Speaker: Sylvain Menant, Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne

Professor Sylvain Menant is a major specialist of 18th-century literature.

He is a member of the “conseil scientifique” of the OEuvres complètes de Voltaire, published by the Voltaire Foundation.

He has published a wide range of books, such as La Chute d’Icare. La Crise de la poésie française dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle (Genève, Droz, 1981), or L’Esthétique de Voltaire (Paris, SEDES, 1995), Histoire de la littérature française : De l'Encyclopédie aux Méditations, (Paris, GF Flammarion, 1998) with Michel Delon and Robert Mauzi, Femmes des Lumières (PUF, Paris, 2004), Séries parodiques au Siècle des Lumières with Dominique Quéro (Presses de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne, coll. " Lettres françaises ", 2005). He also edited some major works of Voltaire, such as Le Siècle de Louis XIV de Voltaire (Paris, Le Livre de poche, 2005).

He is currently working on Voltaire's theatre in Europe.