Presenting at the 2026 Narrative Conference was a fantastic experience and a wonderful opportunity to share the first results of my PhD research with a passionate and knowledgeable community of scholars in my field. My paper explored the epistemic emotion of curiosity in both the enactive and narrative experiences of literary games in seventeenth-century France. While they are often approached primarily from a thematic perspective, the games we study, analyse, and even re-enact at JEUX engage players and readers through a rich interplay of emotions and cognitive stimuli. Examining these dynamics (particularly curiosity, which was a crucial cultural force in the early modern period) is essential to understanding both how early modern audiences experienced such ludic practices and how contemporary readers can meaningfully engage with their fictional retellings.
I am deeply honored and thrilled to have received the Alan Nadel Award for Best Essay by a Graduate Student. This recognition means a great deal to me: it affirms that my ongoing work resonates with the literary-scholar community and offers invaluable encouragement to continue pursuing this research. I am deeply grateful to the committee for selecting my paper from among so many high-quality submissions, and to the International Society for the Study of Narrative for generously supporting my participation in the next edition of the conference, to be held in New Delhi.