Rudy Le Menth矇our

Professor and Chair of French and Francophone Studies and Co-Director of Health Studies
Undergraduate Advisor
Rudy Le Menth矇our headshot

Contact

Phone 610-526-5674
Location Old Library 147
On Leave
semester I

Education

Ph.D. Universit矇 de Grenoble

Areas of Focus

French Enlightenment (literature and philosophy), medical humanities

Biography

Rudy Le Menth矇our has studied the polemical battles between Rousseau and the main philosophers of the French Enlightenment. His work also focuses on the rise of hygiene and medical anthropology in the Eighteenth Century. He published (Classiques Garnier, 2012), edited the first modern eugenic treatise, Charles-Augustin Vandermondes (Classiques Garnier, 2015), as well as an anthology on Seventeenth Century French Literature, (Flammarion, 2003). With Prof. Ourida Mostefai, he co-edited the Lettre DAlembert, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (uvres compl癡tes, vol. IX B, Classiques Garnier, 2024).

Select Publications

  • Rousseaus Twilight: Graeber and Wengrows Critique of the Second Discourse,&紳莉莽梯;Monde Fran癟ais du Dix-Huiti癡me Si癡cle, vol. 9, issue 1, 2024, 
  • Le secret dune pyramide: Diderot, la double doctrine et l楚紳釵聆釵梭棗梯矇餃勳梗, Diderot Studies, vol. 37, 2022: 185-208,
  • Seul en son royaume: la jouissance souveraine selon Rousseau Cruso矇, in Thierry Belleguic et Philip Knee (dir.), Le sentiment de lexistence. Lectures des R礙veries du promeneur solitaire de Rousseau, Paris, Hermann, 2021, p. 199-218 [initially published in Italian]
  • To Preserve or To Protect? Rousseaus Take on Hygiene, Sens public, 2019,
  • Le paradis port矇e de lance: variations autour du mod癡le spartiate l璽ge des Lumi癡res,MLN, vol. 133, no. 4, 2018: 914-936,
  • Restaurer l璽me antique: Rousseau, Mably et le mirage polonais, Dix-huiti癡me si癡cle, 50, 2018: 449469,
  • De la moisson humaine: botanique et perfectibilit矇 dans les Lumi癡res m矇dicales,&紳莉莽梯;TrOPICS, no. 1, Dec. 2013, 
  • Melancholy vaporised: self-narration and counter-diagnosis in Rousseaus work, in Medicine and Narration in the 18th Century, ed. Sophie Vasset, Oxford, SVEC (2013:04): 107-123,
  • The Tarantula, the Physician and Rousseau: the Eighteenth-Century Etiology of an Italian Sting,&紳莉莽梯;Proceedings of the Western Society for French History, vol. 37 (2009), 
  • De la ruche au polype: figures de lorganisation sociale, Dix-huiti癡me si癡cle, no. 41, 2009: 205-221,
  • De lingratitude volontaire: Rousseau, Mirabeau et les paradoxes de lhospitalit矇 moderne, Theatrum historiae, 4, Vydavatelstv穩 Univertzity Pardubice, 2009: 47-58,
  • Cendrillon: portrait de la jeune fille en vestale, La grande oreille, no. 33 (Winter 2007): 33-39,
  • Interview with Daniel Clowes/Entretien avec Daniel Clowes, PLG, no. 37, 2002: 27-37,

Courses Taught

  • FREN 204 Le Si癡cle des Lumi癡res
    An introduction to French Enlightenment, with texts by Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, among others

  • FREN 306 Libertinage et Subversion
    A study of Eighteenth-Century Libertinage through novels by Pr矇vost, Cr矇billon, Laclos, Sade, etc.

  • HLTH 275 Improving Mankind
    A comparative and historical approach to eugenics in different national contexts (UK, US, France, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, etc.).

  • COML 217 Lovesick
    This course explores the different ways love has been compared to a sickness, but also how love relationships are impacted by the experience of disease. Works by Ovid, Burns, Lafayette, Bechdel, Campillo, etc.