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I am a fourth year Ph.D. candidate working with Thierry Poibeau, and Thomas Conrad at École Normale Supérieure / PSL University in Paris. My research falls within the field of Computational Literary Studies, where we employ machine learning and NLP techniques on large, digitized text collections.
The aim is to analyze literary history through a combination of close and distant reading approaches, exploring long-term literary trends while validating their textual authenticity. |
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Feel free to reach me!
Going to CHR2025 in Luxembourg ! (December 9-12)
Summary
My doctoral research explores the formal and historical dynamics of literary evolution through the lens of computational literary studies. Grounded in both literary theory and quantitative modeling, the project examines how intertextual relations—understood in Genette’s broad sense of architextuality—shape the formation and transformation of literary genres.
Focusing on French narrative fiction from the late nineteenth to the first half of the twentieth century, I study the emergence and reconfiguration of novelistic subgenres such as detective and adventure fiction. Using large-scale corpora, vector-space representations, and network analysis, I model the evolution of textual structures and character archetypes (notably the figure of the detective) across time.
The broader objective is to develop synchronic and diachronic models capable of capturing how literary forms persist, diverge, and evolve—thereby contributing to a quantitative literary history
I graduated from a master's degree program in Digital Humanities with a specialization in CLS at École nationale des Chartes in 2022.
- Barré et al “Modeling the Birth of a Literary Archetype: The case of the Detective Figure in French Fiction.”
Conference on Computational Humanities Research CHR2025, Dec 2025, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
ArXiV, [pdf]
- Brottrager et al “Patterns of Canon: A Multilingual Network Study.”
Conference on Computational Humanities Research CHR2025, Dec 2025, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
Publications
- Mélanie-Becquet et al. “BookNLP-fr, the French Versant of BookNLP. A Tailored Pipeline for 19th and 20th Century French Literature.”
Journal of Computational Literary Studies 3(1), 1-34. 10.48694/jcls.3924 , [pdf].
- Barré et al. “Operationalizing Canonicity: A Quantitative Study of French 19th and 20th Century Literature.”
Journal of Cultural Analytics, vol. 8, no. 1, Oct. 2023, 10.22148/001c.88113, [pdf].
- Gabay et al “The times are a-changin': présent vs passé simple in French novels (1811-2020).”
Digital Humanities Benelux, Jun 2025, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
hal, [pdf]
- Barré “Latent Structures of Intertextuality in French Fiction.”
Proceedings of the Conference Computational Humanities Research CHR2024, Dec 2024, Aarhus, Denmark.
CHR2024 Proceedings, ArXiV, [pdf]
- Chen et al. “Network Analysis, Plot Theory: Revisiting French Literature through Character Networks.”
DH2024, Washington, Aug 2024. DH2024 [pdf]
- Barré et al. “Détection automatique de l'architextualité dans le roman d'aventures. Une tentative d'opérationnalisation.”
Humanistica 2024, Association francophone des humanités numériques, May 2024, Meknès, Maroc. {hal-04559749} - [pdf]
- Barré et al. “Beyond Canonicity. Modeling Canon/Archive Literary Change in French Fiction.”
Proceedings of the Conference Computational Humanities Research CHR2023, Dec 2023, Paris, France. CHR Proceedings, {hal-04279087} - [pdf].
- Vianne et al. “Gender Bias in French Literature.”
Proceedings of the Conference Computational Humanities Research CHR2023, Dec 2023, Paris, France. CHR Proceedings, [pdf].
- Barré et al. “Pour une Détection Automatique de l’Espace Personnage dans les Romans.”
Humanistica, Association francophone des humanités numériques, Jun 2023, Genève, Suisse, {hal-04105537} - [pdf - french].
- Grunspan et al. “Event Annotation for Literary Corpora Analysis.”
DH2022, Tokyo, Jul 2022. {hal-03738806} - [pdf].
Talks
- September 2025, Modeling the Birth of a Literary Archetype: The case of the Detective Figure in French Fiction [pdf]
Culture lab Kickoff, september 22, Paris
- July 2025, Modèles de Langues et Intertextualité dans le Roman Policier. [pdf].
Colloque "Le texte de l'autre. Dialogue interdisciplinaire autour de l'intertextualité et du discours rapporté", July 2025, Paris, France.
- June 2025, Computational Analysis of the Birth of the Detective Novel. [pdf].
Zentrum für Philologie und Digitalität, Würzburg University, Jun 2025, Würzburg, Germany.
- March 2025, Latent Structures of Intertextuality in French Fiction. [pdf].
The Embed-Days Colloquium, March 2025, Paris, France
- Feb 2025, Analyse Computationnelle de la Naissance du Roman Policier. [pdf].
Séminaire Interprétations Artificielles, Université Paris-Nanterre, Feb 2025, Nanterre, France.
- Dec 2024, Latent Structures of Intertextuality in French Fiction. [pdf].
Computational Humanities Research conference - CHR2024, Dec 2024, Aarhus, Denmark.
- June 2024, BookNLP-fr, the French Versant of BookNLP. [pdf].
Computational Literary Studies conference, Darmstadt, Jun 2024, Vienna, Austria.
- May 2024, La détection de Personnages dans la Littérature. [pdf].
Journées Annuelles du réseau MATE, May 2024, Lille, France.
- May 2024, Détection Automatique de l'Architextualité dans le Roman d'Aventures. [pdf].
Humanistica 2024, Association francophone des humanités numériques, May 2024, Meknès, Maroc.
- December 2023, Opérationnaliser la canonicité: Une étude quantitative dans la littérature française du 19e et 20e siècle. [pdf].
Séminaire du Master Humanités Numériques de l'École des Chartes, Dec 2023, Paris, France.
- December 2023, Beyond Canonicity: Modeling Canon/Archive Literary Change in French Fiction. [pdf].
Computational Humanities Research conference - CHR2023, Dec 2023, Paris, France.
- December 2023, Using LLMs & Fr-BookNLP to study subgenres: First experiments. [pdf].
Pre-Conference Workshop CHR2023, Dec 2023, Paris, France.
- December 2023, Spécificités Stylistiques des Prix Littéraires [pdf - french], with Pedro Cabrera Ramirez.
Journée d'Étude: Identifier les régularités stylistiques dans le discours littéraire, Dec 2023, Paris, France.
- June 2023, Mesurer le Changement Littéraire [pdf - french].
Journée Doctorale du Lattice, Jun 2023, Montrouge, France.
- June 2023, Pour une Détection Automatique de l’Espace Personnage dans les Romans [pdf - french], with Pedro Cabrera Ramirez.
Humanistica 2023, Association francophone des humanités numériques, Jun 2023, Genève, Suisse.
- April 2023, Operationalizing Canonicity. A Quantitative Study of French 19th and 20th Century Literature [pdf].
Stanford Literary Lab meetings.
- March 2023, What BookNLP does to Texts ? [pdf - french], with Frédérique Mélanie-Becquet.
Workshop - Ce que le numérique fait aux humanités, École Normale Supérieure.
- November 2022, Une Histoire Computationnelle du Genre dans la Fiction - [pdf - french]
Séminaire du Lattice.
- September 2022, French BookNLP - Progress Report - [pdf]
Presentation to David Bamman, UC Berkeley.
Teaching
- Fall 2025, F1TCB01 - TD Récit et Argumentation, L1 Sorbonne Nouvelle, Licence de Lettres Moderne du LLFL.
- Fall 2025, NLP for CLS, CPES-PSL, Bachelor Data Science, Arts and Cultures. Course Website Github Repository
- Fall 2025, Python for Computational Humanities, École Nationale des Chartes, Master Humanités Numériques. Github Repository
- Spring 2025, NLP for CLS, CPES-PSL, Bachelor Data Science, Arts and Cultures. Course Website Github Repository
- Fall 2024, Python for Computational Humanities, École Nationale des Chartes, Master Humanités Numériques. Github Repository
- March 2024, Le Genre des Personnages de Fiction - Introduction to Computational Literary Studies, École Normale Supérieure, Département Littérature et Langage. [pdf - french]
- March 2024, Classifier des Genres Littéraires - Introduction to Computational Literary Studies, École Normale Supérieure, Département Littérature et Langage. [pdf - french]
- March 2024, Using Large Language Models to Study Fiction, Digital Humanities meet Artificial Intelligence - PSL intensive week.
Project 2 - link Introduction [pdf], Github Repository.
- Feb 2024, LLMs pour la Recherche en Littérature. [pdf - french]
- Fall 2023, Python for Computational Humanities, École Nationale des Chartes, Master Humanités Numériques. Github Repository
- Oct 2023, Introduction to Computational Literary Studies, École Nationale des Chartes, Master Humanités Numériques. [pdf - french]
- March 2023, Introduction to NLP for DH, École Normale Supérieure, [pdf - french], with Thierry Poibeau.
- Nov 2022, A Computational Literary History of Gender in Fiction, DHAI - PSL intensive week.
Project 4 - link Introduction [pdf], Github Repository, Students Results [pdf], Report - french.