The Editors of French Historical Studies would like to issue a call for
papers for a special edition of the journal on "Interdisciplinary
Perspectives on French Literature and History." This forum responds to
an increased interest in recent years among historians and literary
scholars in the many ways that French literature and history intersect.
Given the importance of literature and literary traditions in French
history, the elevated status of writers in French public life, the
global reach of French language and literature, and the historical
relationship between the French state and literature, it seems fitting
that FHS provide a forum for French literary scholars and historians to
consider connections between literature and history from their different
disciplinary perspectives. Papers on both the early modern and modern
periods are welcome.

For the early modern period, submissions would ideally address such
themes as: the relationship of writers or savants to established
institutions, such as court, academy and salon; gens de lettres and
their public; the Republic of Letters as both an ideal and a reality;
patrons and writers; hierarchies and status among writers and savants;
the question of the literary "field"; quarrels and controversies among
writers; and the like.

Themes relevant to the modern era include the following: politics and
engagement in literary production; gender and the emergence of women as
writers; popular literature or paralittérature and issues of methodology
in the analysis of comics, detective fiction, and the like; literary
representations of French and Francophone history; literature, writers,
and the publishing industry; race, identity, and the status of writers
in French and Francophone communities.

Though it is assumed that many, if not most, contributions will focus on
single writers and specific periods, articles that cross chronological
boundaries and cover an assortment of writers will be welcome. Guest
editors Robert Schneider (for the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries) and Whitney Walton (for the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries) welcome inquiries about potential submissions. In accordance
with the guidelines of French Historical Studies, articles can be in
English or French.