Female Educators and Enlightenment: the example of Marie Leprince de Beaumont – EDULUM

To make better known the role played by Marie Leprince de Beaumont in the European movement of Enlightenment, it is important to provide researchers with appropriate search tools. Thus three series of actions are led: the undertaking of an edition of the works of the educator; several academic dissertations; conferences and symposiums, which results shall be published. Besides it is essential to promote with general public, in particular school, the thought, the action and the work of Marie Leprince de Beaumont. A web site, including a virtual exhibition, has to make available to the largest number a high quality information about the author. The whole project takes advantage from the former cooperation between the partners, in particular around the French-German Master-PhD Track «European Cultures of the communication since the time of Enlightenment«. Periodical meetings between the partners, to Nancy (MSH of Lorraine) or to Augsburg, allow to draw balance-sheets, and thus contribute to the advance of the project.

The workshop at the Enlightenment annual Congress in Rotterdam (July 27-31st, 2015), entitled «Book trade, circulation of knowledge: the case Leprince de Beaumont«, took place as expected. The dissertation on Leprince of Beaumont, started before the beginning of the project by one of the members, Ramona Herz-Gazeau, under the partnership of both universities of Augsburg and of Lorraine, under the aegis of the UFA and under R. von Kulessa and C. Seth’s direction, was defended on November 30th 2015. The one-day-conference on «Religion and Reason« was transformed into a successful international colloquium («Light of Faith, Lights of Reason. The religious feminine education in debate in the XVIIIth Century«, Metz, March 14-15th 2016). The acts will be published. The publication of The Triumph of the Truth, held by Master degree students, has been achieved (text-entering, annotations). A collective volume was prepared from the papers that were given during the second colloquium Leprince de Beaumont (Augsburg, December 19-20th 2013). Its publication by Classiques Garnier Publisher, under the title An Enlightenment Female Educator, is imminent. Several publications and participations in colloquiums given by the members of the team, which was widened, are to be added.

Explained during the recent international Enlightenment Congress in Rotterdam (July, 2015), the project aroused a deep interest among the scientific community. New links were set with an American colleague, Dr Peggy Elliott Schaller (Georgia College and State University), who now enters the project. The committed works continue: finalization of the web site for autumn 2017; editions of texts to come (Leprince de Beaumont, The Triumph of the Truth and Moral Tales); acts of the colloquiums of Augsburg (December 2013) and of Metz (March 2016) in preparation; two other dissertation defenses are planned. New events have been scheduled: workshop 8 at Frankoromanistentag (Saarbrücken, September 2016), the one-day-conference «Fiction and Knowledge by Leprince de Beaumont” (Augsburg, March 2017).

In preparation : An educator of the Enlightenment. Marie Leprince de Beaumont.
International Congress of the Enlightenment (Rotterdam 2015)
International symposium Religion and Reason (Metz 2016)
In preparation : Enlightenment-Anti Enlightenment, as part of Symposium of the Francoromanistes allemands (Sept. 2016, Sarrebruck)
In preparation : Next international symposium : Fiction and knowledge in the work of Marie Leprince de Beaumont

Ramona Herz, « Le triomphe de la vérité et Les Américaines. Lecture comparative de deux romans apologétiques de Marie Leprince de Beaumont », Isabelle Tremblay (éd.), Les Lumières catholiques en roman, Oxford University Studies, in press.
R. von Kulessa, « Marie Leprince de Beaumont Le Magasin des adolescentes : Ein Klassiker der französischen Erziehungsliteratur des 18. Jahrhunderts », G. Butzer/H. Zapf (éds.), Große Werke der Literatur, Bd. XIII, Tübingen, Francke Verlag, 2015, p. 49-65.
3. R. von Kulessa (dir.), Démocratisation et diversification. Les littératures d'éducation au siècle des Lumières, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2015.
Article from Catriona Seth for Normands de Plume, special issue of Etudes normandes (in press)

Taking Marie Leprince de Beaumont as its starting point, the project entitled EDULUM (Female Educators and Enlightenment: the example of Marie Leprince de Beaumont) aims to reflect on the role of women as authors and educators in the European movement of the Enlightenment.
At once a novelist, a journalist, an educator, Marie Leprince de Beaumont (1711-1780) is one of the best known authors in France and Europe in the 18th century. Numerous translations of her educational texts, in particular her Magasins bear witness to this. Despite the considerable influence she had during her lifetime (and beyond), through her writings, her life and work have been largely ignored by researchers. In all her books, one can read her faith in progress and the perfectibility of mankind, and she took part actively in a movement for the diffusion of knowledge which the Encyclopaedists also illustrate. She also defended the rights of women to knowledge and intellectual equality. She addressed questions like social hierarchy, equality and liberty. Marie Leprince de Beaumont is thus fully a participant in the different intellectual and religious debates of her century. To date, however, she has usually been associated with adversaries of the Enlightenment because of the connection of some of her work to apologetics and the promotion of Christianity. In reality, she invites us to question the traditional opposition between defenders and adversaries of the Enlightenment which has been the common approach in French historiography in particular. She thus offers an opportunity to analyse the role of women authors/educators (Félicité de Genlis would be another example) in Enlightenment thought and its diffusion in Europe.
Thanks to the different scientific gatherings, the planned editions and research, the project will afford an opportunity to put an important 18th-century woman author back into the limelight. It will allow us to revise the literary canon by including a field currently neglected by research. One of the project’s specificities is to be aimed at once at specialists of the Enlightenment and of educational writings, and to a wider public, including that of schoolchildren and college students, thanks to planned collaborations with teachers and to the preparation of an online exhibition. There will also be occasions for M.A. students to take an active part in our research by their implication in tasks like establishing texts and participating in the preparation of the planned critical editions of Leprince de Beaumont’s texts. At the same time, our transcultural approach of the author will enable us, as researchers, to reflect on the respective conceptualisations of the Enlightenment in France and in Germany. Our Franco-German team will bring together two complementary scientific traditions which will be consolidated by our international collaborations.