Biography

Antoine Lilti was born in 1972. A graduate of the École normale supérieure and agrégé d'histoire, he defended his dissertation  in 2003 at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, under the supervision of Daniel Roche: " Le Monde des salons. Sociabilité et mondanité à Paris au XVIIIe   ". He teaches as a lecturer at ENS Ulm, then as Director of Studies at EHESS from 2011. From 2006 to 2011, he edited the journal Annales Histoire, sciences sociales. Since 2013, he has directed the collection L'épreuve de l'histoire , published by Fayard.

His work focuses on the social, cultural and intellectual history of the Enlightenment. He first studied the sociability practices of aristocratic and literate elites, then set out to show the emergence, in the 18th century, of a new form of recognition, celebrity, linked to changes in public space and individual identities. Since then, his work has broadened to include the many legacies of the Enlightenment since the French Revolution.

Selected bibliography

  • Le Monde des salons. Sociabilité et mondanité à Paris au XVIIIe siècle

    Lilti A., Le Monde des salons. Sociabilité et mondanité à Paris au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Fayard, 2005.

  • Figures publiques. L’invention de la célébrité (1750-1850)

    Lilti A., Figures publiques. L’invention de la célébrité (1750-1850), Paris, Fayard, 2014, Réédition Pluriel, 2022.

  • L’héritage des Lumières. Ambivalences de la modernité

    Lilti A., L’Héritage des Lumières. Ambivalences de la modernité, Paris, Éditions de l’EHESS/Gallimard/Le Seuil, coll. « Hautes Études », 2019, Réédition Points, 2022.

  • Commerce, civilisation, empire. Penser l’Europe au XVIIIe siècle

    Lilti A. et Spector C. (dir.), Commerce, civilisation, empire. Penser l’Europe au XVIIIe siècle, Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, 2014.

  • In the Shadow of the Public: Enlightenment and the Pitfalls of Modernity

    Lilti A., « In the Shadow of the Public: Enlightenment and the Pitfalls of Modernity », International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity, Brill, vol. 8. n° 3-4, 2020, p. 256-277.