French professor Rigolot honored for scholarship

When French professor Francois Rigolot, one of the world’s most prominent scholars on Renaissance literature, received the Paul Oskar Kristeller Lifetime Achievement Award in late March, many of his colleagues and students said they could think of few other people who deserved such a distinction. But they also described a man whose humility and generosity have inspired a generation of upcoming scholars and his enduring legacy beyond academic work.

The award is the highest honor given by the Renaissance Society of America.

“Rumor had it that he was the fairy godmother of dissertation advisers,” said Rebecca Harmon GS ’10, explaining why she chose to pursue her graduate studies at Princeton and seek out Rigolot’s guidance. Harmon is currently a lecturer in the French and Italian department.

Harmon described Rigolot as an adviser who not only paid attention to his students during and after their time at the University, but also took a vested interest in them and their careers to an extent that was rare in academia.

In October 2005, several of Rigolot’s former doctoral students held a two-day conference in his honor, and two of them published a book in 2008 titled “Esprit genereux, esprit pantagruelicque: Essays by his students in honor of Francois Rigolot,” honoring his impact on their lives as a father figure through a collection of 15 essays.

“All 15 essays represent a tribute to Francois’ manifold qualities as professor, scholar and person,” wrote Zahi Zalloua GS ’03 and Reinier Leushuis ’00 in the preface of the book. “They pay homage to his world-renowned publications, his generous willingness to share his prolific erudition ... his sincere and tireless support of students and colleagues ... and, perhaps, most importantly, his inspirational and affable personality.”

Valerie Dionne GS ’08, an associate professor in the French and Italian department at Colby College, said that, as someone who was passionate about the French writer Michel de Montaigne, there were roughly three people in the world whom she greatly admired and wanted to work with when she applied to Ph.D. programs several years ago. Rigolot was one of them.

As she wrote her dissertation under his guidance, she said that “he really played the role of a father” through his encouragement and genuine interest in her professional development.

“On a personal level, every time I see him, I know that he’s so happy to see me and I’m so happy to see him,” she said. “He’s going to be present in our lives for a long time.”

Rigolot is also one of the four professors who teaches undergraduates in the interdisciplinary humanities sequence taught to freshmen each year.

His colleagues said they were impressed with Rigolot’s ability to continue publishing as a preeminent scholar in his field while mentoring students with such devotion.

“His dedication to the department is amazing,” French and Italian department chair Sarah Kay said in an email. “He is a superb colleague, who has served for many years as the department’s chair and as director of graduate studies; he is a popular undergraduate teacher and has directed the dissertations of nearly 40 graduate students.”

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

She added that it was “hard to find words to praise him enough.”

Rigolot said that when he was told two years ago that he would receive the award at the 2011 Renaissance Society of America conference in Montreal, the news was “quite unexpected.”

“I thought I was too young to get a lifetime achievement award,” he said with a laugh. “Obviously I’m coming to the end of my career now, and I loved it of course, and I was very grateful to the board for bestowing this upon me ... There are many more deserving people probably, but I was very touched and moved by the decision.”

Rigolot noted that Montaigne, his favorite author, wrote an essay called “On Vanity,” at the end of which he appended a major award he received in Rome.

“He decides to append that diploma at the very end of the essay, and I always loved that,” Rigolot said. “Because he says, if I did not put it there, I would not be true to myself. To be true to myself I have to show how vain I can be ... But at the same time, I always remember Ecclesiastes — ‘Vanity of vanities; all is vanity’ — so that it doesn’t go to my head.”

Rigolot’s many distinctions include the James Russell Lowell Prize in the Humanities from the Modern Language Association in 1990 and the Howard T. Berhman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities from the University in 1993.