Associate Professor (1995)

Director of Graduate Studies

18th Century Europe; Early Modern Intellectual History; France

Office Hours: Monday, 12:00-2:00 PM; Wednesday, 1:00-2:00 PM

Office: 110 Levering Hall

Phone: (434) 924-6967

Fax: (434) 924-7891

Email: sar5dvirginia.edu

Education

B.A. Princeton 1988
M.A. Harvard 1990
Ph.D. Harvard 1996

Publications

A Revolution in Language: The Problem of Signs in Late 18th-Century France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001; paperback 2004).

"Before Democracy: The Production and Uses of Common Sense in Early Eighteenth-Century England" (forthcoming).

"Sign Language as a Political Weapon: The Case of the French Revolution," Sign Language Studies (Fall 2005).

"Politics, Epistemology, and Revolution," Intellectual News, No. 11/12 (Summer 2003): 64-69.

"Citizens of Nowhere in Particular: Cosmopolitanism, Writing, and Political Engagement in Eighteenth-Century Europe," National Identities (special issue: "The Local Life of the Nation") 4, no. 1 (March, 2002): 25-48.

"Writing the History of Censorship in the Age of Enlightenment," in Postmodernism and the Enlightenment: New Perspectives in Eighteenth-Century French Intellectual History, ed. Daniel Gordon (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 117-145.

"Les Philosophes and le savoir: Words, Gestures, and other Signs in the Era of Sedaine," in Michel Jean Sedaine, 1719-1797: Theatre, Opéra-Comique and Art, eds. David Charlton and Mark Ledbury (Aldershot, Eng.: Ashgate Publishing, 2000), 39-51.

"Universal Languages and National Consciousness during the French Revolution," in La Recherche dix-huitiémiste. Raison universelle et cultures nationales au dix-huitième siècle, eds. David Bell, Stéphane Pujol and Ludmila Pimenova (Paris/Geneva: Honoré Champion and Slatkine, 1999), 119-131.

"Deaf Men on Trial: Language and Deviancy in Late Eighteenth-Century France," Eighteenth-Century Life (special issue: "Faces of Monstrosity in Enlightenment Thought"), 21, n.s., no. 2 (May 1997): 157-175.

Awards and Activities

American Council of Learned Societies Burkhardt Fellowship, 2004-05

Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship, 2003-04

Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), Visiting Professor, Spring 2004

Remarque Institute for the study of Contemporary Europe Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, New York University, 1999-2000

East-West Seminar, International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Summer 1996

Spencer Foundation Fellowship for Research on Education, 1994-95

Josephine DeKarman Foundation Fellowship, 1994-95

Mellon Foundation Fellowship in the Humanities, 1993-94, 1989-91

Sheldon Traveling Fellowship from Harvard University, 1992-93

Krupp Foundation Fellowship for European Studies, 1992-93

Harvard University Merit Fellowship, 1992

Current Research

My book, A Revolution in Language (2001), concerns the impact of Enlightenment thinking about language and communication on the political culture of the French Revolution. I am currently working on a new book about another aspect of Enlightenment epistemology: common sense. This project, "Common Sense: A Political History," focuses on the relationship between the idea of common sense and the development of democracy in 18th century England, America and Continental Western Europe, including France. I am also engaged in an ongoing project about the history of conceptions of European unity and cosmopolitan citizenship since the late 17th century.