Sabine Arnaud

Vita

My research focuses on the production and diffusion of medical, philosophical, and literary knowledge between 1670 and 1820. Earlier research examined the study of Italian treatises on emblems between 1550 and 1650 and the notion of writing and the neutre in Blanchot, Foucault, Deleuze, and Derrida. My interest in tracing the circulation of ideas across different disciplines has been informed by an academic background including D.E.A. degrees in Aesthetics (Paris VIII-Vincennes-St Denis) and Philosophy (Paris VIII-Vincennes-St Denis) and a doctoral thesis presented towards Ph.D. degrees granted jointly in Comparative Literature (City University of New York, Graduate Center) and in History and Civilizations (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales). My writings intertwine methodologies of literary criticism, gender studies, the history of medicine, cultural history, and epistemology.

ICI Project (2008-10)

Narratives and Politics of a Diagnosis: The Construction and Circulation of the Category of Hysteria in France and England 1730-1820

My work examines how perceptions of hysteria are displaced and recalled across literary, medical and political texts a century before the advent of psychoanalysis. It analyzes processes in the production of knowledge, forms of narration, and modes for the circulation of theories and imaginings. Movement away from theories of supernatural possession and the ascribing of hysteria’s tension to individuals overlap with the birth of the modern subject through emerging conceptions of interiority and Enlightenment visions of society. Theorizations of nervous illness also participate in the Occident’s perception of itself and the development of the field of anthropology. Tension figures prominently in the very writing and narration of hysteria. Literary and medical texts express and transmit tension to readers in their discussions of the malady. Detailed descriptions of characters’ crises and metaphorical renderings of the illness serve to seduce, frighten, and fascinate, drawing readers into operations of interpretation and insinuation.

Research Grants and Fellowships

2009-2010   

• Grant from the Visiting Scholars Program, Institute for the Medical Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston (January 1, 2010- May 31, 2010)

2008-2009   

• Prix de la Société Française d’Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques

2007-2008

• International Research Travel Assistance Grant, Texas A&M University
• Grant for Travel to Archives, The Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University

2006-2007  

• Fellowship in the History of Medicine, Francis A. Countway Library, Harvard University

2005-2006 

• Audrey and William H. Helfand Fellowship in the Medical Humanities, New York Academy of Medicine
• Milton Brown Dissertation Year Fellowship, Graduate Center, CUNY
• Grant from the SIEFAR, Société Internationale d’Etude des Femmes de l’Ancien Régime

Teaching experience

History and Philosophy of European Medicine (Institute for the Medical Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch, Paris VII-Bichat)

German Literature, medicine and natural science around 1800 (Humbolt Universität in Berlin)

French Literature, Composition, and Cultural History (Texas A&M, New York University,  CUNY Graduate Center)

Comparative Literature (CUNY Queens College)

Philosophy (CUNY John Jay College)

Italian Language and Culture (New York University, CUNY Hunter College, Fashion Institute for Technology)

Publications

Peer-reviewed Articles:

- “Ruse and Reappropriation in Philosophy of the Vapours, or Reasoned Letters of an Attractive Woman by C. J. de B. de Paumerelle,” French Studies, 2011, 65, pp. 174-187.

- “Capturer l’Indéfinissable: Métaphores et Récits sur l’Hystérie dans les Ecrits Médicaux Français et Anglais entre 1650 et 1800,”  by Annales, Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 1, 2010, pp. 63-85.

-  “Medical Writing, Philosophical Encounters, and Professional Strategy: The Defiance of Pierre Pomme,” Gesnerus, Swiss Journal of the History of Medicine and Science, 2009, 66, pp. 218-232.

- “L’Art de Vaporiser à Propos, Pourparlers entre un Médecin et une Marquise Vaporeuse”, Dix-Huitième Siècle 39, 2007, pp. 505-519.

Books:

- (Edition and Introduction) La Philosophie des Vapeurs accompagnée d'une Dissertation sur les Vapeurs et les Pertes de Sang (C. J. de B. de Paumerelle, Pierre Hunauld) Le Temps retrouvé, Mercure de France, 2009.

- Sabine Arnaud and Helge Jordheim eds. The Body and its Images: Health, Humours, Illnesses, including a preface and an article entitled: “S/he who Traps Last Traps Best, The Diagnosis of Vapors and the Writing of Observations in Late Eighteenth Century France”, Honoré Champion, collection Lumières Internationales,  introduction by Catriona Seth and Caroline Warman to be published in 2011.

Chapters of Books:

- "De la Dénomination d’une maladie à son assignation: L’hystérie et la différence sexuelle entre 1750 et 1820"
Les Discours sur l’égalité / l’inégalité femmes - hommes de 1750 aux lendemains de la Révolution française, Nicole Pellegrin and Martine Sonnet, Elianne Viennot eds., Presses de l'Université de Saint Etienne, o be published in 2011.

- “…Vous en guérirez et tout sera dit” De la circonspection dans l’énonciation de la maladie au XVIII^e siècle (Suisse, France, Angleterre), Qu’est-ce qu’un bon patient? Qu’est-ce qu’un bon médecin? Paris, Seli Arslan, 2010, pp. 263-273. 

Book reviews and other publications:

- Review of Gilles Barroux’s book Philosophie, Maladie et Médecine au XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, Champion, 2008, Annales. Histoire Sciences Sociales, 1, 2010 pp. 199-201.

- “La Catégorie d’Hystérie et la Construction de la Différence Sexuelle (1750-1810)” Diplomées, 2005, pp. 198-199.

- “Prise et Déprise de l’Impresa” A Florilegium of Studies on Emblematics, S. Lopez Poza Ed. Ferrol: Sociedad de Cultura Valle Inclán, 2004, pp. 149-154.

Work in Progress:

- Monograph: Narratives and Politics of a Diagnosis: The Construction and Circulation of the Category of Hysteria in England and France 1730-1820 (under review)