Staff in the Department of French
Professor Richard Maber, MA, DPhil (Oxon), FRHistS
Contact Professor Richard Maber (email at r.g.maber@durham.ac.uk)
Biography
I read French and German at Wadham College, Oxford (1961-64), then after a brief spell as Junior Lecturer at Magdalen College (1965-66) I was offered a Lectureship in Durham in 1966 and have been here ever since, as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader, and Professor.
My principal fields of research are: (a) 17th-century intellectual history, particularly the international scholarly interchanges of the République des Lettres: I am currently engaged in a major project on the extensive correspondence of the French scholar, poet, and man of letters Gilles Ménage (1613-1692); (b) more specifically French literature, especially poetry, drama, and prose fiction; and (c) interdisciplinary 17th-century studies. My principal publications in these fields are listed below, along with articles published since 2000.
I am the founder (1985), General Editor, and proprietor of the interdisciplinary journal The Seventeenth Century, now on Volume 27. The journal is currently published by Manchester University Press. See http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?id=5
I supervise postgraduate research on a very wide range of subject-areas within the 17th century. In the past ten years I have supervised eight PhD and two research MA students, on studies of French theatre and poetry, but also on topics as diverse as heraldic imagery in English poetry, women in Jacobean drama, Algernon Sidney’s political thought, English radical theology, ghost-beliefs in early-modern England, and the marketing of English portrait prints in the later 17th century.
As Director of the University’s interdisciplinary Centre for 17th-Century Studies 1989-2009, I supervised and directed the work of c.90 students on the interdisciplinary taught MA in 17c Studies; I have also organized and directed ten major international conferences in Durham Castle as well as all the other activities of the Centre: see Centre for Seventeenth-Century Studies [link below]
My other research interests include: i) the international diffusion of medieval travel literature: with my wife, Angela Tregoning, I have written a comparative study of the early Latin, Italian, French, German, and English versions of the voyage to China (c. 1316-1330) of Odoric of Pordenone; ii) the Diary of the Victorian curate Francis Kilvert (1840-1879), one of the most delightful and best-loved of all English diaries: I have published, also with Angela Tregoning, the first complete edition of one of only three surviving original notebooks, which is preserved in Durham University Library Special Collections; iii) Cornish language and literature, particularly of the Late Cornish period: I have published a study of the prosody and dating of a 17th-century englyn, and also a discovery of a 17th-century manuscript comparing versions of the Lord’s Prayer and Creed in Cornish, Welsh, and Breton.
Research Interests
- 17th-century French literature and intellectual history
- International learned correspondences in the 17th century
- Interdisciplinary 17th-century studies
- Medieval travel literature
- Francis Kilvert's diary
- Celtic languages and literatures (middle and late Cornish)
Indicators of Esteem
- 2008: Committee Member: since 1985, of the Thomas Harriot Seminar (Oxford-Cambridge-Durham): early modern science and intellectual history.
- 2008: General Editor of the journal The Seventeenth Century (MUP) since 1985:
- 2007: Fellow of the Royal Historical Society:
- 2007: Member of the Editorial Board of the North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature (NASSCFL):
- 2007: Visiting Professor at the University of Kansas, Lawrence:
- 2006: Honorary Secretary of the Society for 17th-Century French Studies:
- 1990: Founding Member: of the Conseil d'administration, and founding Vice-Président, Centre International de Rencontres sur le 17e Siècle. 2012: Director of the CIR 17 Colloque International, 'La France et l'Europe du nord au XVIIe siècle', Durham Castle
Selected Publications
Books: authored
- 2005 Publishing in the Republic of Letters: The Ménage-Graevius-Wetstein Correspondence 1679-1692, Rodopi, 6 plates + 174 pp.
- 1989 (co-authored with Tregoning, Angela) Kilvert's Cornish Diary: Journal No. 4, 1870, Alison Hodge Publishers, 73 plates + 137 pp.
- 1983 Malherbe, Théophile de Viau, and Saint-Amant, Durham Modern Languages Series. Reprinted 1985, 1987. Second edition, revised, 1991; reprinted 2003, 2005. New edition, Manchester University Press, 2009, 132 pp.
- 1982 The Poetry of Pierre Le Moyne, 1602-1671, University of Durham Publications/Peter Lang, 9 plates + 311 pp.
Books: edited
- Forthcoming Pierre Le Moyne, Entretiens et lettres poétiques, édition critique par Richard Maber, Classiques Garnier.
- 1994 Nouveaux Mondes: from the twelfth to the twentieth century, Durham Modern Languages Series.
Books: sections
- 2011 'The Sun King and his subjects: reciprocity in a commonplace of power', in Banks, Kathryn & Bossier, Philiep (eds.), Authority & Persuasion: The Role of Commonplaces in Western Europe (c1450-c1800), II: Consolidation of Godgiven Power, Peeters Publishers, pp. XX + 211
- 2007 'John Cosin's French Library', in Gameson, Richard. (ed.), Treasures of Durham University Library, Third Millennium Publishing, pp. 108-109
- 2007 'Kilvert's Diary', in Gameson, Richard (ed.), Treasures of Durham University Library, Third Millennium Publishing, pp. 132-133
- 1999 'Poetic picture-galleries in seventeenth-century France', in Hutton, Margaret-Anne (ed.), Text(e)/Image, Durham Modern Languages Series, pp. 41-68
Essays in edited volumes
- 2010 'Texts, Travel and Flying Machines: The Lost World of 17th-Century Scholarship', in Scott, Paul (ed.), Collaboration and Interdisciplinarity in the Republic of Letters: Essays in Honour of Richard G. Maber, Manchester University Press, pp. 227-248
- 2008 (co-authored with Tregoning, Angela.) 'Conveying the Unimaginable: Odoric of Pordenone's Travels and their Vernacular Translations', in Kosta-Théfaine, J.-F. (ed.), Travels and Travelogues in the Middle Ages, AMS Press.
- 2008 'The Fruits of Exile: Anglican Scholars and their French Books', in Carr, Thomas & Ganim, Russell (eds.), NASSCFL Acta, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007, Gunter Narr Verlag.
- 2007 ''Il faut écrire à la moderne.': practical criticism and literary controversy after the death of Malherbe', in Brooks, William. & Zaiser, Rainer. (eds.), Theatre, Fiction, and Poetry in the French Long Seventeenth Century / Le Théâtre, le roman, et la poésie à l'âge classique, Peter Lang, pp. 199-214
Journal papers: academic
- 2010 'Les Entretiens et lettres poétiques, point culminant de l'évolution poétique du Père Le Moyne', Œuvres et Critiques 35.
- 2010 'Re-Gendering Intellectual Life: Gilles Ménage and his Histoire des femmes philosophes', Seventeenth-Century French Studies 32, pp. 45-60
- 2007 'Knowledge as Commodity in the Republic of Letters, 1675-1700', Seventeenth-Century French Studies 27, pp. 197-208
- 2007 'La ballade de Vadius', Le Nouveau Moliériste 6, pp. 103-113
- 2004 'Boileau et l'esthétique de l'ode héroïque: l'Ode sur la prise de Namur', Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 31, pp. 387-400
- 2004 'Ménage, Nicaise, and Madame de La Fayette: the evidence of a newly discovered letter', French Studies Bulletin LVIII, pp. 15-17
- 2001 'A Publisher's Nightmare: Ménage, Wetstein and Diogenes Laertius', Seventeenth-Century French Studies 23, pp. 173-185
- 2001 'Molière à travers le discours de ses contemporains: la perspective des ana', Le Nouveau Molièriste 4-5, pp. 35-55
- 2000 'Le veritable champ du sublime? The ode in France in the seventeenth century', The Seventeenth Century 15, pp. 244-265
Related Links
- The Seventeenth Century, Manchester University
- Durham University Centre for 17th-century Studies
- The Society for Seventeenth-Century French Studies
- The Thomas Harriot Seminar
Grants Awarded
- 2008: Leverhulme Emeritus Research Fellowship
- 2007: British Academy Overseas Conference Grant
- 2005: AHRC Research Leave Award
- 2005: British Academy Small Research Grant