Independent researcher - Phd in French literature, University Paris Sorbonne, France
Février à juin 2013
Ioana Manea has been a foreign resident of the École Normale Supérieure de la rue d'Ulm and got a research grant at the University Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). In 2008, she earned a doctorate from the University Paris-Sorbonne with a thesis entitled The thought of the authority in F. La Mothe Le Vayer. While writing articles about the libertine La Mothe Le Vayer and preparing her thesis for publication, she developed a new project, which aims to study the virtue of the pagans in the seventeenth century. This project is a continuation of one of the chapters of her thesis, dedicated to the work of La Mothe Le Vayer, De la vertu des païens, which was very controversial when it was issued. In order to work on this project, she received a residency at the Romanian Cultural Institute of Paris (2010) and a fellowship at the University of Fribourg (2011-2012).
"The virtue of the Pagans. Theology and ethics in the seventeenth century (1601-1699)"
This research project aims to analyse how the "Grand Siècle" perceives the virtues of individuals who, because they do not worship God, are left to themselves. Doing so, it crosses the questions that are still relevant today like the relation to the other and his religion. The hypothesis is that the virtue of the Pagans, which in the late seventeenth century, is rehabilitated against its critics, is not completely foreign to the Christian virtue. To verify this working hypothesis, she focuses on changes undergone throughout the century by the key concepts of Augustinian theology, which were responsible for the rejection of the virtue of the Pagans. Thus, she studies concepts such as self-esteem, grace and original sin in the work of authors who have adopted various attitudes toward the theology of St. Augustine.