Dr. James Hanrahan

  18th Century intellectual history   18th Century literature   18th century philosophy   critical editions   Cultural History   Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire   Enlightenment   european enlightenment   French enlightenment   French thought   history of ideas   history of intellectuals   Intellectual History   Literary History   Literature and cultural history of the Enlightenment   ORIGINS   PUBLIC OPINION   PUBLIC SPHERE   publication history   Voltaire

My research focuses on the literature, history, politics and culture of Enlightenment France. My doctoral research focussed on Voltaire and his relationship with the supreme courts of ancien régime France. I contribute as an external editor to the Complete Works of Voltaire, published by the Voltaire Foundation, Oxford. As well as having written critical introductions to Voltaire's pamphlets on the pays de Gex, I was part of a team of academics annotating the definitive editions of the Essai sur les moeurs. I am also interested in and have published on the concept of public opinion and its impact on politics and society, from the eighteenth century up to the present. I have co-edited a critical edition of Voltaire's Précis du siècle de Louis XV and Histoire de la guerre de 1741 and I'm currently researching the concept of origins in Enlightenment thought.