Déborah Blocker

Déborah Blocker is a Professor of French at the University of California, Berkeley, with affiliations in Italian Studies, the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, and the doctoral program in Romance Languages and Literatures. She holds a DEA in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris (1993), a Doctorat in French Literature (University of Paris III, 2001), and an HDR in Comparative Literature (University of Paris IV, 2017). Her research focuses on the social and political history of literary practices in early modern France and Italy, particularly the role of academies, theater, and philology in shaping aesthetic and intellectual discourse.

Her major works include Instituer un ‘art’: politiques du théâtre dans la France du premier XVIIe siècle (2009) and Le Principe de plaisir: savoirs, esthétique et politique dans la Florence des Médicis (2022), the latter winning the Prix Monseigneur Marcel from the Académie Française in 2023. She has held fellowships at institutions like the Villa I Tatti (Florence) and the Freie Universität Berlin, and co-leads digital humanities projects on Florentine literary academies.

Blocker serves on numerous academic committees, including LIBR at UC Berkeley and the executive board of the Berkeley Initiative for Free Inquiry. Her current projects explore the cultural roles of aristocratic families like the Strozzi and Montmorency, combining archival research with digital editions of Renaissance manuscripts.