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UCL Faculty of Laws

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Emmanuelle de Champs

Honorary Senior Research Fellow

Biography

I am an intellectual historian specializing in Bentham studies. My first book focused on Bentham’s political and constitutional thought (La déontologie politique, ou la pensée constitutionnelle de Jeremy Bentham, Droz, Geneva, 2008). A second monograph explored Bentham’s connections with France from the Enlightenment to the July Revolution of 1830.  Enlightenment and Utility, Bentham in France, Bentham in French (Cambridge University Press, 2015). I have studied Bentham alongside other figures of the European Enlightenment, such as Cesare Beccaria, Germaine de Staël, Etienne Dumont and Nicolas de Condorcet.

In 2024-2026, I’ll be studying the development of utilitarianism in British and European radical politics in the period 1820-1840, with a specific focus on gender issues and women utilitarian philosophers.

I am also interested in the possibilities offered by the digital humanities to promote and study manuscript sources. I have led the Testaments de Poilus crowdsourcing project, which led to a digital edition of nearly 1000 wills by French First World War soldiers.