Examines forms of engaged writing and public debate across the nineteenth-century Francophone Atlantic, with attention to how literary and journalistic texts intervened in major political and moral controversies. We focus on debates around the abolition of slavery, the death penalty, women s rights, colonialism, and citizenship, and we consider the genresand media through which such arguments circulated (periodicals, pamphlets, speeches, petitions, fiction, and print polemics). Combines close reading with methods from media and cultural history, including work with archival materials and periodical research.Students will alsobe introduced to core practices of scholarly editing, annotation, and translation (in print and digital environments).