Introducing: Lionel Laborie
Lionel Laborie recently joined the Institute for History as a lecturer in Early Modern History (18th Century). He introduces himself.
Born and raised in Gascony, Southern France, I trained in English and American Studies at the University of Pau. During my MA (2001-2002), I specialised in British history and became interested in eighteenth-century English society and culture. I continued with a Diplôme d’Études Appliquées (D.E.A.) on the medicalisation of religious madness in the same period. This led me to move to England in 2004 to undertake a PhD in History at the University of East Anglia (U.E.A.), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (A.H.R.C.). My doctoral thesis focused on religious enthusiasm in early Enlightenment England.
After receiving my PhD in 2011, I joined Goldsmiths, University of London, as a Research Fellow and was awarded several fellowships enabling me to embark on a grand tour of European archives. My research focus expanded to religious tolerance, dissent and mysticism in early modern England, France and Germany, particularly within the contexts of the Radical Reformation and the Huguenot diaspora (1685-1800). Before coming to Leiden, I also spent a year (2016-2017) as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Tübingen, Germany.
My current research explores transnational dissenting networks and the circulation of millenarian literature in the long eighteenth century. I am especially interested in the intersections between underground movements and commercial, diplomatic, family and religious networks. My book project traces the missions and legacy of the Camisards Prophets from the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) in France to the Shakers during the American Revolution. Other projects include Protestant missionaries to the Ottoman Empire, imposture and conspiracies, and Madagascar in early modern utopian thought.
I am thrilled to join the History Institute in Leiden and LUC in The Hague, and look forward to collaborating with my new colleagues in the coming months.