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Denis Diderot's early work was dominated by his work on the natural sciences and the Encyclopédie. In later years, his literature addressed the social applications of knowledge: economic, anthropological, political, and moral issues structured his aesthetic concerns. As an author in continual conversation with his contemporaries and who was instrumental in the creation of an intellectual community, his fiction, philosophical texts and critical works serve as the ideal lens to bring into focus the peculiarities of the French Enlightenment. Among the texts to be considered will be “De l’Interprétation de la nature”, articles from the Encyclopédie, the Supplément au voyage de Bougainville, Le Rêve de d’Alembert, the Salon de 1767, Le Neveu de Rameau, extracts from his Essai sur les règnes de Claude et de Néron. Reading in French, class in English.