Acting Up argues for the importance of theatrical acting to the development of modern subjectivity in Enlightenment France. Leichman weaves together literary studies, cultural studies, and performance studies, looking at the ways in which esthetic treatises, dramatic texts, religious tracts, theories of acting, political polemics, and philosophical writings consistently figure the actor and the art of portraying a character on stage as the era’s most promising, and problematic, model of selfhood.