Book at Lunchtime: Born to Write

A TORCH Book at Lunchtime webinar on ‘Born to Write: Literary
Families and Social Hierarchy in Early Modern France’ by Professor
Neil Kenny. Book at Lunchtime is a series of bite-sized book
discussions held weekly during term-time, with commentators from a
range of disciplines. The events are free to attend and open to
all. About the book: It is easy to forget how deeply embedded in
social hierarchy was the literature and learning that has come down
to us from the early modern European world. From fiction to
philosophy, from poetry to history, works of all kinds emerged from
and through the social hierarchy that was a fundamental fact of
everyday life. Paying attention to it changes how we might
understand and interpret the works themselves, whether canonical
and familiar or largely forgotten. But a second, related fact is
much overlooked too: works also often emanated from families, not
just from individuals. Speakers: Professor Neil Kenny is a
Professor of French at Oxford University, a Senior Research Fellow
at All Souls College and Lead Fellow for Languages at the British
Academy. He specialises in early modern French literature and
thought, especially from the early sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth
century. Professor Kenny’s current focus is on the relation of
literature and learning to social hierarchy and previous projects
have investigated different kinds of knowledge and belief.
Professor Caroline Warman is a Professor of French Literature and
Thought at Oxford University, and President of the British Society
for Eighteenth-Century Studies. She specialises in the circulation
of ideas and materialist thought and has recently completed a book
on Diderot called The Atheist’s Bible: Diderot and the ‘Eléments de
physiologie’. Professor Ceri Sullivan is a Professor of English
Literature at Cardiff University and the author of five books on
the literary features that structure early modern texts about
religion, trade, bureaucracy, and rhetoric. She is the general
editor of the English Association's series Essays and Studies and
her most recent publication is Shakespeare and the Play Scripts of
Private Prayer.