fleck promoted himself to retired status at CSU Long Beach and has moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Notwithstanding these shifts of status and venue, his article "Speaking Folly to Power: Molière's Moebius Saraband" was published in PFSCL and he looks forward to seeing his second book on Molière, to be published with Biblio 17, in print in the very near future. 

Congratulations to Vincent Grégoire, whose article « Emploi d’ ‘objets magiques’ et prédiction de phénomènes célestes dans les Relations des jésuites : une stratégie originale de conversion en Nouvelle-France au dix-septième siècle », will appear in 2016 in the Cahiers du XVIIème: An Interdisciplinary Journal.