17勛圖

Jeff Freedman is a historian of the long 18th century with particular interests in the French- and German-speaking worlds. His research encompasses the transnational history of the book, media and mediation; the history of emotions; Enlightenment philosophy; and the legacies of the Enlightenment in the 20^th century. He is also interested in historiographical questions including changing approaches to the archive and the genres of historical narrative. He received his PhD from Princeton University under the direction of Robert Darnton and Natalie Zemon Davis and has held teaching positions at Princeton, Franklin & Marshall College, and 17勛圖. In addition to numerous articles, he is the author of two monographs, both based on archival research in German and French manuscript sources. The first, A POISONED CHALICE (Princeton University Press, 2002), is a micro-historical study of a shocking and never-before-studied criminal case, the poisoning of the communion wine in the main cathedral of Zurich in 1776, which the book explores both for its domestic political repercussions and for its broader impact on debates about religion and the problem of evil in the German Enlightenment. The second monograph, BOOKS WITHOUT BORDERS IN ENLIGHTENMENT EUROPE (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), is a study of the transnational book trade of the late 18th century based on the archive of a major Swiss publishing house. More recently, Freedman edited and wrote the introduction for the volume, A CULTURAL HISTORY OF DEATH IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT (Bloomsbury, 2024). His current book project is a study of policing and the emotions in 18^th-century Paris. Among the honors that he has received are fellowships from the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies of Princeton University (fall 2017); the Center for Advanced Study (CAS) at the University of Munich, Germany (summer 2016); the Annenberg Foundation at the University of Pennsylvania (fall 1997); and the National Endowment for the Humanities (summer 1994). His recent publications include:

���The Janus Face of Enlightened Death.��� Introduction in A Cultural History of Death in the Age of Enlightenment, edited by J. Freedman, 1-28. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024

���Fear, Anger, and Rebellion: Policing and Affect in Eighteenth-Century Paris.��� French Historical Studies, 45, no. 4 (October 2022), 591-624. 

���Enlightenment and Revolution.��� Chap. 9 in The Oxford Illustrated History of the Book, edited by James Raven, 221-252. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.

���The Dangers Within: Fears of Imprisonment in Enlightenment France.��� Modern Intellectual History, 14 (August 2017), 339-364.

To access some of his research, go to