Pierre Saint-Amand named the Benjamin F. Barge Professor of French

Pierre Saint-Amand, newly named as the Benjamin F. Barge Professor of French, focuses his research on 18th-century literature, especially the libertine novel, the philosophy of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and literary criticism and theory.

Saint-Amand, currently the Francis Wayland Professor of French Studies and professor of comparative literature at Brown University, will assume his new position in July.

Saint-Amand is a widely published author of books and scholarly articles. His seven books include “Diderot: Le labyrinthe de la relation,” “Séduire ou la passion des Lumières,” “The Pursuit of Laziness: An Idle Interpretation of the Enlightenment,” and, most recently, “Paresse des Lumières.” He is the editor of “Thérèse philosophe” and “Confession d’une jeune fille,” among other books. Saint-Amand has written on topics of literary criticism in numerous academic journals, including Romanic Review, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth-Century, Stanford French Review, and Diderot Studies, among other publications. His works-in-progress include a collection of articles on libertine literature of the 18th century and a book-length essay on the literature of the night in the 18th century.

A graduate of the University of Montreal, Saint-Amand received his master’s and doctoral degrees in romance languages from Johns Hopkins University. He began his teaching career at Yale in 1981, before serving as assistant professor of French at Stanford University. He joined the faculty at Brown in 1986 and was named the Francis Wayland Professor of French Studies in 1996. Saint-Amand also served as chair of the Department of French Studies at Brown. As a visiting professor, he has taught at Harvard University and the University of Iowa.

Saint-Amand is the recipient of a Stanford Humanities Center fellowship and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship. His other honors include the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of the Year from Brown and the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques from the government of France.

Saint-Amand has served on the editorial board of the Stanford French Review and on several committees of the Modern Language Association and the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.