Jeffrey Leichman
Professor
Bachelor's Degree(s): B.A., French, B.A., Comparative Literature; Brown University
PhD: Ph.D., French Literature, Yale University
Phone: (225)578-6627
E-mail: jleichman@lsu.edu
Office: 404 Hodges
Biography
Jeffrey M. Leichman (he/him) is William Boizelle and Jacques Arnaud Professor in the Department of French Studies at Louisiana State University, where he also teaches in the Program in Comparative Literature and serves as Director of the LSU Center for French and Francophone Studies. Professor Leichman’s research focuses on theatrical culture from the early modern period through the present, with three main areas of concentration: early modern European and colonial performance; digital modeling and simulation for historically-oriented humanities; and performance in cinema.
Dr. Leichman’s current research draws on consent theory to propose a new understanding of comic theatre in eighteenth-century France and England. Recent publications highlight research on French theatre and identity formation in Territorial-Era New Orleans as well as the depiction of Native Americans on the eighteenth-century French-language stage, building on the groundbreaking volume Colonialism and Slavery in Performance: Theatre and the Eighteenth-Century French Caribbean (Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment/Liverpool UP, 2021), co-edited with Dr. Karine Bénac-Giroux. Concurrent with his work on the relationship between theatre and the French colonial world (including pedagogical approaches to Aimé Césaire and Pierre Corneille in MLA Options for Teaching French Neoclassical Tragedy, eds. Bilis and McClure), Dr. Leichman has published articles on New Wave film director Jacques Rivette in dialogue with eighteenth-century polymath philosopher Denis Diderot and (French Studies 75.1) and on twentieth-century art-house star Bulle Ogier (European Drama and Performance Studies 17). Dr. Leichman is also the author of the monograph Acting Up: Staging the Subject in Enlightenment France (Bucknell UP, 2016; reviews here).
As a digital humanist, Dr. Leichman served as principal investigator for two international digital humanities projects. The NEH-funded VR simulation of an eighteenth-century Paris fair theatre, VESPACE, culminated in both a digital playable experience (downloadable from the project website) and a special issue of Digital Studies / Le Champ numérique co-edited with Dr. Ben Samuel (UNO). This special issue showcases the innovative methodologies developed for this project, complementing publications including a study of computer-designed procedural narrative as historiography (in Modes of Play in Eighteenth-Century France, eds. Falaky and McGinnis). Dr. Leichman also conceived and directed the 1805 Project, a multi-modal research and performance project that includes undergraduate-centered scholarship and a live concert event featuring the digital acoustical restitution of theater planned for the New Orleans waterfront in 1805, held at LSU in Fall 2024. This project stemmed from the Virtual Theatres in the French Atlantic World initiative co-directed with Dr. Pauline Beaucé with support from the Transatlantic Research Partnership of the French Foreign Ministry’s FACE Council, resulting in the publication of a peer-reviewed, open access research volume exploring new methods and approaches to theatre architecture history, Nouvelles études sur les lieux de spectacle de la première modernité (Open Book Publishers, 2024).
Since assuming the directorship of the LSU CFFS in 2022, Dr. Leichman has focused programming around digital humanities and Caribbean studies, providing a platform for research and cultural innovation in French, and on French-related themes, by a broad range of scholars and artists. In collaboration with the French Embassy in Washington and the Consulate of France in New Orleans, the CFFS showcases the immediate impact and long-term importance of French-language scholarship and arts at LSU and in the broader South Louisiana community.
Dr. Leichman’s accomplishments as a scholar and a teacher have been recognized with ATLAS grants in 2013-2014 and 2022-2023, as well as three TAF Undergraduate Teaching Awards at LSU (2015, 2016, 2018) and the 2017 College of Humanities and Social Sciences Robert K. Udick Undergraduate Teaching Award. In addition to invited lectures on early modern performance at universities in the US and Europe, Dr. Leichman is a frequent expert reviewer for scholarly articles and monographs and served as a production editor for H-France Review from 2020-2023. In 2018-2019, Professor Leichman was a Fellow in residence at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Nantes, France. He is a graduate of Brown University and Yale University.
Areas of Interest
Eighteenth-century global French theatrical culture
Esthetics and politics in the French Enlightenment
Dramatic literature and acting theory (seventeenth century-present)
Theatre and cinema
Digital humanities
Social and sensory digital modeling
Inclusive pedagogy