Dr Marie Raulier

I hold an undergraduate degree in French and Romance Languages and Literatures from the Université de Liège (Belgium), and a Master's degree and a PhD in French Literature from McGill University (Canada). During my PhD, I participated in an exchange at École Normale Supérieure (Ulm) and have been a Visiting scholar at Université Gustave-Eiffel (2020-2022). Before coming to St John's, I was a Postdoctoral fellow at Universität Basel (Switzerland, 2023-2025) and Visiting scholar at Yale University (Spring 2024 and 2025).

Teaching

I teach Early Modern French Literature (16th-18th c.): Paper VII (Early Modern Period Paper) and Paper X (Author Paper), as well as the pre-nineteenth century of Paper III (Short texts) and IV (Narrative Fiction) for Prelims.
I also teach Translation from French into English for all year groups.

My current research examines the evolving figure of the Amazon in early modern French literature, exploring its multifaceted role as a symbol of female heroism or equestrian knowledge and a tool for enforcing gender norms. Using literary analysis, gender studies, and history of ideas, I investigate how Amazons shift from warriors to cultural icons between the 16th and 18th centuries and want to understand Amazons’ lasting ambivalence, which remains central to Western imagination and feminist discourse today.

My doctoral thesis focused on the figure of the cavalier throughout a broad 17th century (1593-1733), drawing on both technical horsemanship treatises and a wide array of French literary texts. This work explores the ethical, social, and embodied knowledge associated with horsemanship, highlighting how cavaliers represented ideals of harmony, diligence, and social conduct in courtly and military contexts. It offers a framework for reading the figure of the cavalier in literature and allows us to reconsider numerous works from the Ancien Régime, as well as modern ones inspired by this heritage.

Besides these two core projects, I have worked on early 16th-century romantic fictions published in France, Italy and Spain. I also have broader interests in human and non-human relationships, and modern Francophone literature, focusing particularly Marguerite Yourcenar and Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau.

Recent Publications

• 'Le cheval vecteur de l’aventure dans le Gargantua de Rabelais' in Mélanges à Diane Desrosiers, Paris, Hermann (forthcoming, 2025).
• 'Le “sage va-et-vient du jardinier” de Marguerite Yourcenar : une éthique dans la cité', in Arts et Savoirs, (forthcoming, 2025).
• 'Les savoirs équestres dans la poésie de Scève, Du Bartas et Gamon', in Arts et Savoirs, no 22, Transmission des savoirs équestres, Marie Raulier (dir.), December 2024, https://doi.org/10.4000/12xnk.
• 'La découverte de l’altérité chinoise : le “Mémoire sur les chevaux” de Pierre-Martial Cibot (1784)', in Romanistische Zeitschrift für Literaturgeschichte/Cahier d’Histoire des Littératures Romanes, vol. 45, no 1-2, p. 51-66, https://rzlg.winter-verlag.de/article/RZLG/2021/1-2/8?_locale=en.
• 'L’énonciation féminine dans les Comptes amoureux de Jeanne Flore : prises de parole collective et parler de femme', in Diane Desrosiers et Roxanne Roy (dir.), Ventriloquie. Quand on fait parler les femmes (XVe-XVIIIe siècles), Paris, Hermann, 2020, p. 61-76, https://shs.cairn.info/ventriloquie-quand-on-fait-parler-les-femmes-xve--9791037003423-page-61?lang=fr.

Awards and Distinctions

Postdoctoral Fellowship, SSHRC (2023-2025)
Joseph-Armand-Bombardier Doctoral Scholarship, SSHRC (2018-2021)
Price for best article (for « La découverte de l’altérité chinoise : le “Mémoire sur les chevaux” de Pierre-Martial Cibot (1784) »), CIREM 16-18 (2022)
Wolfe Dissertation Fellowship (2021-2022)
Frank and Judith Kunz Fellowship for Humanities (2021)
Geneviève de la Tour Fondue Price (2020)
Isabel Billingsley Price in French Studies (2018)