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Young Researchers' Study Day: 'Sociability and the Travelling Letter: Message, Medium, Mobility in Europe and the Colonies in the Long Eighteenth Century (1650-1850)'

2026-03-13

'Sociability and the Travelling Letter: Message, Medium, Mobility 
in Europe and the Colonies in the Long Eighteenth Century (1650-1850)'


Study Day for PhD Students and Early-Career Researchers

Friday 13 March 2026

Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines –Victor Segalen (room B001), 20 rue Duquesne, Brest

Organisé avec le soutien du laboratoire HCTI et du GIS Sociabilités 

Zoom link : https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86881525408?pwd=ZhlbsDZR06po3eZaIB5z3dt1N126u3.1

8h30-9h00 Welcome coffee 

9h00-9h15 Opening: Camille Manfredi (Université de Brest), Valérie Capdeville (GIS Sociabilités / Université Rennes 2) 

9h15-9h30 Introduction: Marilou Guen (Université de Brest) et Diana Rod (Université de Brest)

9h30-10h30 Session 1:  Epistolary Regimes: Desire, Separation and the Governance of Distance, chaired by Adnana Sava

  • Nina Pschar (Princeton University): The Mobility of a Manuscript: Writing Desire in Henriette-Julie de Murat’s Journal pour Mademoiselle de Menou
  • Wanyun Luo (Johns Hopkins University): Epistolary Celibacy in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters

Discussion 

10h45-11h45 Session 2 : Epistolary Negotiations:  Trust, Conflict and the Strains of Distance chaired by Diana Rod

  • Betsabé Petit (Université Paul Valéry Montpellier 3) : The Missing Letter: Epistolary Conflict and its Social Consequences in Eighteenth-Century England
  • Clara Dean (Sorbonne Université) : Loin des yeux, près du cœur ? The Sociabilities of Lord Glenbervie through his Correspondence during his Stay in Paris

Discussion 

12h00-13h30 Lunch break 

13h45-15h Session 3: War, Empire and the Material Conditions of Distance, chaired by Marilou Guen

  • Carlotta Sophie Crone (Oldenburg University): Keeping Ties across the Sea: The Letterbook of Shipmaster Henry Balthazar Duprat
  • Séverine Angers (The National Archives): I make no apology for the dirt of this note: Materiality and Emotions in the Letters of British Army Officers during the Peninsular War (1808-1814)
  • Anna Harrington (Birmingham University): ‘These hurried lines’: Conceptualising the Epistolary Engagements of British Imperial Families on the Indian Subcontinent as ‘Emotional Practices’, 1760-1840

Discussion 

15h00-15h30 Coffee break 

15h30-16h30 KEYNOTE LECTURE:

Dr. Louise Curran (Associate Professor in Romanticism and Eighteenth-Century English Literature at the University of Birmingham): ‘These Shadows of me, my Letters’: The Ghostly Forms of Pope’s Correspondence

Chair: Kimberley Page-Jones, (Université de Brest)

17h00 Group discussion and concluding remarks 

17h00-18h00 Afternoon tea

 

Scientific committee:

Valérie Capdeville (ACE, Rennes 2), Marilou Guen (HCTI, Brest), Alain Kerhervé (HCTI, Brest), Kimberley Page-Jones (HCTI, Brest), Diana Rod (CRBC & HCTI, Brest), Adnana Sava (HCTI, Brest)

Organisation committee:

Marilou Guen (HCTI, Brest), Lisa Raguénès (M1, TILE, Brest), Diana Rod (CRBC & HCTI, Brest), Adnana Sava (HCTI, Brest), Lilou Simonet (M1, TILE, Brest)

 

Download the full CFP in French and English

 

 

 

Affiche 13.03.26