Meghan Roberts

A scholar of eighteenth-century France, I work at the intersections of cultural history, the history of science and medicine, and the history of women and gender. I published my first book, Sentimental Savants: Philosophical Families in Enlightenment France, with the University of Chicago Press in 2016. My current research examines how eighteenth-century French medical practitioners established and exercised their authority during an age of media revolution and colonial exploitation. For an up-to-date CV, list of courses, and recent publications, please visit my personal website.

Major Publications

Sentimental Savants: Philosophical Families in Enlightenment France (University of Chicago Press, 2016)

"Spontaneous Human Combustion and Claude-Nicolas Le Cat’s Hunt for Fame," Journal of Modern History 93 no. 4 (December 2021), 749-782.

"Laclos's Objects of Affection: Venerating the Family During the French Revolution," Eighteenth-Century Studies 51.3 (2018)

"Learned and Loving: Representing Women Astronomers in Enlightenment France," Journal of Women's History 29.1 (2017)

"Philosophes Mariés and Epouses Philosophiques: Men of Letters and Marriage in Eighteenth-Century France," French Historical Studies 35.3 (2012)

With Anne Verjus, Claire Cage, Jennifer Heuer, and Andrea Mansker, "Regards croisés sur le mariage à l’époque révolutionnaire et impériale," Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française 388.2 (2017)