Catriona Seth

Catriona Jane Seth, FBA (born 30 August 1964) is a British scholar of French literature and the history of ideas. Since 2015, she has been Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

Early life and education Seth was born on 30 August 1964 in Worsthorne, Lancashire, England. She holds Irish and British citizenship. She was brought up in England, Scotland, Switzerland, Belgium, and South America. She was educated at Colegio Francia in Caracas, Venezuela, at Lycée Sainte-Croix in Fribourg, Switzerland, and at Lycée français de Belgique in Belgium. She then studied at Paris-Sorbonne University, completing a Maîtrise degree in 1987, a Diplôme d'études approfondies (DEA) in 1988, and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 1995. Her doctoral thesis was on Évariste de Parny, the 18th-century French poet, She has been a Guest Researcher at the University of Bergamo (Italy), a Bogliasco Foundation Fellow, a Chawton House Fellow and was Senior Anniversary Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) of the University of Edinburgh in 2023.

On 1 October 2015, she was appointed Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford. At the same time, she was elected a University Academic Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. In March 2014, she gave the John Rule Memorial Lecture at the University of Southampton.

In July 2017, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences. She was appointed an associate member of the Académie Royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique in June 2018.

In July 2018, Seth was awarded an honorary doctorate "for services to education" by Queen's University Belfast.

In 2019, Seth was elected a Fellow of the Academia Europaea.

Selected works

Catriona Seth (2006). Marie-Antoinette: Anthologie et dictionnaire (in French). Paris: Laffont. Catriona Seth (2008). Les Rois aussi en mouraient. Les Lumières en lutte contre la petite vérole (in French). Paris: Desjonquères.

Catriona Seth ed. (2011). Laclos, Les Liaisons dangereuses (in French). Paris: Gallimard, Bibl. de la Pléiade.

Catriona Seth (2014). Évariste Parny (1753-1814): Créole, révolutionnaire, académicien (in French). Paris: Hermann.