Newsletter No 36  November 2003

 Call for Submissions: 

Emilie de Breteuil, Marquise Du Châtelet, and Her Worlds

A collection of essays to appear as a special number of SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), scheduled for publication in early 2006, the year of the tercentenary of Du Châtelet’s birth.

 For the volume we are seeking articles that deal specifically with Du  Châtelet’s writings, such as her clandestine works (Examen of the Old and New Testament, her Discours sur le bonheur, her translation of Mandeville), and those she published (her Institutions de physique, the controversy with Dortous de Mairan, her Dissertation sur la nature du feu, her commentary on and translation of Newton’s Principia). We also want submissions that analyze different aspects of her life: her validation strategies as a learned woman, her place as a natural philosopher, her immediate circle of family, friends, and mentors. 

 We are also interested in pieces that explore aspects of the “worlds” in which she lived from 1706-49, such topics as the court and patronage system (Versailles and Lorraine), the military (for example, the duc de Richelieu or the marquis de Saint-Lambert), noblewomen and the legal system, financing the privileged life, scientific academies and correspondence networks, the life and amusements of the privileged in Paris, gender and sexuality in the Republic of Letters, the theater and the court, women and the periodical press, consumption and material culture (for example, analyses of noblewomen’s inventories).  Although Du Châtelet would be the focus of these submissions, they would offer readers information about the circumstances in which she lived and the ways in which her experiences were or were not representative of her times. These contributions might be concerned with conditions in France alone or offer a comparative perspective. 

 1-2 page abstracts by November 1, 2003; finished articles by 1 June 2004.

 Judith P. Zinsser, Professor of History, Department of History, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056
Tel. 513-529-5121 Fax. 513-529-3224        zinssejp@muohio.edu  

Julie Candler Hayes, Professor of French, Chair, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, University of Richmond, Richmond VA 23173
Tel: 804-289-8096 Fax:    804-287-6446      jhayes@richmond.edu