Marc Fumaroli, member de l’Académie française and author of When the World Spoke French (2011, New York Review Books), discusses historical sketches and short biographies from his book as he explores the use and influence of French in the world. In his own words, “[The] book is a promenade among various encounters between Frenchmen and foreigners during the eighteenth century, when the French were at home wherever they went, when Paris was every foreigner’s second homeland, and when France became the object of Europe’s collective curiosity.”

Marc Fumaroli is a scholar of French classical rhetoric and art. He is a member of l’Académie française, the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Société d’histoire littéraire de la France. He received from the Académie française, before being elected a member, the Monseigneur Marcel Prize in 1982 and the Critique Prize in 1992, and he is president of the Société des Amis du Louvre. M. Fumaroli was also a member of the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought. He is the 2001 recipient of the prestigious Balzan Prize, the “Nobel” of the humanities.

Recorded Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at Alliance Française de Chicago.