Professor Neil Kenny

Professor Neil Kenny

Linguistics, Literature, Modern Languages
Senior Research Fellow since 2012

I am a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College and Professor of French at the University of Oxford. My research focuses on early modern literature (sixteenth to mid-seventeenth century) and its relation to society, culture, and thought, especially in France. My current research focus is on the relation of literature and learning to the social order. In addition, I am involved in work relating to language policy within UK education and society (especially through the British Academy, but in conjunction with many stakeholders), as part of collective efforts to increase provision and uptake of language-learning in the UK. Before coming to Oxford I taught for many years at the University of Cambridge.

Links
Email: neil.kenny@all-souls.ox.ac.uk
ORCID
Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages Profile
British Academy Profile
Research Areas
Early Modern Studies
Modern Languages
French Studies
Literature and the Social Order
Cognitive Criticism
Language Education Policy

Selected Publications

Rabelais and the Social Order: An Essay in Cognitive Criticism

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2026)

Literature, Learning, and Social Hierarchy in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Neil Kenny

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022)

Born to Write: Literary Families and Social Hierarchy in Early Modern France

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)

The Uses of Curiosity in Early Modern France and Germany

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)

'A Multilingual Ladder?' (22 Sept. 2025)

The Language Learning Journal, DOI: 10.1080/09571736.2025.2557462

Current Project

On the question of who or what is ‘fitting’ (or misfitting) in early modern French literature. This question can seem largely aesthetic, or largely social. I approach it as socio-aesthetic. Evidence suggests that socio-aesthetic ‘fit’, even where apparently strong, is only ever partial. An eventual monograph is provisionally entitled Misfits: Literature and the Social Order in Early Modern France.