Anne Simon

Anne Simon is a Research Director at CNRS and Professor at École normale supérieure (ENS-PSL), where she leads the Department of Literatures and Language. She founded and directs the international PhilOfr team (Centre international d’étude de la philosophie française contemporaine) and contributes to research blogs Animots, Pôle Proust, and Prix Recherche au Présent.

• Ph.D. in Literature (Paris-Sorbonne, 1999)
• Habilitation à diriger des recherches (Paris-Sorbonne, 2014)
• Formerly affiliated with THALIM (2001-2010) and CRAL (2010-2021)

Her research intersects literature and philosophy through zoopoetics, exploring how animal studies, environmental humanities, and ethics shape literary creation. She examines bodily mutations, gender representations, and the disruptive influence of Proust on 20th-century thinkers like Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze. Her work also bridges ecopoetics and literature-ethology interactions.

Recent articles and edited collections (2017-2025) focus on satirical zoomorphism, cross-disciplinary zoopoetics, and ethical dimensions of human-animal relations in Francophone contexts. She has co-organized international colloquiums and contributed to journals like Revue des Sciences Humaines and Contemporary French and Francophone Studies.

Professor Simon has taught in EHESS/ENS Masters programs, directed ANR-funded projects (2010-2014), and serves on editorial boards including Romanic Review and Billebaude. She co-founded the Prix Recherche au Présent for doctoral candidates and evaluates for the Prix Jacques Lacarrière.