Books by Nick Treuherz
his volume presents all of Voltaire’s poetry for which a year of composition is unknown. It is co... more his volume presents all of Voltaire’s poetry for which a year of composition is unknown. It is composed exclusively of short pieces which provide an opportunity to study the place of shorter verse in Voltaire’s corpus. Voltaire’s impromptus, odes and epistles were often penned on specific occasions and given as gifts to friends and acquaintances, some well known, like Madame du Châtelet, others much more mysterious. As the author’s reputation grew these short pieces became sought-after commodities: people would save them, and some would be copied and circulated to the wider public.
Book Reviews by Nick Treuherz
Modern Language Review, January 2014, Vol. 109 Issue 1, p250
European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, Oct 2014
Conference Presentations by Nick Treuherz
Papers by Nick Treuherz
Radical Voices, Radical Ways, 2017
Nicholas Treuherz first looks at the bibliographical data in terms of translations, sales and cir... more Nicholas Treuherz first looks at the bibliographical data in terms of translations, sales and circulation of d’Holbach’s works as well as press reactions to them. After a thorough description of his methodological approach, he analyses the results of his data processing. He argues that multiple intellectual networks and friendships could have potentially allowed d’Holbach’s texts to penetrate British markets. Then, Treuherz examines how d’Holbach’s texts were read by describing four case studies of British radicals whose reading of the French philosopher’s works was instrumental in circulating his ideas in Britain: William Godwin, Dr John Jebbs, Joseph Priestley and William Hodgson. This review allows Treuherz to shed light on the adjustment of French notions of radicalism to a British context.
French Studies, 2015
opines that ‘c’est bien l’absence d’Usbek qui donne au roman de sérail sa dynamique narrative’ (p... more opines that ‘c’est bien l’absence d’Usbek qui donne au roman de sérail sa dynamique narrative’ (p. 18). Stewart notes that his absence in France lasts seven years: the Persian knows that he may never return home (p. 33), and would never employ his ‘lumières occidentales’ (p. 36) to reform his own society. He (and indeed Rica) might be considered ‘immigrés’ (p. 41). Gianni Iotti categorizes Usbek as ‘à mi-chemin entre la conception classique du conflit entre raison et passions et la conception moderne du rapport entre expérience et connaissance’ (p. 128). Srinivas Aravamudan claims that Usbek is concerned with public honour rather than private virtue (p. 166). Catherine VolpilhacAuger dismisses the oft-repeated assertion of a schizophrenic Usbek who is ‘despote dans le sérail et partisan de la liberté partout ailleurs’ and unable to recognize this contradiction (p. 64). Her primary focus, however, is on the lack of visual elements in the text where the travellers are more interested in the ‘spectacle des hommes’ (p. 59) than the evocation of Parisian spaces. In passing she observes that, in its depiction of the black eunuch, this work may be the first ‘dans l’histoire de la littérature française où un noir parle comme un homme et révèle une telle profondeur’ (p. 52). Mary McAlpin argues that, in the final letter of the novel (in position but not date), Roxane makes a case for the power of natural sexuality rather than a statement of revolt, political, feminist, or otherwise (p. 92). For Myrtille Méricam-Bourdet, the work investigates the negative impact of the French obsession with ‘esprit’, which creates a society that is ‘une vaste mascarade’ (p. 106). Franck Salaün remarks that seemingly natural reactions derive from culturally determined habits and declares that Montesquieu is ‘l’un des premiers à considérer la question des mœurs comme la question centrale de la science de l’homme’ (pp. 113–14). Given the problems affecting the transmission, reception, and impact of letters, Suzanne Pucci acknowledges that they ‘ne comblent la distance spatiale, ni temporelle, ni émotionnelle’ (p. 200). Gustave Lanson termed Voltaire’s Lettres philosophiques (1734) the ‘première bombe lancée contre l’Ancien régime’ (Voltaire (Paris: Hachette, 1906), p. 52). Judging from the contents of this volume such an evaluation could equally well have been applied to Les Lettres persanes (1721). Contributors offer well-informed observations, having fulfilled Usbek’s aim in the first letter to ‘chercher laborieusement la sagesse’.
European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire, 2014
Roche, who evidences 'the importance of Sparta in the educational ideology of the Adolf Hitler Sc... more Roche, who evidences 'the importance of Sparta in the educational ideology of the Adolf Hitler Schools', where Spartans were described as Pimpfe, i.e. as 10-to 14-year-old members of the 'Hitler Youth'. Her contribution is an abbreviated preliminary version of the section on the same subject which can now to be found in her exhaustive study on Sparta's German children. The ideal of ancient Sparta in the Royal Prussian Cadet Corps, 1818-1920 and in National-Socialist elite schools (the Napolas), 1933-1945, published by the Classical Press of Wales in 2013. The fourth and final part covers Cold War politics and contemporary popular culture. Stephen Hodkinson presents a seminal study of 'Sparta and the Soviet Union in U.S. Cold War Foreign Policy and Intelligence Analysis', explicating that Sparta as a tough militaristic but economically instable society was a central model for interpreting the Soviet Union after the end of the Second World War. He rightly stresses that the 'separation between intelligence and academic analyses highlights once again the extent to which the uses of the Sparta-Soviet analogy [. .. ] were rooted in contemporary politics, especially in changing trends in U.S. foreign policy' (p. 379). The two final papers by Lynn S. Fotheringham ('The Positive Portrayal of Sparta in Late-Twentieth-Century Fiction'), focusing on Stephen Pressfield's Gates of fire and Frank Miller's 300, and Gideon Nisbet ('"This is Cake-Town!" 300 (2006) and the Death of Allegory'), dealing with Zack Synder's famous 2006 film 300, based on Miller's graphic novel, and the consumer reactions on YouTube, illustrate the fragmented perception of the Spartan tradition in modern society and an individualised reception of the historical exemplum in popular culture. After Le mirage spartiate by Franc ois Ollier (2 vols., 1933-43), which comprehended the idealisation of Sparta during Classical Antiquity, and Elizabeth Rawson's groundbreaking book The Spartan tradition in European thought (1969; repr. 1991), which is still the unsurpassed survey, this volume is an informative and substantive, and hence most welcome, study of the appropriation and presentation of ancient Sparta in the European tradition in comparative perspective.
This article asks if the role of the Enlightenment philosopher was, as understood by contemporari... more This article asks if the role of the Enlightenment philosopher was, as understood by contemporaries, to work against elites, or to underpin them. Concentrating particularly on the arch-elitist Frederick the Great and his court philosophers, we will track the notion of the elite and their position as holders of truth and enlighteners. The central tenet of the debate will concern the notion of lying to the masses and the utility of truth. It will be shown that advocacy of absolute truth was rare and often dissimulated by philosophers keen to avoid censure. This dividing line will be used to show the cultural transfer of Francophone debates to the German intellectual sphere.
Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2014
This article asks if the role of the Enlightenment philosopher was, as understood by contemporari... more This article asks if the role of the Enlightenment philosopher was, as understood by contemporaries, to work against elites, or to underpin them. Concentrating particularly on the arch-elitist Frederick the Great and his court philosophers, we will track the notion of the elite and their position as holders of truth and enlighteners. The central tenet of the debate will concern the notion of lying to the masses and the utility of truth. It will be shown that advocacy of absolute truth was rare and often dissimulated by philosophers keen to avoid censure. This dividing line will be used to show the cultural transfer of Francophone debates to the German intellectual sphere.
Uploads
Books by Nick Treuherz
Book Reviews by Nick Treuherz
Conference Presentations by Nick Treuherz
Papers by Nick Treuherz