Literature

CNRS Humanities & Social Sciences's work covers literary history as well as literary criticism and theory in the fields of French, foreign and comparative literatures. The methods derived from the philological tradition have now been enriched by genetic criticism and methods from the literary digital humanities. Theoretical approaches stemming from linguistics have been extended by a variety of disciplinary approaches including those originating in the cognitive sciences. Classical studies from the Renaissance to the Classical Age are a historical strong point of literature research at the CNRS but literature research also focuses on extremely contemporary literature. There is a particularly notable commitment to high-level areal studies sometimes working in collaboration with CNRS units located in German- and English-speaking countries or Eastern Europe. Literature is thus now understood as being a global cultural fact that is now integrated into cultural studies and anthropology as much as more traditional literary studies, with literature also present in many history and sociology laboratories.

Research centers and networks