Global Humanities Junior Fellow at l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
March - May  2014

La fiction des Lumières et sa réception: analyse épistémologique

In her Ph.D. project, Anna Cordes examines the epistemological status of fictionality in the French Enlightenment as expressed in the act of its reception and the auctorial strategies of reception guidance. The connection of philosophy and fictionality typical of Enlightenment literature raises questions related to the possibility of general truth in fiction and to the significance of the role of the reader. The examined texts seem to carry a potential of performativity insofar as they are aimed at a transformation of the status quo, and thus constitute the cultural dynamics of the Enlightenment paradigm. The research stay enabled by the Global Humanities Junior Fellowship was used to study the fundamental non-fictional texts of the Enlightenment, which provide an insight into the themes and thought patterns of the epoch.

Anna Cordes, born in 1987, holds a B.A. in French Literature and Business Administration from the University of Hamburg. In October 2013 she completed a master's degree in Romance Literatures (French/Italian) at Freie Universitaet Berlin with a thesis on the performative narration in Diderot's Jacques le fataliste et son maître. She spent the academic year 2011/2012 at the École normale supérieure in Paris and is currently a doctoral candidate in French Literature at the Freie Universitaet Berlin. In March 2014 she was awarded a Global Humanities Junior Fellowship for a research stay in Paris (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales / Bibliothèque nationale de France).