Russell Goulbourne

Reverend Professor Russell Goulbourne serves as an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the School of Languages and Linguistics, French Studies, at the University of Melbourne, where he is Professor of French Literature. He completed his MA, MSt, and DPhil at Keble College, Oxford. His academic career began at the University of Leeds in the Department of French, where he held positions as Lecturer from 2000 to 2005, Senior Lecturer from 2005 to 2006, and Professor of Early Modern French Literature from 2006 to 2013; he also served as Head of Department from 2008 to 2011. In January 2014, he moved to King's College London as Professor of French Literature and was Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Humanities from January 2014 to August 2018. Goulbourne joined the University of Melbourne in January 2019 as Professor of French Literature and served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts from January 2019 to January 2024.

Goulbourne's research specializations and academic interests include 17th- and 18th-century French literature, with particular emphasis on Voltaire, the history of the book, textual editing, and the reception of classical antiquity in early modern France. Key publications encompass his monograph Voltaire Comic Dramatist (2006); editorship of The Chevalier d'Eon and his Worlds: Gender, Espionage and Politics in the Eighteenth Century (2011); translation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Reveries of the Solitary Walker (Oxford World's Classics, 2011); co-editorship of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and British Romanticism: Gender and Selfhood, Politics and Nation (2017); and contributions to the Complete Works of Voltaire series, including Voltaire, Miscellaneous Verse (2015), Voltaire, Samson, and Voltaire, Le Dépositaire. His scholarly articles include works on Voltaire's engagement with Dante's Commedia and Diderot's imitations of Horace. Additionally, he is the ninth Warden of Trinity College, the University of Melbourne, a role he began in March 2026, and an alumnus of its Theological School.

Professional Email: russell.goulbourne@unimelb.edu.au