EDHEC forges a partnership with Editions du Seuil
On 14 September in Lille, EDHEC Business School welcomed Éditions du Seuil as part of a multi-year partnership forged around the Humanities track, an academic initiative supported by the EDHEC Foundation. During the event, Coralie Piton, Chairwoman of Éditions du Seuil, and Hélène George-Deschanel (EDHEC 2015), the publisher’s Head of Sales, outlined the details of the partnership to students.
“Our role is to offer material for long-term thinking” said Coralie Piton, while introducing the mission of Editions du Seuil, the publishing house she has managed since 2024. Over two hours, Coralie Piton and the publisher’s Head of Sales, Hélène George-Deschanel (EDHEC 2015) presented their group to students on EDHEC’s Humanities track. They covered the group’s catalogue, as well as publishing industry professions, book market trends and future projects to be undertaken within the scope of the partnership with EDHEC.
Thanks to the collaboration between the two partners, half a dozen authors will contribute directly to the teaching received on the Humanities track. Students will have the chance to discuss the writers’ books with them and develop their own thinking on the major social, economic and cultural transformations shaping today’s world.
Understanding and leveraging a literary catalogue
Founded in 1925, les Éditions du Seuil publishes 300 new titles a year from its extensive catalogue (documents, coffee table books, reviews, novels, graphic novels). It boasts one of the largest lists of humanities authors (Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Paul Ricoeur, Michelle Perrot, Jacques Derrida, Georges Vigarello), as well as many classic novelists (Gabriel García Márquez, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa) and contemporary writers (Edouard Louis, Joann Sfar, Camille Kouchner).
During this morning session, Coralie Piton explained the process of putting together a literary catalogue, particularly the way works are assigned to different collections (cadre vert, cadre rouge, Verso, etc.). From this perspective, Hélène George-Deschanel then detailed the wide variety of jobs that combine to enable the industry to function: publishing, artistic design and production, distribution, and sales and marketing functions. The last two categories aroused great interest from Humanities track students, given that they require a combination of expertise in management sciences and an understanding of the cultural sector.
Imagining the publishing world of tomorrow with students
Falling book sales, a market concentrating on best sellers, an expanding second-hand book market, economic pressure on book stores… Coralie Piton and Hélène George-Deschanel reviewed the situation in the publishing industry and the changes seen in recent years. They also shared several ideas set to feed into students’ thinking over the year ahead: how can publishing houses continue to foster public debate in a book market under pressure? How can they offer people complex ideas at a time when attention spans are getting shorter? To focus the students’ minds on these issues, they invited them to imagine the books of tomorrow, by considering formats and readerships, with the ultimate aim of renewing the taste for reading and attracting new readers.
These considerations will feed into the students’ discussions and work throughout the 2026-2027 academic year, highlights of which include a book club, the Open Innovation Challenge, a master class on designing book covers (Labo Couv) and a visit to Editions du Seuil’s head office.
