French Studies , Special Issue: "Making History Visible: Theoretical and Practical Issues in the 17th and 18th Centuries." (Adrien Paschoud & Anne Régent-Susini, eds.)

Published on behalf of the Society for French Studies, French Studies is a highly regarded publication that is essential reading for those working in and researching all areas of the subject, including language and linguistics (historical and contemporary), all periods and aspects of literature , thought and the history of ideas, cultural studies, film, and critical theory.

French Studies Special Issue

Making History Visible: Theoretical and Practical Issues in the 17th and 18th Centuries

This issue studies the way in which, in the classical age, the writing of history and visualization devices are linked. Throughout the period considered here—from the reception of Tacitus during the early seventeenth century to Voltaire's writings on history—history is thought of in the mode of 'making visible', the visual paradigm continually accompanying and configuring historiographical reflection. If we can restore a memory or even the past, or even make them visualize to others, can we 'make visible' history itself, and if so, how?

Making History Visible: Theoretical and Practical Issues in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

This special issue examines the intertwining of history writing and systems of visualization over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Throughout the period studied here — from the reception of Tacitus in the early seventeenth century to Voltaire's writings on history — history is understood in terms of 'making visible': historiographical reflection is consistently accompanied and configured by the paradigm of vision. If it is possible to conjure up a memory or conjure up the past, or even to help others visualize them, can history itself be made visible, and, if so, how?

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Table of contents

Introduction
Making History Visible: Theoretical and Practical Issues in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Introduction
Adrien Paschoud and Anne Régent-Susini 

Research Articles

Visibility and visuality of history: on two iconotexts associated with Nicolas Gueudeville
Olivier Leplatre 

Making History See, Seeing the Past: History of a Plea for Transformations (Antoine Le Maître, 1631–62)
Dinah Ribard  

Jean de Gaufreteau: the La Rochelle sea wall to show history
Christian Jouhaud  

The 'Scene' in the Historical Narrative in the Classical Era: Saint-Simon and Voltaire
Marc Hersant  

Showing the arcana
of Béatrice Guion  

Visions of history in Voltaire the historian: how to 'make a general picture of this chaos'
Myrtille Méricam-Bourdet 

Interview

Interview with Abdellah Taïa: 'a new form of queerness'
Todd W. Reeser 

Reviews

Emma Campbell, Reinventing Babel in Medieval French: Translation and Untranslatability (c. 1120–c. 1250)
Anthony J. Bruder 

Marion Uhlig, French ABC Poems from the Middle Ages (13th–14th Centuries)
Virginie Greene 

Isabelle Delage-Béland, The Fabliaux: fiction, plausibility and literary genre
A. E. Cobby 

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Obituary

Celia Britton (1946–2024)
Michael Syrotinski 

Abstracts
Abstracts 

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