Profile

Flora Champy joined the Department of French and Italian as an Assistant Professor of French in September 2018. She holds a dual PhD in French Literature from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon and Rutgers University. An alumna of the ENS de Paris, she received a master’s degree in Classics from Paris IV Sorbonne University. She previously taught at the ENS de Lyon and Johns Hopkins University.

Research

Flora Champy’s research focuses on eighteenth-century French political literature and philosophy. Her first book, L’Antiquité politique de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, entre exemples et modèles (Classiques Garnier, 2022), explores, through the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the connection between mimesis and theoria, or how the representation of history and reality can buttress, challenge, and deepen the conceptualization of political issues. Based on an unprecedented analysis of his sources, it shows how Rousseau transformed the traditional Early modern idea of educational exemplarity, inherited from Antiquity, and weaved it into his political writing. It thus aims to renew the understanding of Rousseau’s often-misinterpreted interest in ancient political structures, examining such notions as popular sovereignty, the city as a body politic, and citizenship.
This work has led Flora Champy to develop additional interests in classical reception studies, education practices in Early modern Europe, theories and practices of reading, and the critical examination of critical theory.
She is also a regular and enthusiastic collaborator of  L'Avant-Scène, the Department of French and Italian's French Theater Workshop.

Selected Publications

·       Médiations et construction de l’Antiquité dans l’Europe moderne, Littératures classiques, 101, 2020, co-edited with Caroline Labrune.

·       « Foucault, Rousseau et les Anciens : raisons d’une absence », in Foucault. Repenser les rapports entre les Grecs et les Modernes, dir. Jean-Marc Narbonne, Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, Heinrich Schlange-Schöningen, Vrin/PUL, 2020.

·       “The Silent Expression of the General Will”, in Silence, Implicite et Non-Dit chez Rousseau / Silence, the Implicit and the Unspoken in Rousseau, eds Brigitte Weltman-Aron, Ourida Mostefai, Peter Westmoreland, Brill/Rodopi, 2020.

·       “Rousseau’s Rome and Political Pragmatism”, in Antiquity and Enlightenment culture. New Approaches and Perspectives, eds. Felicity Loughlin and Alexander Johnston, Brill, 2020.

·       « Une religion patriotique est-elle possible ? La question de la religion civile dans les Affaires de Corse », in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Affaires de Corse, dir. Christophe Litwin, ed. James Swenson, Paris, Vrin, 2018.

·       « Les relations de pouvoir à Clarens : un équilibre voué à l’échec ? », Dix-huitième siècle, 44, 2012.

Selected Courses

• FRE 221: The Rise of France: French Literature, Culture, and Society from the origins to 1789
• FRE 351: The Age of Enlightenment
• FRE 534: Rousseau’s Politics
• FRE 541: Formal and Conceptual Experiments in the Age of Enlightenment
• FRE 571: Political Writing in Eighteenth-Century France