SOCIETY FOR EARLY MODERN FRENCH STUDIES
Forty-Eighth Annual Conference
University of Glasgow, 6-8 July 2026
Freedom / La Liberté
Conference Programme
All sessions will take place in the Humanities Research Hub, 1 University Gardens, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QH
Monday 6 July:
12.30 onwards Arrival, Registration and Lunch: Humanities Research Hub
14.00 Welcome: Emily Butterworth, Chair of the Society
14.10-15.40 Session 1: Narrative Freedom and Political Agency
Chair: Emma Herdman
Anne DUPRAT (Université de Picardie Jules Verne)
Against Exemplarity: Freedom of Action in Brantôme’s Mémoires and Discours (c. 1580-1604)
Caroline GODARD (University of California, Berkeley)
Du Bellay’s Banquet: Freedom of Poetic Consumption in the 1550 Preface to L’Olive
Jennifer DAVIS (University of Oklahoma)
Quam varia sunt hominum ingenia: Cosmopolitan Imagination in Théophile de Viau’s Première journée (1623)
15.40-16.00 Tea / Coffee
16.00-17.00 Session 2: Freedom and Performance
Chair: Luke O’Sullivan
Marc JAFFRÉ (Durham University)
Performance, Marginalisation and Agency: Tupinambá Delegates at Louis XIII’s Court
Julia PREST (University of St Andrews)
What did Liberté Mean in Revolutionary Saint-Domingue? The Case of Le Héros africain ou la traite des noirs (1797)
17.00-19.00 Free time
19.00 Dinner
Tuesday 7 July:
9.00-9.45 Breakfast
9.45-11.15 Session 3: Freedom from/and Constraints
Chair: Michael Moriarty
Rebekah GOODCHILD (Somerville College, Oxford)
Jansenist Polemical Ethics: Freedoms and Constraints
Michael MEERE (Wesleyan University)
The Limits of Liberty in La Rochelle
Alexander ROOSE (Universiteit Gent)
Les Lettres Persanes : les anciens, les modernes, et la république
11.15-11.45 Tea / Coffee
11.45-12.45 Session 4: Freedom, Republicanism and Tyranny
Chair: Emma Claussen
John O’BRIEN (Durham University)
The Cry of Republican Liberty: John Adams and ‘Stephen Boetius’
Nigel RITCHIE (King’s College London)
‘Vivre libre ou mourir!’: Freedom of Movement and the Torch of Liberty
12.45-14.00 Lunch
14.00-17.00 Free time
17.00-18.30 AGM
19.00 Vin d’honneur and Conference dinner: Glasgow University Union, 32 University Avenue, Glasgow G12 8LX
Wednesday 8 July:
9.00-10.00 Breakfast
10.00-11.00 Session 5: Heroines’ Freedom
Chair: Dana Lungu
Heather KIRK (Western University, Canada)
L’héroïne tragique et la liberté de conscience : Mariamne, Mariane et Antigone
Priscilla SCARPACI (University of Georgia)
Voicing Freedom: Gender, Voice and Power in Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Saintonge’s Didon (1693) and Circé (1694)
11.00-11.20 Tea / Coffee
11.20-12.50 Session 6: Freedom of Speech
Chair: Jérôme Brillaud
Caitlin DAHL (University of Tennessee Knoxville)
‘Il faut être un peu badin’: Liberation through badinage in Villedieu’s Mémoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Molière
Jean LECLERC (Western University, Canada)
Liberté de médire et de tout dire ? Le cas de Théophile, Scarron et Tallemant
Hajer MESTAYSSER (Université de Lorraine)
La liberté d’expression à travers le scandale de Turcaret
12.50-13.00 Concluding remarks: Emily Butterworth, Chair of the Society
13.00 Lunch
CLOSE OF CONFERENCE