Biography

Antoine Lilti was born in 1972. A graduate of the École normale supérieure and agrégé in history, in 2003 he defended a thesis at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, under the supervision of Daniel Roche, entitled : " Le Monde des salons. Sociabilité et mondanité à Paris au XVIIIe siècle ", published in 2005. He teaches as a lecturer at ENS Ulm, then as Director of Studies at EHESS from 2011. He joins the Collège de France in 2022. At the same time, he is active in publishing. From 2006 to 2011, he edited the journal Annales. Histoire, sciences sociales. From 2013 to 2023, he was director of the collection L'épreuve de l'histoire , published by Fayard. He currently directs " L'histoire au présent ", published by Flammarion.

His work focuses on the social, cultural and intellectual history of the Enlightenment. He first studied the sociability practices of aristocratic elites and writers (Le Monde des salons, Fayard, 2005), then set out to show the emergence, in the eighteenth century, of a new form of recognition, celebrity, linked to changes in public space and individual identities (Figures publiques, Fayard, 2014). Since then, his work has extended to the multiple legacies of the Enlightenment(L'Héritage des Lumières. Ambivalences de la modernité, EHESS/Gallimard/Seuil, 2019 and Actualité des Lumières :une histoire plurielle, Collège de France, 2023). In recent years, his research has also focused on the first contacts between Europeans and Polynesians in the Pacific, and on Tahitian travelers to Europe in the 18th century (L'Illusion d'un monde commun. Tahiti et la découverte de l'Europe, Flammarion, 2025).

Selected bibliography

  • Le Monde des salons. Sociabilité et mondanité à Paris au XVIIIe siècle

    Lilti A., Le Monde des salons. Sociabilité et mondanité à Paris au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Fayard, 2005.

  • Figures publiques. L’invention de la célébrité (1750-1850)

    Lilti A., Figures publiques. L’invention de la célébrité (1750-1850), Paris, Fayard, 2014, Réédition Pluriel, 2022.

  • L’héritage des Lumières. Ambivalences de la modernité

    Lilti A., L’Héritage des Lumières. Ambivalences de la modernité, Paris, Éditions de l’EHESS/Gallimard/Le Seuil, coll. « Hautes Études », 2019, Réédition Points, 2022.

  • Commerce, civilisation, empire. Penser l’Europe au XVIIIe siècle

    Lilti A. et Spector C. (dir.), Commerce, civilisation, empire. Penser l’Europe au XVIIIe siècle, Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, 2014.

  • In the Shadow of the Public: Enlightenment and the Pitfalls of Modernity

    Lilti A., « In the Shadow of the Public: Enlightenment and the Pitfalls of Modernity », International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity, Brill, vol. 8. n° 3-4, 2020, p. 256-277.