Síofra Pierse

Síofra Pierse is Professor and Head of the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics at University College Dublin (UCD), where she also serves as Associate Professor in French and Francophone Studies. She has held leadership roles including Head of French, Head of Portuguese, and Head of SLCL Graduate Studies. A Rhodes Scholar, she earned her DPhil from Oxford and BA from University College Cork.

• BA (Joint Hons: French & Italian), University College Cork
• MSt (Oxon), University of Oxford
• DPhil (Oxon), University of Oxford

Her research centers on 18th-century French literature and the history of ideas, with a focus on Voltaire’s historiography, female-authored narratives, and the literature-doubt interface. She has published monographs such as Voltaire Historiographer: Narrative Paradigms and the 2024 Voltaire: A Reference Guide to his Life and Works, and has co-edited volumes on Diderot and 18th-century instability. Her recent publications reflect a consistent engagement with Enlightenment skepticism, gender, and narrative form, particularly in the works of Voltaire, Diderot, and Charrière.

She has received significant honors, including being named Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes académiques in 2023 and securing the UCD ADVANCE PhD CORE Scheme grant. She has supervised four PhD students to completion and mentored postdoctoral researchers.

Síofra has organized major international conferences such as Democracy Under Threat (2024), Women and Work across the 18th-century Francophone Globe (2022), and The Dark Side of Diderot (2013). She is currently co-editing Women at Work across the 18thc Francosphere and developing a long-term project titled Literary Doubt in Enlightenment France.

She is an active member of the UCD Humanities Institute and has served on numerous committees, including as Chair of SLCL’s Quality Assurance Review and as Programme Director for the MA in Languages and Image Studies.