Dr Ann Lewis
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Overview
Overview
Biography
Dr Lewis is Senior Lecturer in French Studies, specialising in eighteenth-century French literature and culture. Following a BA in French and History and M.St. European Literature at New College, Oxford, she completed her PhD at Queen Mary, University of London. She was awarded her Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at QMUL, and was appointed to a lectureship at Birkbeck in 2008 where she completed her ECF.
Nominated for the ‘Aurora Women into Leadership’ programme in 2015-16, she has held a number of Dept roles, including sub-board chair for French, programme director for various combined programmes, and she set up BA Comparative Literature & Culture in 2020. She is programme director for BA French Studies and Graduate Diploma French Studies, and from January 2023, she is programme director for our MA Modern Languages and Comparative Literatures.
Dr Lewis’s research has two strands, each at the intersection of French studies and other disciplines (whether text/image relations, illustration studies and adaptation on the one hand, or the representation of the figure of the prostitute at the crossover between literary analysis and cultural history on the other):
(1) Her first monograph Sensibility, Reading and Illustration: Spectacles and Signs in Graffigny, Marivaux and Rousseau (Legenda, 2009) provided a major new reading of the novel of sensibility, focusing on the textual evocation of the visual image alongside the prolific illustration of three bestselling novels of the Enlightenment. Her research on illustration has taken her in various new directions. A number of journal articles and book chapters articles explore illustrations as interpretations of literary works by focusing on specific themes (e.g. visual depictions of the family, incest, nature, seduction, bienfaisance). More recently, via various publications and projects, she has focused on illustrations as they function within the broader context of visual and material culture, often outside the book and independent of their text 'of origin' (for example, as ‘progresses’ within almanacs, as collectors’ items within extra-illustrated editions, and/or as art objects to be displayed in homes).
Following from this, she has organised a number of workshops and conferences more broadly interrogating the cross-over between adaptation, intermediality and illustration, and opening avenues in these emerging areas, resulting in a co-edited special issue of the Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies: Picturing the Eighteenth-Century Novel through Time: Illustration, Intermediality and Adaptation (with Christina Ionescu, December 2016) and the first volume in the new Legenda series Transcript: Adapting the Canon: Mediation, Visualisation, Interpretation (co-edited with Silke Arnold-de Simine, Legenda, first published in 2020, now out in paperback). Following an online workshop in April 2022, she has co-organised a major international conference at Birkbeck and the IMLR in April 2023, with the research network Illustr4tio: ‘Illustration Studies: New Approaches, New Directions’. Each of these collections and projects is comparative, bringing together work across national and linguistic boundaries where this has traditionally not been the approach.
(2) The second strand of Dr Lewis’s research is a book-length project on the figure of the prostitute in eighteenth-century France, started during the tenure of her Leverhulme Early Career fellowship. This is a slow-burn project, due to the wealth of material encompassed, and the interdisciplinary approach. She co-edited a volume exploring eighteenth-century prostitution across cultures within the eighteenth-century (with Markman Ellis): Prostitution and Eighteenth-Century Culture: Sex, Commerce and Morality (Pickering and Chatto, 2012), has been invited to speak on this topic in various fora and has published a number of chapters and articles developing aspects of the topic (including ‘Classifying the Prostitute in Eighteenth-Century France’, ‘Venality, Theatricality and the Dark Side of Sociability: Le Neveu de Rameau as a Prostitution Narrative’, and, in preparation, ‘The Oldest Profession: Métier, Prostitution and the Working Woman in Mercier and Rétif de la Bretonne’).
Highlights
Conference April 2023: 'Illustration Studies: New Directions, New Approaches', a major international conference co-organised by Ann Lewis and Christina Ionescu with the Illustr4tio network, at Birkbeck and the IMLR, 19-21 April 2023
Just published in paperback: Adapting the Canon: Mediation, Visualization, Interpretation, co-edited by Ann Lewis and Silke Arnold-de Simine (Legenda, 2020)
Invited speaker (October 2022): 'Les gravures de Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse: décor de chambre et almanachs ’ - at 'Vivre la fiction: La littérature par ses appropriations au quotidien (XVIIIe – XXe siècles', 5-6 October 2022, MSH Paris Nord, Saint-Denis.
Just published: 'Extra-illustrating Rousseau's 'Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse': The Case of the Defer de Maisonneve Edition (1793-1800)' in Journal of Illustration, 8:2 (December 2021) 251-280 (https://doi.org/10.1386/jill_00042_1)
Qualifications
- BA Joint Honours History and French, University of Oxford
- M. St. in European Literature, University of Oxford
- PhD in French Literature, Queen Mary, University of London
- PGC-HE (with distinction), Fellow of the HEA, Advance HE (formerly HEA)
Administrative responsibilities
- From January 2023: Programme Director and Admissions Tutor, MA Modern Languages and Comparative Literatures
- Programme Director and Admissions Tutor, BA French Studies and Graduate Diploma (French Studies)
- Programme Director, BA Comparative Literature & Culture
Professional activities
General Editor of the MHRA New Translations and European Translations series (October 2020-ongoing), and French editor.
Member of the executive committee, AUPHF+ (Association of University Professors and Heads of French +) from 1 January 2023-
Member of the managing committee of the MHRA (Modern Humanities Research Organisation) and trustee. (From 2013-2017, I was Officer with responsibility for MHRA conferences, and co-organised two major conferences while in this role; from 2017-2021, I was Conference Fund Officer).
External Examiner (French) at KCL (September 2020-ongoing)
Regular peer reviewer for 'French Studies' journal (Society for French Studies)
Co-convenor of the Illustr4tio Network: an international research group focusing on illustration studies
Co-director, Birkbeck Eighteenth-Century Research Group, with Luisa Calè (English), Kate Retford (History of Art) and Emily Senior (English). This interdisciplinary forum brings together researchers from across a number of departments at Birkbeck to consolidate research interests in common, and to foster dialogue across disciplinary specialisations. The group's activities combine termly reading group seminars, allowing for informal discussion of work-in-progress, with a series of public lectures, workshops and international conferences. Listen to some of our recent podcasts.
Professional memberships
Member of the Advisory Editorial Board of the Book Practices & Textual Itineraries series (Presses Universitaires Nancy, Éditions Universitaires de Lorraine)
Member, Society for French Studies
Member of the HEA
Member of the IMLR Advisory Council (2017-2020)
Member, IAWIS/IERTI (International Association of Word and Image Studies/Association Internationale pour l'Étude des Rapports entre Texte et Image)
Member, British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (BSECS)
Honours and awards
- Aurora: Women into Leadership scheme, Leadership Foundation (now Advance HE), November 2016
- Haydn Mason lecture, British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, November 2012
- Ronald Tress prize, Birkbeck, University of London, November 2012
- Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, Leverhulme Trust, November 2009
ORCID
0000-0003-3236-4872 -
Research
Research
Research interests
- French literature & culture in the eighteenth century
- Sensibility and sentimentalism in eighteenth-century culture
- Text/image relations, book illustration, adaptation, and intermediality
- Representation of prostitutes and prostitution in eighteenth-century France
Research overview
Dr Ann Lewis’s research and teaching interests are in the field of 18th-century French literature and culture and in various forms of word and image relations (especially illustrations of 18th-century French fiction).
Her monograph Sensibility, Reading and Illustration: Spectacles and Signs in Graffigny, Marivaux and Rousseau was published by Legenda in July 2009, and she has co-edited several collections focusing on illustration, adaptation and intermediality, including: Adapting the Canon: Mediation, Visualisation, Interpretation, ed. by Ann Lewis and Silke Arnold-de Simine, (Legenda, 2020) and Picturing the Eighteenth-Century Novel Through Time: Illustration, Intermediality and Adaptation, a guest-edited special issue of JECS (Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies), ed. by Ann Lewis and Christina Ionescu, 39:4 (December 2016).
Her current book-length research project, started during the tenure of her Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, focuses on the representation of the figure of the prostitute in 18th-century France, adopting an interdisciplinary perspective. (She co-edited a collection of articles bringing together a variety of approaches to the topic of prostitution in different national contexts in the eighteenth century Prostitution and Eighteenth-Century Culture: Sex, Commerce and Morality, co-edited with Markman Ellis (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2012.)
Conferences and workshops organised:
- Illustration Studies: New Approaches, New Directions, international conference, with Illustr4tio network at Birkbeck and the IMLR (April 2023)
- Picturing the C18 Novel Through Time: Illustration, Intermediality and Adaptation, day-long workshop within the BSECS annual conference, co-organised with Christina Ionescu (St Hugh's Oxford, January 2016);
- Have You Heard...? Navigating the Interstices Between Public and Private Knowledge, MHRA conference (at the IMLR, October 2016);
- Adapting the Canon, MHRA/Legenda conference (at the IMLR, October 2014);
- Visions of the 'Coming Community', co-organised with Andrew Asibong, Damian Catani, Akane Kawakami and Nathalie Wourm, (Birkbeck, 2011);
- Venal Bodies: Prostitutes and Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century Culture, co-organised with Markman Ellis (at the IGRS, 4 April 2009).
Research Centres and Institutes
- Co-founder and co-convenor, Eighteenth-Century Research Group
- Steering Group member, Birkbeck Centre for French, Francophone and Comparative Studies
- Co-director/steering group member, Illustr4tio
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Supervision
I am happy to discuss PhD/MPhil/MA proposals relating to eighteenth-century French literature and culture in all areas related to my research interests.
I currently co-supervise two research students:
- Kirsten Tambling 'A Wanton Kind of Chase: Watteau and Hogarth', working title (co-supervised with Dr Kate Retford, History of Art)
- Miki Jablkowska 'The Reception and Cultural Adaptation of Voltaire in Eighteenth-Century Poland, with particular reference to the Press', working title (co-supervised with Prof. Robin Howells).
Doctoral alumni since 2013-14
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KIRSTEN TAMBLING
Teaching
BA COURSES
I teach on the full range of comparative and French modules offered at BA level (available on BA French Studies, Modern Languages, and all combined and associated programmes). I am also convenor of several modules at Levels 5 and 6 (see below):
Imagining France (co-teacher, 30-credit, Level 4, team-taught French module). My section: "Imagining the Outsider's View in Eighteenth-Century France": L'Ingénu (Voltaire) and Lettres d'une Péruvienne (Graffigny)];
Masterpieces of French Literature & Culture from the Enlightenment to the Present Day (convenor and co-teacher, 30-credit, Level 5, team-taught French module). My section: 'Eighteenth-Century Masterpieces: Les Liaisons dangereuses and Le Mariage de Figaro'.
Reading the Signs: Text and Image in French Culture (convenor, and co-teacher, 30-credit, Level 5 French module). My section: "Diderot's Encyclopédie and its Plates: Embodying Knowledge".
Voice, Identity Gender: Women' Writing in French (co-teacher, 30 credit team-taught French module, Levels 5 and 6). My section: Histoire d'Ernestine (Riccoboni) and Ourika (Claire de Duras)
Fictions of Enlightenment (convenor, and sole teacher, 15-credit French module, Level 6)
Sensibility and Sociability in the Eighteenth-Century French Novel (convenor, and sole teacher, 15-credit French module, Level 6)
Reading Text and Image in he Eighteenth Century: Diderot and the Tableau (convenor, and sole teacher, 15-credit French module, Level 6)
Comparative culture modules:
Reading Transnational Cultures (from 2022, convenor, and co-teacher, team-taught comparative culture module) - Level 5 [my section: "Enlightenment Perspectives: Montesquieu's Persian Letters and Voltaire's Letters Concerning the English Nation"]
Representations of Gender, Love & Sexuality (co-teacher, team-taught comparative culture module) - Level 5/6 [my section: "Love, Desire & the Novel of Sensibility": France and Germany]
MA COURSES
I teach sections on a number of core and optional MA modules for the MA Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, including:
Interrogating the Self [my section: on three autobiographical texts by Rousseau: Les Confessions, Dialogues: Rousseau, juge de Jean-Jacques, Les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire]
Reading Across Cultures [my section on: Richardson's Pamela and Graffigny's Lettres d'une Peruvienne],
French Studies strand (Self, Sexuality and Identity) [my section: Rousseau's Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes and Diderot's Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville]
Time, Memory and the Novel [my section, on Rousseau's Julie, ou La Nouvelle Heloise']; and previously, a French module 'Health and Illness' [my section: on representations of prostitution in three novels - from the c18, c19 and c20]).
Teaching modules
- Studying Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies in Modern Languages (ARCL059S7)
- Research Skills Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern Languages) (ARCL061Z7)
- Interrogating the Self (ARCL066S7)
- French 4 (Level 4) (ARCL106S4)
- Fictions of Enlightenment (Level 5) (ARCL134H5)
- Culture and Image (ARLL009S4)
- Culture and Text (ARLL010S4)
- Comparative Themes in the Novel (ARLL012S5)
- Representations of Gender, Love and Sexuality (Level 5) (LNLN024S5)
- Masterpieces of French Literature and Culture from the Eighteenth Century to Postmodernity (Level 5) (LNLN026S5)
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Lewis, Ann (2021) Extra-illustrating Rousseau’s 'Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse': the case of the Defer de Maisonneuve edition (1793–1800). Journal of Illustration Studies 8 (2), pp. 251-280. ISSN 2052-0204.
- Lewis, Ann (2016) Intermedial approaches to Marivaux’s 'La Vie de Marianne': text, illustration, film. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 39 (4), pp. 621-642. ISSN 1754-0194.
- Lewis, Ann (2008) Sex, sensibility and sociability: illustrating Marivaux's 'La Vie de Marianne' in the eighteenth century. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 31 (3), pp. 331-375. ISSN 1754-0194.
- Lewis, Ann (2007) Illustrations as reactions: three nineteenth-century readings of 'La Nouvelle Héloïse'. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (SVEC) 2007 (6), pp. 103-32. ISSN 0435-2866.
- Lewis, Ann (2004) La sensibilité dans les 'Lettres d¹une Péruvienne': expérience esthétique, modèle de la communication. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 2004 (12), ISSN 0435-2866.
Book
- Lewis, Ann and Arnold-de Simine, Silke, eds. (2020) Adapting the canon: mediation, visualisation, interpretation. Oxford, UK: Legenda. ISBN 9781781887080.
- Lewis, Ann and Ionescu, C., eds. (2016) Picturing the Eighteenth-Century Novel through time: illustration, intermediality and adaptation. Wiley.
- Lewis, Ann and Ellis, M., eds. (2012) Prostitution and eighteenth-century culture: sex, commerce and morality. London, UK: Pickering & Chatto. ISBN 9781848931343.
- Lewis, Ann (2009) Sensibility, reading and illustration: spectacles and signs in Graffigny, Marivaux and Rousseau. Main Series. Oxford, UK: Legenda. ISBN 9781905981960.
- Bolton, L. and Kimber, G. and Lewis, Ann and Seabrook, M., eds. (2007) Framed! Essays in French studies. Modern French Identities. 61, Oxford, UK: Peter Lang. ISBN 9783039110438.
Book Section
- Lewis, Ann (2024) Adapting novel illustrations for the almanac: text/image relations in Chodowiecki’s illustrations for Rousseau’s 'Julie'. In: Stokes-Aymes, S. and Wells-Lassagne, S. (eds.) Illustration, Adaptation, and Intermediality: New Cartographies. Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 69-94. ISBN 9783031321337.
- Lewis, Ann and Arnold-de Simine, Silke (2020) Introduction. In: Lewis, Ann and Arnold-de Simine, Silke (eds.) Adapting the Canon: Mediation, Visualisation, Interpretation. Oxford, UK: Legenda. pp. 1-18. ISBN 9781781887080.
- Lewis, Ann (2019) Texte, légende et image dans sept illustrations de 'La Nouvelle Heloïse': autour de Julie et son père. In: Augustyn, J. and Dubost, J.P. and Sasson, S.J. (eds.) Penser et (d)écrire l'illustration: Le rapport à l'image dans la littérature des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. Révolutions et romantismes. Clermont-Ferrand, France: Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal. pp. 79-106. ISBN 9782845168831.
- Lewis, Ann (2017) Text on image on text: picturing “nature” in Schall’s illustrations for Rousseau’s Julie ou 'La Nouvelle Héloïse'. In: Beck, L. and Ionescu, C. (eds.) Visualizing the Text: From Manuscript Culture to the Age of Caricature. Newark, U.S.: University of Delaware Press. pp. 117-142. ISBN 9781644530276.
- Lewis, Ann (2016) Venality, theatricality, and the dark side of sociability: 'Le Neveu de Rameau' as a prostitution narrative. In: Hanrahan, J. and Pierse, S. (eds.) The Dark Side of Diderot / Le Diderot des ombres. French Studies of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang. pp. 87-110. ISBN 9783034318488.
- Lewis, Ann (2014) Sensibilité, spectacle et séduction dans 'La Vie de Marianne'. In: Magnot-Ogilvy, F. (ed.) Nouvelles lectures de 'La Vie de Marianne': une 'dangereuses petite fille'. Le dix-huitième siècle. Paris, France: Classiques Garnier. pp. 255-272. ISBN 9782812432392.
- Ellis, M. and Lewis, Ann (2012) Introduction: Venal bodies - prostitutes and Eighteenth-Century culture. In: Lewis, Ann and Ellis, M. (eds.) Prostitution and Eighteenth-Century Culture: Sex, Commerce and Morality. The Body, Gender and Culture. London UK and Vermont, US: Pickering & Chatto. pp. 1-16. ISBN 9781138661509.
- Lewis, Ann (2012) Classifying the prostitute in eighteenth-century France. In: Lewis, Ann and Ellis, M. (eds.) Prostitution and Eighteenth-Century Culture: Sex, Commerce and Morality. The Body, Gender and Culture. London: Pickering & Chatto. pp. 17-32. ISBN 9781848931343.
- Lewis, Ann (2012) 'Une tâche ineffaçable?' Rétif's representation of the prostitute in 'Le Pornographe' and 'La Paysanne pervertie'. In: Arnaud, S. and Jordheim, H. (eds.) Le Corps et ses images dans l'Europe du dix-huitième siècle/The Body and its Images in Eighteenth-Century Europe. International Eighteenth-Century Studies. Paris, France: Champion. pp. 49-71. ISBN 9782745322678.
- Lewis, Ann (2007) Introduction: reading and writing the frame. In: Bolton, L. and Kimber, G. and Lewis, Ann and Seabrook, M. (eds.) Framed! Essays in French Studies. Modern French Identities. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang. pp. 11-34. ISBN 9783039110438.
- Lewis, Ann (2007) Mme Riccoboni au XIXe siècle, une enquête péritextuelle. In: Herman, J. and Pelckmans, P. and Peeters, K. (eds.) Mme Riccoboni: romancière, épistolière, traductrice. La République des Lettres. Paris, France and Leuven, Belgium: Peeters. pp. 303-320. ISBN 9789042919822.
- Lewis, Ann (2003) Rereading the forbidden in 'La Nouvelle Héloïse'. In: Facques, B. and Roberts, H. and Roberts, H. (eds.) Reading and Writing the Forbidden: Essays in French Studies. Reading, UK: 2001 Group. ISBN 954685404.
Conference Item
- Lewis, Ann (2022) Working women in Mercier's 'Tableau de Paris': defining prostitution. Women and Work across the 18th-century Francophone Globe, 2022, Dublin, Ireland
- Lewis, Ann (2022) Les gravures de 'Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse' hors le livre: décor de chambre et almanachs. Vivre la fiction: La littérature par ses appropriations au quotidien (XVIIIe – XXe siècles), 2022, Saint-Denis, France
- Lewis, Ann (2021) Family connections: sentimental 'tableaux' and the figure of the mother in 'Werther' and 'Julie'. Birkbeck Arts Week: Exploring the Family through Comparative Literature, 2021, Birkbeck College, London, UK (online)
- Lewis, Ann (2019) Adapting illustration for the almanach: text/image relations in Daniel-Nicolas Chodowiecki's illustrations for Rousseau's 'Julie, ou La Nouvelle Héloïse'. Illustration and Adaptation, 2019, Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France
- Lewis, Ann (2019) Framing the sentimental topos: illustrating the novel of sensibility in a transnational context (Germany and France). International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference, 2019, University of Edinburgh
- Lewis, Ann (2018) Rousseau, Diderot, class and prostitution. Society for French Studies Annual Conference, 2018, University of Cork, Ireland
- Lewis, Ann (2018) Extra-illustrating Rousseau's 'Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse': the case of the Defer de Maisonneuve edition (1793-1800). The Unique Copy: Extra Illustration, Word and Image, and Print Culture, 2018, Herzog August Library, Wolfenbuttel, Germany
- Lewis, Ann (2016) The time of reading and reading time: Schall's 1790s illustrations for Rousseau's 'Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse'. Society for Early Modern French Studies 39th Annual Conference, 2016, Oxford, UK
- Lewis, Ann (2014) Moreau le jeune's two series of illustrations for Rousseau's 'Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse'. Illustration et construction du récit, 2014, Paris, France
- Lewis, Ann (2013) Text on image on text: Schall's illustrations for Rousseau's 'Julie'. Text on Image, Image on Text (1450-1789), 2013, Sackville, Canada
- Lewis, Ann (2012) "Picturing Nature": landscape and memory in Illustrations for Rousseau's 'Julie, ou la Nouvelle Héloïse'. British Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies conference "Landscapes & Environments", 2012, Oxford, UK
- Lewis, Ann (2011) Écrire l'illustration? les rapports de force entre texte, légende et image dans deux séries de gravures pour 'La nouvelle Héloïse'. Journée d'étude: Écrire l'illustration, 2011, Clermont-Ferrand, France
- Lewis, Ann (2011) Marivaux's 'La Vie de Marianne': text, illustration, film. Influence: Shifting Boundaries, 2011, Paris, France
- Lewis, Ann (2010) Julie and her father: troubling intimacies in Rousseau's 'La Nouvelle Héloïse' and its illustrations. Writings of Intimacy, 2010, Loughborough, UK
- Lewis, Ann (2010) Re-viewing the text: text and image in illustrated editions of 'Julie'. 'Adorn'd with Cuts': The Illustrated Book in the Eighteenth Century, 2010, Alton, UK
- Lewis, Ann (2007) Bodies for sale: Restif de la Bretonne and the representation of the Prostitute. The body and its images : health, humours, illnesses, 2007, Montpellier, France
- Lewis, Ann (2006) Relire Mme Riccoboni au dix-neuvième siècle: une enquête péritextuelle. Mme Riccoboni: une diversité décontractée, 2006, Louvain-Anvers, Belgium
Editorial
- Ionescu, C. and Lewis, Ann (2016) Introduction. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 39 (4), pp. 479-487. Wiley-Blackwell. ISSN 1754-0194.