Ann THOMSON Current position - European University Institute

Ann THOMSON
Current position :
Professor of European Intellectual History, European University Institute.
Since 1998 : Professor of British History, Université Paris 8 Vincennnes - Saint Denis.
Previous positions:
1993-1998 : Professor of British History, Université de Caen
1989-1993 : Maître de conférences in British History, Université de Caen
1984-88 : Maître de conférences in British History, University of Algiers
1980-84 : Maître-assistante in British History, University of Algiers
1974-76 : Lectrice, Ecole Normale Supérieure de jeunes filles, Paris
Other positions :
2007 : Visiting Professor, Centre for Intellectual History, University of Sussex
May 2006 : Invited professor, University of Rome II – Tor Vergata,
1989 : Invited researcher, CNRS, Paris (Centre d’étude du 18e siècle, Sorbonne)
Qualifications :
Habilitation à diriger des recherches, Université de Caen, 1991
D.Phil., Oxford University, 1979
B.A. (Hons), Modern History and Modern Languages (French), Oxford University, 1971
Administrative Responsabilities:
2011-12 : Elected member of the Conseil national des Universités, 11ème section
2012 Elected member of Conseil scientifique, Université Paris 8
2004-2011 : Direction of postgraduate programmes ‘Histoire et civilisations’
2002-2004 : Head of English Departement
2002-2006: Elected member of the Conseil des études et de la vie universitaire, Paris 8
2000-2010 Member of the steering committee of the École doctorale ‘Théories et pratiques du
Sens’
1996-98 : Head of Research centre, Université de Caen
Member of the steering committee of the Maison de la Recherche en Sciences Humaines.
Direction of postgraduate programme ‘Identités et transferts culturels’, Université de
Caen/Université de Rouen
1995-96 : Head of English Department, Université de Caen
Profession Activities :
External member of appointments committees at the Universities of Caen, Cergy-Pontoise,
Orléans, Paris IV-Sorbonne, Paris 7-Denis Diderot, Valenciennes, Versailles-Saint-Quentin.
Assessor for tenure, Wesleyan University, 2010
Assessor for research funding, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research - Council for
the Humanities, 2011
Assessor for research funding, PRIN, Italy
Expert for ESF research evaluation.
Editorial committee of International Archives of the History of Ideas, Springer, Dordrecht
Editorial Board, History of European Ideas
Scientific board of CROMOHS (Cyber Review of Modern Historiography)
Executive committee of Société Diderot
Consultative committee of La Lettre clandestine
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Steering committee of GDR 3434 (CNRS) ‘Mondes britanniques’.
Member of the steering committee of the Association de réflexion sur l’enseignement
supérieur et la recherche (ARESER).
Member of the International Board of the Institute of Intellectual History, University of St.
Andrews.
Direction of Research Programmes:
Direction of ‘Groupe de recherches en histoire intellectuelle’, part of Centre de recherches
historiques (EA 1571). ; convenor of monthly research seminar on intellectual history ; Joint
convenor of: Franco-British History Seminar, Université Paris-IV-Sorbonne / Université Paris
8 / Institute for Historical Research, London
2005-2006 : joint convenor of seminar ‘Religion et politique au Royaume-Uni’, Centre
d’histoire, Sciences politiques Paris.
2005-2009 : Director of International network : ‘Franco-British Cultural Transfers in the Long
Eighteenth Century : Agents, Vectors, Networks’ financed by the French Agence Nationale
de la Recherche (NT05-2_41485), also funded by the AHRC in 2006-2008 : ‘Anglo-French
Intellectual Exchange, 1688-1789’
Conference Organisation (since 2007)
‘La colonisation en débats: espaces et moments 18e-20e siècle’, with the Centre de
recherches historiques, June 2007.
‘Histoire culturelle / Histoire intellectuelle’, with CRIDAF, Université Paris 13, June 2009
‘Des outils informatiques pour la recherche en histoire et en philosophie’, with the Centre
Bentham, Université Paris X, January 2010.
‘Qu’est-ce que les Lumières Écossaises ?’, with Centre Roland Mousnier (UMR 8596
Université Paris Sorbonne – Paris IV), December 2010 : volume in preparation, to be
published by the Voltaire Foundation.
‘Intellectual Networks: Approaches and Methods’, with the CRIDAF, Université Paris 13,
March 2011
‘Translation and Culture in the British Isles : a Historical Approach’, Maison française,
Oxford, January 2012 (for the GDR « Mondes britanniques »).
‘The Practice of Intellectual History Today’, EUI, 1 March 2013.
‘Diderot et la politique aujourd’hui’, with CSLF, Université Paris Ouest, Nanterre, 7-8
November 2013.
‘The Academic Contract : How Careers and Universities are Changing’ (co-organiser), Max
Weber Programme Academic Careers Observatory Conference, EUI, 19-20 November 2013.
‘Translators as Historical Actors’, EUI, 14-15 February 2014.
Invited Lectures and seminars (since 2007)
‘Before Orientalism: What did Islam mean for the Enlightenment?’, public lecture,
University of Sussex, November 2007.
Presentation of Bodies of Thought, Oxford University, January 2009.
‘Religion and the Radical Enlightenment’, Queen Mary, University of London, January 2009.
‘Les Turcs des Lumières : l’orientalisme en débat’, University of Naples l’Orientale,
November 2009.
‘Politics, Religion and the Natural History of Man in 18th-century France’, Institute for
Historical Research, London, November 2009.
‘Toland, Dodwell, Swift and the circulation of irreligious ideas in France: what does the study
of international networks tell us about the Radical enlightenment?’, plenary speaker, France,
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Great Britain, Ireland : Cultural transfers and the circulation of knowledge in the Age of
Enlightenment and Eighteenth-century Ireland Society, University of Limerick, June 2010.
Conclusion of international symposium The Reception of the religious other in intercultural
exchange (16th-18th centuries), Käte Hamburger Kolleg, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, March
2011.
‘Mediterranean anthropology and the French scientific expeditions’, University of Naples
l’Orientale, April 2011.
‘Les « Lumières radicales » existent-elles?’, Université Paris-Sorbonne, 26 March 2013.
‘L’Europe du XVIIIe siècle et l’Islam’, L’Islamophobie en question, Science-Po, Paris, 20
April 2013.
‘Living Matter and Early Enlightenment Materialism’, EMPHASIS, University of London, 4
May 2013.
‘How to write the Intellectual History of the Enlightenment’, Keynote lecture, Ideas at Work.
Intellectual History Graduate Conference, University of Aarhus, 13-14 December 2013.
‘What is Intellectual History? New Approaches and Methods’, University of Niigata, Japan,
10 March 2014.
‘L’âme des Lumières’, University of Nagoya, Japan, 14 March 2014.
‘Bodies of thought / Ame des Lumières’, Keio University, Tokyo, 15 March 2014.
Other Recent Papers
‘Enlightenment(s), Religion(s) and Science: Reflexions on a Debate’, Fourth International
Conference on Jewish Enlightenment: Haskalah and Religion, Goethe Universität Frankfurt,
July, 2011.
Conclusion of Translation and Culture in the British Isles : a Historical Approach, MFO,
Oxford, January 2012.
‘Quelles idées, quel contexte ?’, symposium Faire de l’histoire intellectuelle : enjeux et
méthodes, organised by the Revue d’Histoire moderne et contemporaine, ENS, Paris, March
2012.
‘The man-machine revisited’, Thinking Matter’ - Representations of the Mind-Body problem
in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800, Maison française, Oxford, 24-25 May 2012.
‘French 18th-century materialists and natural law’, Conference on Natural Law in Honour of
Knud Haakonssen, Sussex University, 12-13 October 2012.
‘Les Lumières anglaises, quel début quelle fin ?’, Les périodisations de l’histoire des mondes
britanniques, Université Paris-Diderot, 23-24 November 2012.
‘The Theological Implications of La Mettrie's Talking Ape’, On Complete and Incomplete
Human Beings, Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, 6-7 June 2013.
‘Thinking Matter and Thinking Brains in La Mettrie and Diderot’, Human Nature.
Philosophical and Medical Perspectives on the Mind-Body Problem from Antiquity to the
Present, University of Roma La Sapienza, 3-5 October 2013.
‘Second Thoughts on Free Thought’, I filosofi e il libero pensiero (secoli XVII-XVIII),
University of Naples L’Orientale, 17-18 October 2013.
‘Decentring the Enlightenment’, HEC Dept Colloquium, EUI, 5 February 2014.
‘Epicureans and Mortalists in late 17th-century England’, Varieties of Early Modern
Materialism, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 19-21 June, 2014
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SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Books
Materialism and Society in the Mid-Eighteenth Century : La Mettrie’s «Discours
préliminaire», Geneva, Droz, 1981.
Barbary and Enlightenment. European Attitudes towards the Maghreb in the 18th Century,
Leiden, E.J.Brill, 1987 (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, n°2).
La Mettrie, Machine Man and other texts, (traduction, introduction and notes), Cambridge
University Press, (‘Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy’), 1996.
La Mettrie, De la volupté, Paris, Desjonquères, 1996.
Bodies of Thought: Science, Religion, and the Soul in the Early Enlightenment, Oxford
University Press, 2008. Winner of SAES/AFEA Research prize, 2009.
L’âme des lumières. Le débat sur l’être humain entre religion et science Angleterre-France
(1690-1760), Seyssel, Champ Vallon, 2013.
Jointly authored works
Jean-Louis Chevalier, Mariella Colin and Ann Thomson, eds : Barbares et sauvages —
Images et reflets dans la conscience occidentale, Presses Universitaires de Caen, 1994.
Pierre-François Moreau and Ann Thomson eds : Matérialisme et passions, Lyon, ENS
Editions, 2004.
Ann Thomson, Simon Burrows and Edmond Dziembowski, eds : Cultural Transfers: France
and Britain in the long eighteenth century, Voltaire Foundation, Oxford, 2010 (SVEC
2010:4).
Articles in journals
‘From L’Histoire naturelle de l’homme to the Natural History of Mankind’, British Journal
for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 9 (1986), p.73-80.
‘L’homme-machine, mythe ou métaphore ?’, Dix-huitième Siecle, 20 (1988), p.367-376.
‘La Mettrie, lecteur et traducteur de Boerhaave’, Dix-huitième Siècle, 23 (1991), p.23-29.
‘Guillaume Lamy et l’âme matérielle’, Dix-huitième Siècle, 24 (1992), p.63-71.
‘La classification raciale de l’Afrique du Nord au début du XIXe siècle’, Cahiers d’études
africaines, XXXIII (1), 1993, p. 19-36.
‘Joseph Morgan et le monde islamique’, Dix-huitième Siècle, 27 (1995), p.351-363.
‘Diderot, le matérialisme et la division de l’espèce humaine’, Recherches sur Diderot et sur
l’Encyclopédie, 26 (1999), p.197-212.
‘Grégoire et l’unité de l’espèce humaine’, Revue française d’histoire d’Outre-mer, 2000, p.11-23.
‘Epicurisme et matérialisme en Angleterre au début du 18e siècle’, Dix-huitième Siècle, 35 (2003),
p.281-296.
‘Diderot, Roubaud et l’esclavage’, Recherches sur Diderot et sur l’Encyclopédie, 35 (2003),
p. 69-93.
‘La Mettrie, l’écrivain et ses masques’, Dix-huitième Siècle, 36 (2004), p.449-467.
‘La difficile traversée de la Manche : les réactions des intellectuels britanniques aux Idéologues’,
Germanisch-Romanischen Monatsschrift, 56.1 (2006), p.27-44.
‘Un marginal de la république des sciences: Caspar Cuenz’, Dix-huitième Siècle, 40 (2008), p.2942.
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‘Animals, Humans, Machines and Thinking Matter, 1690-1707’, Early Science and Medicine,
15 (2010), p.3-37.
‘Les animaux plus que machines’, Dix-huitième Siècle, 42 (2010), p.339-51.
‘La Mettrie ou les morts de Monsieur Machine’, Rivista di storia della filosofia, 1, 2012, p.
177-186.
‘L’histoire intellectuelle : quelles idées, quel contexte ?’, RHMC, n° 59-4 bis (2012), p. 47-64.
Contributions to volumes
‘La littérature clandestine et la circulation des idées anti-religieuses dans la première moitié
du 18ème siècle’, L’Encyclopédie, Diderot, l’esthétique, Mélanges en hommage à J. Chouillet,
P.U.F., 1991, p.297-304.
‘La Barbarie de l’Histoire des Deux Indes aux ‘Mémoires’ de Raynal’, L’Histoire des DeuxIndes : réécriture et Polygraphie, ed. H.J. Lüsebrink and A. Strugnell, Oxford, Voltaire
Foundation, 1996, p.133-148.
‘Bory de Saint-Vincent et l’anthropologie de la Méditerranée’, L’Invention scientifique de la
Méditerranée, Editions de l’EHESS, Paris, 1998, p.273-287.
‘The diffusion of English free-thought in France in the early 18th century’, The Transmission
of Culture in Western Europe, 1750-1850, ed. David Bickerton and Judith Proud, Peter Lang,
Berne, 1999, p.189-208.
‘Travels among the Turks : discovery of the Other or ideological weapon ?’, L’Invitation au
voyage, Studies in honour of Peter France, ed. J. Renwick, Voltaire Foundation, Oxford,
2000, p.31-39.
‘L’abbé Raynal et la Barbarie’, Raynal, de la polémique à l’histoire, Voltaire Foundation,
Oxford, 2000, p.355-368.
‘Materialistic Theories of Mind and Brain’, Between Leibniz, Newton and Kant. Philosophy
and Science in the 18th Century, ed. Wolfgang Lefèvre, Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Dordrecht, 2001, p.149-173.
‘La Mettrie et l’épicurisme’, in Der Garten und die Moderne. Epikureische Moral und Politik
vom Humanismus bis zur Aufklärung, ed. Gianni Paganini and Edoardo Tortarolo, Stuttgart,
Frommann-Holzboog, 2004, p.361-81.
‘Informal Networks’ in Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Knud
Haakonssen, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p.121-136.
‘L’Europe des Lumières et le monde musulman : une altérité ambiguë’, Le problème de
l’altérité dans la culture européenne aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles : anthropologie, politique et
religion, ed.G.Abbattista and R.Minuti, Bibliopolis, Naples, 2006, p.259-280.
‘Locke, Stillingfleet et Coste : la philosophie en extraits’, in Traduzione e circolazione delle
idée nella cultura europea tra ‘500 e ‘700, ed/ Girolamo Imbruglia, Rolando Minuti, Luisa
Simonutti, Bibliopolis, Naples, 2007, p. 135-162.
‘Les Lumières radicales sont-elles panthéistes ?’, Qu’est-ce que les Lumières ‘radicales’ ?
Libertinage, athéisme et spinozisme dans le tournant philosophique de l’âge classique, ed.
C.Secrétan, T.Dagron and L.Bove, Editions Amsterdam, Paris, 2007, p.243-58.
‘Medicine and Materialism’, Littérature et médecine. Approches et perspectives (XVIe-XIXe
siècles), ed. Andrea Carlino and Alexandre Wenger, Geneva, Droz, 2007, p.159-75.
‘L’Empire ottoman, symbole du despotisme oriental ?’, Rêver d’Orient, connaître
l’Orient, ed. Isabelle Gadoin and Marie-Élise Palmier-Chatelain, ENS Éditions, Lyon, 2008,
p.177-196.
‘L’article UNITAIRES de l’Encyclopédie’, Diderot, l’Encyclopédie & autres études. Sillages
de Jacques Proust, ed. Marie Leca-Tsiomis, Ferney-Voltaire, Centre international d’études du
XVIIIe siècle, 2010, p.119-28.
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‘In defence of toleration. La Roche’s Bibliothèque angloise and Mémoires littéraires de la
Grande-Bretagne’, Cultural transfers: France and Britain in the long eighteenth century, ed.
Ann Thomson, Simon Burrows and Edmond Dziembowski, Voltaire Foundation, Oxford,
2010 (SVEC 2010:4), p.161-74.
‘Des Maizeaux, Collins and the translators : the case of Collins’ Philosophical inquiry
concerning human liberty’, Cultural transfers: France and Britain in the long eighteenth
century, ed. Ann Thomson, Simon Burrows and Edmond Dziembowski, Voltaire Foundation,
Oxford, 2010 (SVEC 2010:4), p. 219-31.
‘Thinking about the History of Africa in the 18th Century’, Encountering Otherness.
Diversities and Transcultural Experiences in Early Modern European Culture ed. Guido
Abbattista, EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, Trieste, 2011, p. 253-66.
‘Le libre penseur anglais et l’athée français : constructions opposées et complémentaires’ , La
France et les îles britanniques : un couple impossible ?, éd. Véronique Gazeau et JeanPhilippe Genet, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 2012, p. 301-324.
‘Questioning Church Doctrine in Private Correspondence in the Eighteenth Century: Jean
Bouhier’s Doubts Concerning the Soul’, Debating the Faith: Religion and Letter Writing in
Great Britain, 1550-1800, ed. Anne Dunan-Page, Clotilde Prunier, Dordrecht, Springer, 2013,
p. 195-208 (International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire
des idées, Vol. 209).
‘Toland, Dodwell,Swift and the circulation of religious ideas in France : what does the study
of international networks tell us about the “radical Enlightenment”?’, Intellectual
Journeys.The translation of ideas in Enlightenment England, France and Ireland, ed. Lise
Andries, Frédéric Ogée, John Dunkley and Darach Sanfey, Voltaire Foundation 2013 (SVEC
2013 :12), p. 159-175.