Andrei Pesic

Andrei Pesic is an Assistant Professor of French and Italian at Stanford University's School of Humanities and Sciences. He specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of early modern France with particular expertise in music history, economic thought, and visual arts.

His educational background includes a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University (2015), an M.Sc. in Economic and Social History from Oxford University where he held the Michael Von Clemm Fellowship, and an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University.

Pesic's research focuses on the intersections of music, markets, and secularization during the Enlightenment period. His current book manuscript, The Enlightenment in Concert: Music, Markets, and Inadvertent Secularization (under advance contract), examines how concert series in eighteenth-century Europe brought sacred music into the marketplace for entertainment. He also works on an intellectual history of the concept of competition in annual painting displays in Paris (the salons).

His publications demonstrate a consistent focus on the relationship between music, religion, and economic forces in early modern Europe, particularly examining how artistic expressions navigated religious and commercial spheres. His work bridges musicology, economic history, and cultural studies with particular attention to France and its colonial contexts.

Pesic's research has been supported by prestigious organizations including the ACLS-Mellon Foundation, the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD), the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS), and the France-Stanford Center. Prior to Stanford, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the New York Public Library (2015-16).

He teaches courses spanning French literature, art history, and historical studies including 'French Painting from Watteau to Monet,' 'Art and the Market,' 'Absolutism, Enlightenment, and Revolution in 17th- and 18th-Century France,' and 'Art and Power.' His teaching reflects his interdisciplinary approach connecting cultural production with economic and political contexts.