
Roger Chartier, (; born December 9, 1945, in
Lyon
Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
), is a French historian and
historiographer who is part of the
Annales school
The ''Annales'' school () is a group of historians associated with a style of historiography developed by French historians in the 20th century to stress long-term social history. It is named after its scholarly journal '' Annales. Histoire, S ...
. He works on the
history of books
The history of books begins with the invention of writing, as well as other inventions such as paper and printing; this history continues all the way to the modern-day business of book printing. The earliest knowledge society has on the history o ...
,
publishing
Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...
and
reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifacete ...
. He teaches at the
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, the
Collège de France
The (), formerly known as the or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment () in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The has been considered to be France's most ...
, and the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
.
Biography
Originally from
Lyon
Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...
, he studied at the Ampère ''lycée'' (high school). Between 1964 and 1969, he was a student at the
École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud
École or Ecole may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* Éco ...
and, at the same time, he pursued a 3-year-degree (French ''licence'') followed by a master's degree at the
Sorbonne (1966–1967). In 1969, he succeeded at his
agrégation
In France, the () is the most competitive and prestigious examination for civil service in the French public education
A state school, public school, or government school is a primary school, primary or secondary school that educates all stu ...
in history.
He taught as an associate professor at the
Lycée Louis-le-Grand
The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on Rue Saint-Jacques (Paris), rue Saint-Jacques in central Par ...
in Paris between 1969 and 1970. In the same year, he became assistant in Modern History at the
University of Paris I, then senior lecturer at the
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). He became a lecturer (from 1978 to 1983) and then director of studies at the EHESS until 2006. In 2006 he was appointed professor at the Collège de France, holder of the "Written Culture in Modern Europe" chair. He also hosts the show ''Les lundis de l'histoire'' on France Culture, in which he talks with historians who publish books on modern history (16th–18th centuries).
The works of Roger Chartier are described by Dorothea Kraus as follows: "Authors, texts, books, and readers are four poles linked by Roger Chartier's work on the history of written culture; poles between which he attempts to draw connections through a cultural history of social life. The concept of 'appropriation' makes it possible for this perspective not only to give rise to these research topics, but also put them in touch with reading practices that determine appropriation, and which, in turn, depend on the reading skills of a community of readers, author strategies, and text formats."
In 2009–10, he was the Weidenfeld Visiting Professor of European Comparative Literature in
St Anne's College, Oxford
St Anne's College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It was founded in 1879 and gained full college status in 1959. Originally a women's college, it has admitted men since 1979. ...
.
Academic awards and honors
* Winner of the 1990 Annual Award of the
American Printing History Association
* Grand Prix d'histoire (
Grand prix Gobert) of the
Académie française
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...
in 1992.
*
A.S.W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography in 1994.
Publications
Selected books
*''Cultural History: Between Practices and Representations'' (Cornell University Press, 1989)
**Translator Lydia G. Cochrane
*
The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution (Bicentennial Reflections on the French Revolution)' (Duke University Press Books, 1991)
*
The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe Between the 14th and 18th Centuries' (Stanford University Press, 1994)
*
Forms and Meanings: Texts, Performances, and Audiences from Codex to Computer (New Cultural Studies)' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995)
*
On the Edge of the Cliff: History, Language and Practices (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)' (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996)
*
Inscription and Erasure: Literature and Written Culture from the Eleventh to the Eighteenth Century' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008)
Selected edited volumes
*
History of Private Life, Volume III: Passions of the Renaissance' (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1993)
**Series edited by Phillippe Ariès and Georges Duby; Volume editor Roger Chartier; Translated by Arthur Goldhammer
*
Correspondence: Models of Letter-Writing from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century' (Princeton University Press, 1997)
**Composed of three essays by Chartier, Alain Boureau, and Cécile Dauphin
*
El Juego de las Reglas: Lecturas (Seccion de Obras de Historia)' (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000)
**Collected Essays by Chartier, Translated into Spanish by Jose E Burucua
*
A History of Reading in the West (Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book'' (University of Massachusetts Press, 2003)
**Co-Editor Guglielmo Cavallo
Selected articles
* Chartier, Roger. "Review: Text, Symbols, and Frenchness," ''Journal of Modern History'' Vol. 57, No. 4 (Dec., 1985), pp. 682–69
in JSTOR* Chartier, Roger. "Le monde comme représentation," ''Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales'' 44e Année, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 1989), pp. 1505–152
in JSTOR* Chartier, Roger. "Les arts de mourir, 1450-1600," ''Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales'' 31e Année, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 1976), pp. 51–7
in JSTOR* Chartier, Roger. "Espace social et imaginaire social: les intellectuels frustrés au XVIIe siècle," ''Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales'' 37e Année, No. 2 (Mar. - April 1982), pp. 389–40
in JSTOR* Chartier, Roger. "Review: L'ancien régime typographique: réflexions sur quelques travaux récents," ''Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales'' 36e Année, No. 2 (Mar. - Apr., 1981), pp. 191–20
in JSTOR
Further reading
* Hunt, Lynn. "French History in the Last Twenty Years: The Rise and Fall of the Annales Paradigm," ''Journal of Contemporary History'' Vol. 21, No. 2, Twentieth Anniversary Issue (Apr., 1986), pp. 209–22
in JSTOR
References
Département Histoire - Paris VIII-Saint-DenisStanford Presidential Lectures in the Humanities and Arts: Roger Chartier
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chartier, Roger
1945 births
Historians of France
University of Paris alumni
20th-century French historians
21st-century French historians
20th-century French male writers
21st-century French male writers
Theoretical historians
French male non-fiction writers
Academic staff of the University of Paris
University of Pennsylvania faculty
University of Pennsylvania historians
Walter H. Annenberg Professor
Living people
Corresponding fellows of the British Academy
Lycée Louis-le-Grand teachers