Dr. Susan Maslan

Biography

Susan Maslan is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is affiliated with the Center for Jewish Studies and serves as a Graduate Faculty Advisor. Her scholarly work focuses on the intersections of early modern French literary, political, and social history, primarily concentrating on seventeenth and eighteenth-century theater, the French Revolution, Enlightenment thought, and human rights. Professor Maslan is currently completing a book-length project entitled "Citizen/Human: A Literary Genealogy of Human Rights in France, 1640-1795," which explores the literary, economic, and political constructions of the figures of human and citizen while also examining their shifting relationships. She is particularly interested in discerning the literary presence of marginalized voices in the political representation. Additionally, she is working on a project tentatively named "Judaism and the Israelites in Early Modern French Literature," which seeks to investigate the connections between French literature and the figures found in the Hebrew Bible, including prominent authors such as Racine, Rousseau, and Voltaire. Professor Maslan earned her Ph.D. from the Humanities Center at Johns Hopkins University.

Research Interests