Fort named French Research and Teaching Professor

Bernadette Fort, professor of French and adjunct professor of German, has been named the Weinberg College Board of Visitors Research and Teaching Professor of French.

Fort, a leading scholar of 18th-century France, centers her research on literature and visual arts and their power to express dissent. She is the author, editor and co-editor of six books on topics in 18th-century culture ranging from the libertine French novelist Claude Crébillon to the "Fictions" of the French Revolution and the Mémoires Secrets, a notorious archive of cultural and political critique, and, most recently, a volume on the "Aesthetics of Difference" in the work of the English painter and satirist William Hogarth.

Fort has written numerous book chapters and essays on aspects of French literature, cultural history and art history. She is working on a critical examination of the reception of the fine arts in pre-revolutionary France. Fort’s interests extend to contemporary France and the work of feminist theorist, writer and playwright Hélène Cixous, whose play, The Perjured City, received its English-language premiere at Northwestern in 1997 in Fort’s translation and thanks to Fort’s cross-school efforts. Fort is the editor-in-chief of the journal Eighteenth-Century Studies and a member of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies. She is also a member of several professional societies including the Modern Language Association, the College Art Association, the French and the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Society for French Historical Studies.

Her research has been supported by such foundations as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Camargo Foundation. In 1991 she received the "Palmes académiques" from the French Government for her distinguished academic achievements on behalf of French literature and culture. At Northwestern, Fort has promoted exchange between faculty and graduate students in diverse fields of 18th-century research.

Since 1994 she has chaired the Chicago-area Eighteenth-Century Seminar, a roundtable that brings together scholars from 10 surrounding colleges and universities to discuss interdisciplinary research on the 18th century. With the support of Weinberg College, she launched this year the Eighteenth-Century Initiative, an organization of faculty from various departments that supports students’ research, travel and publication on the 18th century. She also initiated the creation of the Ph.D. Certificate Program in Eighteenth-Century Studies, taught by a cross-departmental, cross-school group of faculty in the humanities and the arts.

Fort is the recipient of a Distinguished Teaching Award from the Weinberg College. The Weinberg professorship is awarded to a scholar who brings distinction, leadership, and a cosmopolitan and interdisciplinary perspective to an area of humanities research in which Northwestern has unusual faculty resources and is achieving national prominence.