Rebecca Wilkin
Professor of French

- Professional
- Biography
Education
- Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2000
- M.A., University of Michigan, 1996
- B.A., Brown University, 1994
Areas of Emphasis or Expertise
- Intellectual history in early modern France
- Feminist criticism
- Counter-Reformation culture
- Francophone literature
Books
- Gabrielle Suchon, A Woman Who Defends All the Persons of Her Sex: Selected Philosophical and Moral Writings, co-translated and co-edited with Domna C. Stanton (University of Chicago Press 2010) : View Book
- Women, Imagination, and the Search for Truth in Early Modern France (Ashgate Publishing Company 2008) : View Book
Selected Articles
- "Essaying the Mechanical Hypothesis: Descartes, La Forge, and Malebranche on the Formation of Birthmarks." Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-Modern Period Vol. 13:6, 2008: 533-67.
- "Descartes, Individualism, and the Fetal Subject." d i f f e r e n c e s: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies Vol. 19.1, 2008: 96-127.
- "Renaissance Historiography and Novel Anthropology in Pierre-Daniel Huet’s De l’Origine des romans." Studi Francesi Vol. 150, 2006: 466-77.
- "From ex ovo omnia to Ovism: The Father Function." In Culture and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century France and Ireland. Eds. Sarah Alyn Stacey and Véronique Desnain Vol. Dublin and Portland: Four Courts Press, 2004: 41-51.
- "Figuring the Dead Descartes: Claude Clerselier’s L’Homme de René Descartes (1664)." Representations Vol. 83, November, 2003: 38-66.
- "L’Algonquin par abjection: Une Mystique aborde le Nouveau Monde." Biblio 17 Vol. 117, 1999: 31-46.
- "Les Mots et les choses ‘aux Hurons’: L'Archéologie d'une rencontre." French Literature Series Vol. 25, 1998: 55-75.
Accolades
- K. T. Tang Award For Excellence in Research 2010
Biography
Professor Wilkin specializes in intellectual history in early modern France–skepticism, stoicism, Descartes and Cartesianism–from the standpoint of feminist criticism. She also works on Counter-Reformation culture: mysticism, demonology, and missionary encounters with the native peoples of North America. She teaches francophone literature from Europe, North America, and Africa.
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