Dr David McCallam

BA, MA, PhD

School of Languages and Cultures

Reader in French Eighteenth-Century Studies

d.mccallam@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 2860

Room 3.43, Jessop West

Full contact details

Dr David McCallam
School of Languages and Cultures
Room 3.43
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA

Profile

I specialise in the long eighteenth century in France, covering the French Enlightenment and the French Revolution. I have worked a lot on late eighteenth-century French literature (Chamfort, Laclos, Sade, de Maistre, etc.).

More recently, my research has focused on the environment in eighteenth-century France and Europe, specifically on dynamic geological and meteorological phenomena, such as volcanoes, avalanches and clouds. In 2019 I published a wide-ranging study on the cultural significance of volcanoes in eighteenth-century Europe (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, Liverpool University Press).

A more recent research interest is in the poetry of the late eighteenth century, especially in the context of the French Revolution. My study, André Chénier: Poetry and Revolution 1792-1794 – a bilingual edition of the last poems with new translations – will be published by Legenda in 2021.

I also have an active interest in French theatre, running an extra-curricular Molière reading group and co-directing the annual French play as part of the University of Sheffield’s Modern Languages Drama Festival.

I was Academic in Residence at the Graves Gallery, Museums Sheffield (2018-19).

Qualifications

MPhil, PhD (Cambridge)
MA (Warwick)
BA (London Metropolitan)

Research interests

Eighteenth-century French literature
Environmental humanities, particularly involving mountainous areas, in eighteenth-century Europe
Cultural history in late eighteenth-century France
The French Revolution
Early modern literature and translation

Current Research Projects:

Aliveness and Literature in France 1750-1800
A History of Resilience: Responses to Eighteenth-Century Environmental Disasters

I would be very interested in supervising postgraduate research in the following areas:

Gendered and embodied responses to the French Revolution
Environmental humanities, especially in eighteenth-century Europe
Eighteenth-century travel literature, especially in the mountains and in the Adriatic
Late eighteenth-century French literature – Laclos, Sade, de Gouges, Chénier, etc.
Early modern literature and translation

Publications

Books

McCallam D (2019) Volcanoes in Eighteenth-Century Europe An Essay in Environmental Humanities. Oxford University Studies in t.
Lyle L & McCallam D (2008) Histoires De La Terre: Earth Sciences and French Culture 1740-1940. Rodopi Bv Editions.
Lyle L & McCallam EBLLAD (2008) Histoires De La Terre. Rodopi Bv Editions.
McCallam D (2008) Art de l'équivoque chez Laclos (l'). Geneva: Librarie Droz.

Journal articles

McCallam D (2020) The obverse view: Another look at Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Le 7 décembre 1815, neuf heures du matin [The execution of Marshal Ney] (1868). Dix-Neuf. View this article in WRRO
McCallam D (2019) The Marquise de Merteuil poet?. Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, 119(1), 95-102. View this article in WRRO
McCallam D (2019) La marquise de Merteuil poète?. Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France, 2019(1). View this article in WRRO
McCallam D (2017) Orphée ou la poésie incarnée chez André Chénier. Op. Cit. Revue des Littératures et des Arts, 17(Automne 2017). View this article in WRRO
McCallam D (2017) Movement and Montage in André Chénier's "Ode à Versailles" (1793). Crossways Journal, 1(1). View this article in WRRO
Mccallam D (2015) André Chénier's ‘Dernières poésies’: Animism and the Terror. Forum for Modern Language Studies, 51(3), 304-315. View this article in WRRO
McCallam D (2014) Metrology: The Body as Measure in Les Liaisons dangereuses. Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 27(1), 83-104. View this article in WRRO
McCallam D (2012) Educational Philosophy in the French Enlightenment: From Nature to Second Nature by Natasha Gill. French Studies: a quarterly review, 66.2, 247-248.
McCallam D (2012) The terrorist Earth? Some thoughts on Sade and Baudrillard. French Cultural Studies, 23(3), 215-224.
McCallam D (2011) Chamfort Theater: 'The Young Indian' (1764); 'The Market of Smyrne' (1770); Mustapha Zeangir (1776). FR STUD, 65(2), 248-249.
McCallam D (2011) The invention of the catastrophe in the XVIII century: from divine punishment to natural disaster. J EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY, 34(1), 132-134.
McCallam D (2011) (Ac)claiming Illyria: Eighteenth-century Istria and Dalmatia in Fortis, Cassas, and Lavallée. Central Europe, 9(2), 125-141.
McCallam D (2010) L'Evénement climatique et ses représentations (XVIIe-XIXe siècle): histoire, littérature, musique et peinture - Edited by E. Le Roy Ladurie, J. Berchtold and J.-P. Sermain. Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 33(3), 404-405.
McCallam D (2010) The climatic event and its representations (seventeenth-nineteenth century): history, literature, music and painting. J EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY, 33(3), 404-405.
McCallam D (2010) Credit and Credulity in Montesquieu's 'Lettres presanes'. Lumen, 28, 107-116.
McCallam D (2009) Picnic on the volcano: a cultural practice from Winckelmann to Sade. FR STUD, 63(3), 259-270.
McCallam D (2009) Tragedy Walks the Streets: The French Revolution and the Making of Modern Drama.. J EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY, 32(2), 257-258.
McCallam D (2009) Before the Deluge: Public Debt, Inequality, and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution. FR STUD, 63(1), 94-95.
McCallam D (2007) Chamfort entre mémoires, récits de voyage et littérature moraliste. Cahiers de l'Association internationale des études francaises, 59(1), 207-220.
McCallam D (2006) Sexing 'La mode': Gender, fashion and commercial culture in old regime France.. FR STUD, 60(4), 513-514.
McCallam D (2006) Les modalités du désir dans Les Liaisons dangereuses. Dix-huitième siècle, 38(1), 589-589.
McCallam D (2006) Exploring volcanoes in the late French Enlightenment: The savant and the sublime. British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 29(1).
McCallam D (2006) The volcano: From enlightenment to revolution. NOTTINGHAM FR STUD, 45(1), 52-68.
McCallam D (2005) Destroying to build: Morale and architecture in Chamfort. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 2005(7), 327-338.
McCallam D (2005) Jean-Francois Marmontel: an exemplary intellectual in the Age of Enlightenment.. FR STUD, 59(1), 97-98.
McCallam D (2004) Passion, politics and philosophie: Rediscovering J.-P. Brissot. FR STUD, 58(2), 265-266.
McCallam D (2004) Stendhal, Sieyès and the literary aristocracy. French Studies Bulletin, 25(91), 10-12.
McCallam D (2003) The nature of libertine promises in Laclos's Les 'Liaisons Dangereuses'. MOD LANG REV, 98, 857-869. View this article in WRRO
McCallam D (2003) 'Emile' or the figures of fiction. FR STUD, 57(3), 393-394.
McCallam D (2003) Encountering and countering the 'uncanny' in Descartes's 'Meditations'. FR STUD, 57(2), 135-147.
McCallam D (2003) Forging Rousseau: Print, commerce and cultural manipulation in the late Enlightenment. FR STUD, 57(1), 88-90.
McCallam D (2002) Three deaths and Enlightenment thought: Hume, Johnson, Marat. FR STUD, 56(4), 528-528.
McCallam D (2002) Jean-Francois Marmontel (1723-1799): ten studies. FR STUD, 56(3), 405-406.
McCallam D (2002) Une forme frondeuse: the Function of Discontinuity in La Rochefoucauld's Maximes. Seventeenth-Century French Studies, 24(1), 239-248.
McCallam D (2002) Waxing revolutionary: Reflections on a raid on a waxworks at the outbreak of the French revolution. French History, 16(2), 153-173. View this article in WRRO
Mccallam D (2002) Chamfort, doctor of morals: The maxim and the medical aphorism in late eighteenth-century France. British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 25(1), 103-111. View this article in WRRO
McCallam D (2002) Une forme frondeuse: the function of discontinuity in La Rochefoucauld's maximes.. Seventeenth Century Fr Stud, 24, 239-248. View this article in WRRO
MCCALLAM D (2001) REVIEWS. French Studies, LV(4), 546-547.
McCallam D (2001) Vauvenargues: the philosophy of active force - Criticism and anthropology. FR STUD, 55(4), 546-547.
MCCALLAM D (2001) REVIEWS. French Studies, LV(3), 439-440.
McCallam D (2001) Outline of literary semiotics. FR STUD, 55(3), 439-440.
McCallam D (2001) Interpretations of Condorcet: Symbols and concepts (1794-1894). MOD LANG REV, 96, 828-828.
MCCALLAM D (2001) REVIEWS. French Studies, LV(2), 289-289.
McCallam D (2001) Paradox in linguistics and in literature. FR STUD, 55(2), 289-289.
McCallam D (2001) Cast in a new light: Clichés in Proust's 'Combray'. French Studies Bulletin, 22(78), 15-17.
McCallam D (2000) Les « petites phrases » dans la politique anglo-saxonne. Communication et langages, 126(1), 52-59.
MCCALLAM D (2000) REVIEWS. French Studies, LIV(1), 109-110.
McCallam D (2000) From authority to authorship: Chamfort's maxims and the transferral of power in late eighteenth-century France. TRIVIUM, 32, 45-58.
McCallam D (2000) Tradition and modernity of the aphorism: Cioran, Reverdy, Scutenaire, Jourdan, Chazal. FR STUD, 54(1), 109-110.
McCallam D () Politics in the Marketplace: Work, Gender, and Citizenship in Revolutionary France. By Katie Jarvis. French Studies.
McCallam D () Teaching Representations of the French Revolution. Edited by Julia Douthwaite Viglione, Antoinette Sol, and Catriona Seth. French Studies.

Chapters

McCallam D (2020) The Enlightenment Redux: Autonomy in Todorov, Glucksmann, and Onfray (pp. 55-73). Boydell and Brewer Limited
McCallam D (2019) The Continent of History, The Cambridge History of French Thought (pp. 249-255). Cambridge University Press
McCallam D (2017) From Analogies to Patterns: Images in French and British Geological Texts (1760-1800) In Beck L & Ionescu C (Ed.), Visualizing the Text: From Manuscript Culture to the Age of Caricature University of Delaware Press View this article in WRRO
McCallam D (2017) Third Person Singular: the Liberation of the Marquise de Sade, 1789-1790, Gender and Politics in the Age if Letter-Writing, 1750–2000 (pp. 55-66). Routledge
McCallam D (2012) Xavier de Maistre and Angelology In Oergel M (Ed.), (Re-)Writing the Radical: Enlightenment, Revolution and Cultural Transfer in 1790s Britain, France and Germany Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
McCallam D (2012) L'avalance au tournant des Lumieres In Astbury K & Seth C (Ed.), Le Tournant des Lumieres (pp. 17-32). Paris: Classiques Garnier.
McCallam D (2012) Face à la mort blanche: conceptions du froid extrême dans les avalanches et dans les neiges au XVIIIe siècle In Berchtold J, Sermain JP, Vasak A & Le Roy Ladurie E (Ed.), Canicules et froids extrêmes. L’évènement climatique et ses représentations (pp. 97-108). Paris: Editions Hermann.
McCallam D (2011) Quelques réflexions sur la figure de la chaîne au XVIIIe siècle: en théorie et en pratique In Kobi V (Ed.), De la théorie à l'action. Les savoirs et leur mise en œuvre au siècle des Lumières (pp. 123-134). Geneva: Slaktine.
McCallam D (2009) Concevoir l'Europe au XVIIIe siècle selon sa géologie: le cas des volcans In Piccardo L (Ed.), L'idée d'Europe au XVIIIe siècle (pp. 231-242). Honoré Champion
McCallam D & Rotherham ID (2008) Peat Bogs, Marshes and Fen as Disputed Landscapes in Late Eighteenth-Century France and England In Lyle L & McCallam D (Ed.), Histoires De La Terre (pp. 75-88). Rodopi Bv Editions
McCallam D (2008) Physiocrats and barbarians: moral economies in Chamfort's comedies In Cronk N & Renwick J (Ed.), Voltaire and the 1760s (pp. 65-75). Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.

Book reviews

McCallam D (2015) Choosing Terror: Virtue, Friendship, and Authenticity in the French Revolution, by Marisa Linton. The English Historical Review, 130(543), 468-469.

Conference proceedings papers

McCallam D (2017) Nuages et Nuances révolutionnaires: la Fête de la Fédération, le 14 juillet 1790. Les Nuages, du tournant des Lumières au crépuscule du Romantisme (pp 67-81). Paris, 11 April 2017 - 16 April 2017. View this article in WRRO

Research group

Isabel Richardson (2018-): Comparative translation study of French-English translations of Twelfth-Century French texts (c.1915-2015)

Harsh Trivedi (2017-): ‘Les chefs-d’œuvre inconnus: une étude des œuvres fictives dans La Comédie humaine’

Rebecca Herd (2016-): ‘“Staging” Criticism: Seventeenth-Century French Women Playwrights and the Subversion of Classicism’

Kirsty Hemsworth (2013-2017): ‘Translation and/as Empathy: Mapping Translation Shifts in 9/11 Fiction’. Successful completion.

Morgane Guinard (2013-2016): ‘La Parabole du Savoir Interdit, ou les interdits philosophiques et religieux sur la connaissance en France au XVIIIe siècle’. Successful completion.

Carla Almanza-Galvez (2012-2016): ‘Utopian Narrative in Eighteenth-Century Spain: Generic Frameworks and Social Reformism’. Successful completion. Winner of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland Postgraduate Publication Prize 2017.

Anna Jenkin (2012-2015): 'Perceptions of the Murderess in London and Paris, 1674-1789'. Successful completion.

I have also supervised numerous MA Dissertations on various topics including science/superstition in Maupassant (Liz Trueman, Winner Maria A Salgado Essay Prize 2017), women’s practices of imitation in the French Revolution, the figure of Robespierre in post-revolutionary memoirs, Gothic intermediality, historical and contemporary translation studies.

Teaching activities

Postgraduate:

MDL6054 Advanced Translation from French
FRE3001/2 Littérature moderne: thèmes et idées (with Dr Maxime Goergen)

Undergraduate:

MDL1010 French Language (post-A-Level)
MDL115 French Critical Contexts (Mme de Duras, Ourika; Mme de La Fayette, La Princesse de Montpensier)
MDL107 Understanding Modern France
FRE21001 Writing the French Revolution
FRE363 Le Siècle des Lumières

Professional activities

Member of the Editorial Board of Eighteenth-Century Fiction (2016-2020)
Member of the Executive Board of the Society for French Studies (2014-2020)
Member of the Voltaire Foundation Board of Management, University of Oxford (2013-2017)
Member of the Editorial Board, Journal Arrêt sur scène/Scene Focus, Université de Montpellier-III (2012-)
Member of the Editorial Board of French Studies (2009-18)
Member of the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Member of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Member of the European Society for Environmental History
External Examiner for PhD Thesis: Queen’s University Belfast; University of Edinburgh/Paris III Sorbonne-Nouvelle; Murdoch University, Australia; King's College London; Université de Lorraine
External Examiner for French, University of Edinburgh (2008-2011), University of Cambridge (2011-2014), King's College London (2014-18)
REF (2014) Consultant, French, University of Kent
Referee for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

Outreach activities

Invited online talk for Museums Sheffield about a late nineteenth-century French painting held in their collections, Narcisse Chaillou’s intriguing Le Dépeceur de rats (1871):

https://www.museums-sheffield.org.uk/whats-on/events/2020/11/lunchtime-talk-modernity-and-myth

Participation in a podcast for The Conversation, tackling the issue of how societies recover from major crises or shocks. In this case, the terrible Lisbon Earthquake of November 1755:

https://theconversation.com/the-earthquake-that-shocked-europe-how-lisbon-recovered-after-1755-recovery-podcast-series-part-two-140358

A vidcast made with Beth Evans (BA, MA in Screen Translation, Sheffield) and her creative subtitling start-up Subtxt:

Vidcast on the function of foreign languages in James Bond novels

A video made with Dr Amanda Crawley-Jackson and the Graves Gallery, Sheffield, on their artwork, Le 7 décembre 1815, neuf heures du matin [The Execution of Marshal Ney] by Jean-Léon Gérôme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=0Pih8m5ievs

Participation in the Radio 4 programme In Our Time on Marie-Antoinette:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000117y

Co-scripting of a video for The School of Life on the Romanian-French philosopher Emil Cioran:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMOM34XEi2k&t=1s

A poetry translation workshop entitled ‘Smash the Text’, run by the award-winning poet, Eleanor Brown, involving second - and final-year students in group translations of André Chénier poems written in the Terror.

The British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Teaching Prize (2013) for an innovative production of a short play by Marivaux, performed by students reading the text as part of my final-year module ‘Le Siècle des Lumières’. Performances in Sheffield and Montpellier:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6cK0hokfZs&t=1