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Dr. Jean-Alexandre Perras

Gastwissenschaftler, Stipendiat der Humboldt-Stiftung am IZEA (2024-2025)

Herkunftsuniversität

Université de Montréal, Canada

Kurzvorstellung

Jean-Alexandre Perras is a Humboldt Research Fellow at the IZEA (2024-2025). He holds a Ph.D. in French literature from the Université de Montréal and the Université Paris 8. His dissertation on the uses of the notion of genius in the French Ancien Régime was published by Classiques Garnier in 2016. After receiving a British Academy postdocotoral fellowship (Jesus College and Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford, 2015-2018), he was a research fellow at the IEA in Paris (2019) and then a Marie Curie research fellow at the European University Institute in Florence (2020-2022), where he focused on the innovation strategies of women hairdressers in the eighteenth century. His research focuses more generally on the economic and moral issues associated with value, through various projects on frivolity, ephemerality, perfume and fashion. He recently co-edited a volume on the Mediality of smells (Peter Lang, 2021) and published a critical edition of Gabriel-François Coyer’s Découverte de l’île Frivole (MHRA, 2022).

Kurzvita

Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow (2020-2022)

Department of History, European University Institute, Florence. Research project: AXIONOVI Fashioning Heads: Valorising Novelty in Eighteenth-Century France

Research fellow (2018-2019)

Institute for Advanced Studies, Paris. Research project: “Drowning in pamphlets”: Mediality of the frivolous.

British Academy postdoctoral fellow (2015-2018)

Jesus College and Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford, British Academy. Research project: Frivolity and the Problem of Value in Early Modern France

Fonds de Recherche du Québec Postdoctoral fellow (2013-2014)

Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. Research project: ‘Pour une archéologie du frivole: valeur et sociabilité au début de l’ère industrielle (1750-1800).’

Postdoctoral fellow (2012) Department of French and Italian, University of Calgary.

Studium PhD. 2012

Forschungsprojekt am IZEA

Defining Public Utility: Evaluating Preisfragen at the Berlin Academy of Sciences and Belles-Lettres during the eighteenth century

This research concerns the role that the notion of public utility played in the evaluation of the “preisfragen” of the Berlin Academy of Sciences during the long eighteenth century. Throughout the early modern period, utility has emerged as a fundamental concept in the evaluation of resources and human actions, and particularly in the evaluation of science, where the Baconian notion of “useful knowledge” has been emphasised by many historians. However, little is known about the ways in which the usefulness of particular scientific productions was evaluated, its modalities, criteria, and applications. Using a case study approach, the research will focus on specific prize competitions selected from the four classes of the Academy (Belles-Lettres, Mathematics, Experimental Philosophy and Speculative Philosophy), to analyse the extent to which the notion of utility was inflected according to disciplines, and how Frederich II’s active role in the administration of the Academy influenced the academicians’ judgment. The aim is to better understand how the notion of public utility was constructed, what objects it focused on, and how it testifies to the relationship between politics and science in the Enlightenment. During the 18 months of the fellowship, the institution’s archives will be consulted in order to analyse the evaluation processes of the memoirs submitted in the context of these competitions. The research aims to fill an important gap not only with regard to the Berlin Academy, but also with regard to the development of pan-European scientific expertise and the institutionalisation of science.

CFP The Useful Enlightenment: Theories, Practices and Representations of Usefulness in the Long Eighteenth Century

The Useful Enlightenment: Theories, Practices and Representations of Usefulness in the Long Eighteenth Century

International conference to be held at the
Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für die Erforschung der Europäischen Aufklärung (IZEA)
Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, 26-27 June 2025

Organised by Jean-Alexandre Perras, Humboldt Research Fellow

With the support of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung,
the IZEA (Martin-Luther-Universität, Halle-Wittenberg),
the Voltaire Foundation (University of Oxford)
and the Pôle Europe des Lumières (Sorbonne Université)

Proposals, including an abstract and a short biography and list of publications, should be sent by 31 December 2024 to the following address: jean-alexandre.perras(at)izea.uni-halle.de.

Call for Papers The Useful Enlightenment

Illustration: Allégorie de l’enseignement des Arts (1775), Clément Pierre Marillier, drawing (diameter 13,6 cm), Musée national du château de Pau, photo credits: RMN-GP

Veröffentlichungen aus dem Bereich der Aufklärungsforschung

Selbstständige Schriften

- L’exception exemplaire : inventions et usages du génie, XVI^e – XVIII^e siècles, Paris, Éditions Classiques Garnier, 2015, 413 pp.

Herausgeberschaften

- Voltaire historien de la littérature, Nicholas Cronk and Jean-Alexandre Perras (eds), Revue Voltaire, n^o20, 2023.

- Mediality of Smells / Médialités des odeurs, Jean-Alexandre Perras and Érika Wicky (eds), Peter Lang, Oxford, 2021, 398 p, DOI: 10.3726/b16126.

- Persistance de l’éphémère, Jean-Alexandre Perras (ed.), Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France, vol. 121, n^o21, 2021.

- Le Siècle de la légèreté : Émergences d’un paradigme du XVIII^e siècle français, Marine Ganofsky and Jean-Alexandre Perras (eds), Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, Liverpool University Press, 2019, 336 p.

- Sociabilités du parfum, Jean-Alexandre Perras and Érika Wicky (eds), Littérature, n^o185, Presses universitaires de Vincennes, 2017, 122 p.

- Penser le génie à travers ses usages – Genius and its uses, Ann Jefferson and Jean-Alexandre Perras (eds), Esprit Créateur, vol. 55, n°2, John Hopkins University Press, 2015, 141 p.

- Le corps dans l’histoire et les histoires du corps. Précédé d’entretiens avec Georges Vigarello, Jean-Alexandre Perras and Érika Wicky (eds), Hermann, Coll. « Symposiums », 2013, 206 p.

Beiträge in Zeitschriften und Sammelbänden

Zeitschriften

- ‘The skills of fashion: guild conflicts between bonnetières-coiffeuses and merchant mercers over enjolivement in eighteenth-century Rouen’, French History, XX, 2023, pp. 1-19, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/crad040.

- ‘L’écriture libelliste chez Simon Linguet, entre le droit et les belles-lettres’, Pratiques et formes littéraires, n^o20, 2023 [online], DOI : 10.35562/pfl.608.

- ‘Le “grand procès” de la brochure et de la reliure au XVIII^e siècle : la littérature à livre ouvert’, Persistance de l’éphémère, ed. J-A Perras, Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France, vol. 121, n^o21, 2021, pp. 599-616, DOI: 10.48611/isbn.978-2-406-12082-7.p.0087.

- ‘La dangereuse odeur du neuf : l’insalubrité des plâtres et des vernis au XVIII^e siècle’, Table ronde domestiquer les odeurs : L’odorat et la construction de l’espace privé (XVIII^e-XIX^e siècles), Laurent Baridon and Érika Wicky (eds), Épistémocritique, n°19, Quelles sources pour l’histoire des sens, mars 2021, online.

- ‘Diseurs de riens. Le babil des brochures au XVIII^e siècle’, Babil, Hélène Boons (ed.), Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France, n^o2, 2020, pp. 351-364, DOI: 10.15122/ISBN.978-2-406-10565-7.P.0095.

- ‘La Réaction parfumée, les “petits musqués” de la Révolution’, Littérature, n^o185, 2017, pp. 24-38, DOI: 10.3917/litt.185.0024.

- ‘Usages et réformes : le Neveu de Rameau et les ambivalences de l’originalité’, Diderot Studies, vol. 35, 2017, pp. 293-315.

- ‘Politiques du frivole’, Le Divertissement, Revue Conférence, n^o42, spring 2016, pp. 171-82.

- ‘Voltaire entre deux âges : le “Catalogue des écrivains”’, Le premier Voltaire, Revue Voltaire, n^o16, 2016, pp. 57-73.

- ‘Le “Siècle de la frivolité”: sur l’invention d’un lieu commun au XVIII^e siècle’, Early Modern French Studies, vol. 37, n^o1, 2015, pp. 64-74, DOI: 10.1179/0265106815z.00000000054.

- ‘Genius as Commonplace in Early Modern France’, in Penser le génie à travers ses usages – Genius and its uses, Ann Jefferson, Jean-Alexandre Perras (eds), Esprit Créateur, vol. 55, n°2, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015, pp. 20-33, DOI: 10.1353/esp.2015.0027.

- ‘La sémiologie des odeurs au XIX^e siècle : du savoir médical à la norme sociale’, with Érika Wicky, Études françaises, vol. 49, n^o3, 2014, pp. 119-35, DOI: 10.7202/1021206ar.

- ‘L’Autre du génie : valeurs et usages du bizarre’, in Lumières du bizarre, revue Littérature, n^o169, Patrick Brasart and Patrick Wald Lasowski (eds), 2013, pp. 43-57, DOI: 10.3917/litt.169.0043.

- ‘Le génie à l’épreuve du sensualisme : l’invention chez Helvétius et Diderot’, Le génie créateur à l’aube de la modernité (1750-1850), Nathalie Kremer (ed.), Revue des sciences humaines, n^o303, 2011, pp. 17-40.

- ‘Les libertinages du génie’, Libertinage et littérature au XVII^e siècle, Richard Hodgson (ed.), “Libertinism and Literature in 17^th-century France”, Biblio 17. Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, 2009, pp. 217-32.

Sammelbände

- ‘La poudre et le petit-maître au XVIII^e siècle: parfum de gloire, parfum de ruelle’, in Mediality of Smells/Médialité des odeurs, J-A Perras and Érika Wicky (eds), Oxford, Peter Lang, 2021, pp. 61-87.

- ‘The Morality of Bilboquet, or the Equivocations of Language’, Modes of Play, Fayçal Falaky and Reginald McGuinnis (eds), Buknell University Press, 2021, pp. 24-47.

- ‘“Frivolité du luxe” et “luxe de frivolités”. Les usages du superflu’, in Contre le luxe (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles), Élise Pavy-Guilbert and Françoise Poulet (eds.), Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2020, pp. 351-365.

- ‘The Softness of the Petit-Maître and the Decay of Virtù’, in Vertu and the Enlightenment, James Fowler and Marine Ganofsky (eds), Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, 2020, pp. 139-53.

- ‘Génie’, in L’identité, dictionnaire encyclopédique, Jean Gayon and al. (eds), Paris, Gallimard, Folio, 2020, pp. 362-7.

- ‘Diderot et la pensée du continu : matière, temps, latus’, in Diderot. Le Génie des Lumières, Konstanze Baron and Robert Fajen (eds), Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2019, pp. 41-62.

- ‘Les cabrioles des boulevards’, in Le Siècle de la légèreté : émergences d’un paradigme du XVIIIe siècle français, Marine Ganofsky and Jean-Alexandre Perras (eds), Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, Liverpool University Press, 2019, pp. 195-214.

- ‘“Giroüettes à tous vents” : Le génie de la morale au XVII^e siècle’, in Entre vices et vertus, discours moral, invention littéraire et pensée esthétique, XV^e-XVIII^e siècle, Paris, Hermann, 2016.

- ‘Poétiques du papillotage : modes et brochures au XVIII^e siècle’, in Sociopoétique du costume, Carine Barbafieri and Alain Montandon (eds), Hermann, 2015, pp. 99-125.

Kritische Editionen

- François-Gabriel Coyer, The Discovery of the Island Frivola / La Découverte de l’île Frivole, Cambridge: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2022, DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv2w619zj

- Voltaire, Corpus des notes marginales de Voltaire / Supplément / Notes et écrits marginaux conservés hors de la Bibliothèque nationale de Russie, Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 145, Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, 2019.

- Présentation du « Catalogue des écrivains », avec Nicholas Cronk, in Introduction au Siècle de Louis XIV, Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, vol. 11, Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, 2019.

- Voltaire Catalogue des écrivains, with Nicholas Cronk, critical edition for the Complete Works of Voltaire, Voltaire foundation, 2017.

- Voltaire “De la frivolité”, with Jacqueline Hellegouarc’h, critical edition for the Complete Works of Voltaire, Voltaire foundation, 2017.

- Voltaire “Littérature”, critical edition, for the Complete Works of Voltaire, Voltaire foundation, 2016.