Dr. Déborah Blocker

Biography

Déborah Blocker is a Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in the social and political history of literary practices in early modern France and Italy, with a particular focus on theater, learned societies such as academies, and the history of philology and aesthetics. Her research draws significantly on manuscript studies and historical books. In her 2009 book, "Instituer un 'art': politiques du théâtre dans la France du premier XVIIe siècle," Blocker examined the social and political processes that instituted art in early modern French theater. Additionally, from 2008 to 2018, she conducted an in-depth archival study of the Accademia degli Alterati in Florence, analyzing the social and political circumstances that influenced new conceptions and uses of the arts. Blocker's recent work includes the book titled "Le Principe de plaisir: savoirs, esthétique et politique dans la Florence des Médicis (XVIe-XVIIe siècles)" published in 2022, which received the Prix Monseigneur Marcel from the Académie Française in 2023. Blocker has held fellowships from UC Berkeley’s Townsend Center for the Humanities and has collaborated on a digital humanities project focused on academic discussions related to art and poetry in late Renaissance Florence. Currently, she is developing a comparative research project on the representation of arts among major aristocratic families in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Research Interests