The question of the independence of literary analysis from the social sciences has been central to an important debate in literary studies in Quebec for more than twenty years now. In a context where the value of both literary history and traditional history of litterature has been questioned, two large projects have emerged that seek to renew these disciplines by attempting to adapt to recent developments in the social sciences and literary studies. This article shows how La vie littéraire au Québec and Histoire de la littérature québécoise are representative of the tendency to seek to redefine history and literary history using knowledge from the social sciences, while simultaneously seeking to maintain the specificity of literary analysis. The article focuses on the presentation of the author Louis Dandin (pseudonym of Eugène Seers) in these two publications.