Research

My research mostly focuses on early modern French literature, culture, and thought, especially from the early sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. Its current focus is on the relation of literature and learning to social hierarchy.

I also participate in the British Academy's work on language policy within education and society. 

Graduate teaching

I am pleased to consider supervising DPhils on any area of French literature, thought, and culture c. 1500–1650.

The areas in which I have previously supervised doctorates include poetry, narrative fiction, intellectual history, scientific writing, gender, travel writing, and socio-economic approaches to literature. 

Throughout the year I run a fortnightly workshop for Medieval and Modern Languages students on 'Researching and Writing a DPhil: Problems, Methods'. All DPhil students in the Faculty are welcome to attend (on a regular or occasional basis). Details are on the lecture list.

Publications

Books

— The Palace of Secrets: Béroalde de Verville and Renaissance Conceptions of Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
— Curiosity in Early Modern Europe: Word Histories (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, Wolfenbütteler Forschungen, 1998).
— The Uses of Curiosity in Early Modern France and Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
— An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century French Literature and Thought: Other Times, Other Places (London: Duckworth, 2008).
— Death and Tenses: Posthumous Presence in Early Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Click here for related podcast.
— Born to Write: Literary Families and Social Hierarchy in Early Modern France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).

Edited volumes

— Philosophical Fictions and the French Renaissance, ed. by Neil Kenny (London: Warburg Institute, Surveys and Texts, 1991).
— Terence Cave, Retrospectives: Essays in Literature, Poetics, and Cultural History, ed. by Neil Kenny and Wes Williams (London: Legenda, 2009).
— La Librairie de Montaigne, ed. by Philip Ford and Neil Kenny (Cambridge: Cambridge French Colloquia, 2012).
— Montaigne in Transit: Essays in Honour of Ian Maclean, ed. by Neil Kenny, Richard Scholar, and Wes Williams (Oxford: Legenda, 2016).
— Text, Knowledge and Wonder in Early Modern France: Studies in Honour of Stephen Bamforth, ed. by Neil Kenny (special issue of Nottingham French Studies, 56.3 (2017)). Click here for related blog.
— Literature, Learning, and Social Hierarchy in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Neil Kenny (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).

Articles

— ‘Changing the Languages of Theatre: A Comparison of Brecht and Artaud’, Journal of European Studies, 13 (1983), 169–86.
— ‘Satire, parodie et philosophie chez Béroalde de Verville’, in Burlesque et formes parodiques dans la littérature et les arts: actes du colloque de l’Université du Maine, Le Mans, ed. by Isabelle Landy-Houillon and Maurice Ménard (Seattle and Tübingen: Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, 1987), pp. 231–47.
— ‘Pastoral Love Parodied: Les Avantures de Floride by Béroalde de Verville’, La Chouette (Birkbeck College French Department), 10 (1988), 3–12.
— ‘From Poetry to Prose: Béroalde de Verville and Philosophical Writing’, Renaissance Studies, 3 (1989), 178–92.
— ‘Curiosité and Philosophical Poetry in the French Renaissance’, Renaissance Studies, 5 (1991), 263–76.
— ‘In Search of Renaissance Conceptions of Knowledge’, Bulletin of the Society for Renaissance Studies, 8 (1991), 16–25.
— ‘Le Moyen de parvenir: The First Edition, its Date, and the Woman who Printed it’, in Studies on Béroalde de Verville, ed. by Michael Giordano (Paris, Seattle, Tübingen: Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, 1992), pp. 21–41.
— ‘Montaigne et les femmes “attachées à la rhétorique”: autour d’un passage de l’essai III.3, “De trois commerces”’, in Montaigne et la rhétorique: actes du colloque de St Andrews (28–31 mars 1992), ed. by John O’Brien, Malcolm Quainton, and James Supple (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1995), pp. 203–19.
— ‘Interpreting Concepts after the Linguistic Turn: The Example of curiosité in Le Bonheur des sages / Le Malheur des curieux by Du Souhait (1600)’, in Interpréter le seizième siècle, ed. by John O’Brien (Michigan Romance Studies, XV, 1996), pp. 241–70.
— ‘“car le nom mesme de liberalité sonne liberté”: les contextes sociaux et économiques du savoir chez Béroalde de Verville’, in Béroalde de Verville: actes du treizième colloque international organisé à l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne le 9 mars 1995 par le Centre V. L. Saulnier (Paris: Presses de l’École Normale Supérieure, 1996), pp. 7-24.
— ‘Books in Space and Time: Bibliomania and Early Modern Histories of Learning and “Literature” in France’, Modern Language Quarterly, 61.2 (2000), 253–86.
— ‘“La France, si curieuse de nouveautez”: le concept composite de “curiosité” aux débuts de la presse périodique en France (1631–1633)’, in ‘D’une fantastique bigarrure’: Le Texte composite à la Renaissance. Études offertes à André Tournon, ed. by Jean-Raymond Fanlo (Paris: Champion, 2000), pp. 289–302.
— ‘Plautus, Panurge, and “les aventures des gens curieux”’, (Re)inventing the Past: Essays in Honour of Ann Moss, ed. by Gary Ferguson and Catherine Hampton (Durham: University of Durham, 2003), pp. 51–71.
— ‘Montaigne Read by and through Gournay the Writer: The Example of conférence’, in Le Visage changeant de Montaigne / The Changing Face of Montaigne, ed. by Keith Cameron and Laura Willett (Paris: Champion, 2003), pp. 321–34.
— ‘“Ce nom de Roman qui estoit particulier aux Livres de Chevalerie, estant demeuré à tous les Livres de fiction”: la naissance antidatée d’un genre’, in Le Renouveau d’un genre: le roman en France au XVIe siècle, ed. by Michèle Clément and Pascale Mounier (Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 2005), pp. 19–32.
— ‘The Metaphorical Collecting of Curiosities in Early Modern France and Germany’, in Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, ed. by R. J. W. Evans and Alexander Marr (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), pp. 43–62.
— ‘La Part du dire dans le contredire, ou l’inconstance des paroles humaines: Léry, Montaigne, Colletet’, Seizième siècle, 4 (2008), 255–87.
— ‘ambiguè dictum, & obscurè dictum: Plaute, Panurge, et les “aventures des gens curieux”’, in L’Énigmatique à la Renaissance: formes, significations, esthétiques. Actes du colloque organisé par l’association Renaissance, Humanisme, Réforme (Lyon, 7–10 septembre 2005), ed. by Daniel Martin, Pierre Servet, and André Tournon (Paris: Champion, 2008), pp. 361–74.
— ‘Passions, Emotions, and Pre-Histories’, in Pre-Histories and Afterlives: Studies in Critical Method for Terence Cave, ed. by Anna Holland and Richard Scholar (London: Legenda, 2009), pp. 15–27.
— ‘“Renaissance” History in Modern French Drama: The Lure of the Impossible?’, Nottingham French Studies, 49.3 (2010), 79–86.
— ‘Making Sense of Intertextuality’, in The Cambridge Companion to Rabelais, ed. by John O’Brien (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 57–72.
— ‘“Quand la curiosité se trouve jointe à un peu d’imagination [...]”: conjonctions d’une passion et d’une faculté’, in Doute et imagination: constructions du savoir de la Renaissance aux Lumières, ed. by Geneviève Goubier, Bérengère Parmentier, and Daniel Martin (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2011), pp. 25–36.
— ‘“Ce qui occasionna ceste Serée fut...”: les “causes” du savoir dans Les Serées de Guillaume Bouchet’, in Contes et discours bigarrés, Cahiers V. L. Saulnier 28 (Paris: Presses de l’université Paris–Sorbonne, 2011), pp. 103–16.
— ‘La Collection comme mode discursif dans les relations de voyage françaises aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles’, French Studies, 65.3 (2011), 357–69.
— ‘Problems of Power in Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron: Ruse, Mortification, and the Everyday’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 47.3 (2011), 251–61.
— ‘Disinterring and Reinterring the Dead: Tense in French Grammars, Du Vair, and Pasquier (c. 1550–1610)’, Romanic Review, 103.1–2 (2012), 209–31.
— ‘“Je ne me réputerai totalement mourir”: Tense, Death, Survival in Rabelais’s Pantagruel’, in Evocations of Eloquence: Rhetoric, Literature and Religion in Early Modern France: Essays in Honour of Peter Bayley, ed. by Nicholas Hammond and Michael Moriarty (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2012), pp. 337–50.
— ‘“rendre commode ce qui pourroit nous nuire en beaucoup de sortes”: le détournement des textes et de la curiosité chez Simon Goulart’, in Simon Goulart: un pasteur aux intérêts vastes comme le monde, ed. by Olivier Pot (Geneva: Droz, 2013), 57–73.
— ‘“il ne faut pas être si exact en temps” (Verville, Le Moyen de parvenir): la mort au croisement de la fiction et de l’érudition humanistes’, in Érudition et fiction: troisième rencontre internationale Paul-Zumthor, ed. by É. Méchoulan (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2014), pp. 65–80.
—'Les Rapports entre fiction et savoir envisagés par les paratextes de récits fictionnels en prose, c. 1540–1630', in Savoirs et fiction au moyen Âge et à la Renaissance, ed. by Dominique Boutet and Joelle Ducos (Paris: Presses de l'université Paris-Sorbonne, 2015), pp. 187–97.
— ‘Curiosity, Women, and the Social Orders', in Women and Curiosity in Early Modern England and France, ed. by Line Cottegnies, Sandrine Parageau, and John J. Thompson (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016), pp. 233–50.
— ‘"A propos, ou hors de propos, il n'importe": Relevance Theory and Montaigne',  in Lucidity: Essays in Honour of Alison Finch, ed. by Ian James and Emma Wilson (Cambridge: Legenda, 2016), pp. 20–31.
— ‘What Did Matthieu Beroald Transmit to François Béroalde de Verville?’, Nottingham French Studies, 56.3 (2017) [=special issue: Text, Knowledge and Wonder in Early Modern France: Studies in Honour of Stephen Bamforth, ed. by Neil Kenny], 309–22.      
— ‘La Page de titre et la question du livre scientifique, c. 1530–1650’, in Les Sciences et le livre: formes des écrits scientifiques des débuts de l'imprimerie à l'époque moderne, ed. by Joëlle Ducos (Paris: Hermann, 2017), pp. 73–101.
— ‘The Stench of Knowledge: The Vilain Dreamer in Les Serées by Guillaume Bouchet’, Early Modern French Studies [= special issue: Variations of Vileness, ed. by Jonathan Patterson and Emilia Wilton-Godberfforde] 39.2 (2017), 184–93.
— ‘Relevance Theory and the Effect of Literature on Beliefs: The Example of Injun Joe in Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer', in Reading Beyond the Code: Literature and Relevance Theory, ed. by Terence Cave and Deirdre Wilson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 73–89. 
— ‘“Have been thinking I'd better take a course in Montaigne": John Dewey (1859–1952), Progressive Education, and Social Class', Montaigne Studies [= special issue: Montaigne in America, ed. by Emiliano Ferrari] 31.1–2 (2019), 69–81.
— ‘“Lesquels banquets ... ont esté nommez ... des Latins sodalitates”: Discussing Dreams Over Dinner in Guillaume Bouchet's Serées’, in 'Sodalitas litteratorum': Études à la mémoire de/Studies in Memory of Philip Ford, ed. by Ingrid A. R. De Smet and Paul White (Geneva: Droz, 2019), pp. 259–74.
— 'Que devient le statut social de Montaigne au XVIIIe siècle?', in La Fabrique du XVIe siècle au temps des Lumières, ed. by Myrtille Méricam-Bourdet and Catherine Volpilhac-Auger (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2020), pp. 225–45.
— 'The Enduring Problem of Curiosity', Electra, 12 (2021), 137–48.
— 'Littérature royale, réseau familial', in Le Réseau de Marguerite de Navarre, ed. by Anne Boutet, Louise Daubigny, Stéphan Geonget, and Marie-Bénédicte Le Hir (Geneva: Droz, 2022), pp. 25–38.
— ‘La Race chez Montaigne', Montaigne outre-Manche, ed. by John O'Brien, special number of Bulletin de la Société Internationale des Amis de Montaigne, 74.1 (2022), 93–107.
—'Thought About Action: Ergon in Gargantua', Early Modern French Studies (special issue, Theology and Thought: Essays in Honour of Michael Moriarty, ed. by Nicholas Hammond and John Leigh), 45.1 (2023), 5–13.
—'"Que la France me recognoisse ce que je suis": mais qui étaient au juste Jean du Chastelet et Martine de Bertereau, baron et baronne de Beausoleil?', in L'Écriture de soi à la Renaissance, ed. by Paul-Victor Desarbres, Véronique Ferrer, and Alexandre Tarrête (Paris: Sorbonne Université Presses, 2024), pp. 131–46.

Book introduction

— ‘Introduction’, in Writers in Conflict in Sixteenth-Century France: Essays in Honour of Malcolm Quainton, ed. by Elizabeth Vinestock and David Foster (Durham: Durham Modern Languages Series, 2008), pp. 1–18.

Biographical memoir

— ‘Philip Ford (1949–2013)’, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy, XIII (Oxford: Oxford University Press and British Academy, 2014), pp. 217–48.

Entries in reference works and encyclopaedias

— A Rabelais Encyclopedia, ed. by Elizabeth Chesney Zegura (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 2004), entries for ‘The Concept of Knowledge’ and ‘Encyclopedism’.
— Encyclopaedia of French-American Relations, ed. by Bill Marshall (Santa Barbara, Denver, Oxford: ABC-Clio, 2005), entries for Brazil, Florida, Cartier, Champlain, Montaigne, and Roberval.
— ‘Sixteenth-Century Thought’, in The Cambridge History of French Literature, ed. by William Burgwinkle, Nicholas Hammond, and Emma Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 229–38.
— Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century French Philosophers, ed. by Luc Foisneau (Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2008), entry for Béroalde de Verville. French edition: Dictionnaire des philosophes français du XVIIe siècle, ed. by Luc Foisneau (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2014).
— 'Reformers and Dissidents', in The Cambridge History of French Thought, ed. by Michael Moriarty and Jeremy Jennings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 41–6.

Blogs and articles on language policy

— 'Learning a Foreign Language is About More than Getting by Abroad', British Academy blog (23 August 2017)
— 'How Far Can Skills-Talk Get Us?', Languages, Society and Policy (1 February 2018)
— Neil Kenny and Harriet Barnes, 'Language Learning: Turning a Crisis into an Opportunity', British Academy Review, 35 (spring 2019), 12–13
— 'Where Do Languages Go From Here?', The Oxford Polyglot, 2018–19, issue 3 (Trinity Term 2019)