TERM 1

Wednesday 21 October - Reception to celebrate publication of Dr. Mary Harrod's monograph, From France with Love: Gender and Identity in French Romantic Comedy (I. B. Tauris 2015), room H4.44 (tbc).

Thursday 19 November – Prof. Adrian Armstrong (QMUL), '"Mon cierge trouvay soufflé’": Masculinity and its tensions in François Villon', R 1.13.

TERM 2
Wednesday 20 January - Elisabeth Wallmann (Warwick), 'Insects, Instincts, and Political Economy: Animal Nature and its Role in Physiocracy', R.0.03/4.

Wednesday 24 February - Dr. Jennifer Oliver (Oxford) - ‘Machines and machinations: mechanisms of war in French Renaissance literature’, H454.

Abstract:

This paper will explore the analogical connections and tensions between war machines and statecraft in the work of Rabelais, Montaigne, and d’Aubigné. While mechanistic analogies were (and remain) commonplace in political thought, such imagery may also test the practical and ethical limits of allegory. What happens when the boundaries between man and machine become blurred? In particular, what can semantically flexible terms such as ‘engin’ and ‘bastiment’ tell us about the exploration of these boundaries in the period?

TERM 3

Wednesday 1 June - Dr. Thomas Baldwin (Kent), 'Roland Barthes: The Proust Variations', H0.60