PRINCETON, NJ – Greek News USA
[Photos: Princeton University]
Professor Effie Rentzou, the Director of the Program in European Cultural Studies at Princeton University, has been awarded the title of Chevalier in l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques [the Order of the French Academic Palms], a prestigious decoration awarded by the French Government, as a recognition for her contributions to French culture and education.
The induction ceremony took place last week at Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education, in NYC, led by the French Cultural Counselor Mohamed Bouabdallah.
According to a press release by Princeton University, Dr. Rentzou’s scholarship focuses on literature and its relation to other arts, with particular attention to the historical avant-garde movements and modernism.
Her most recent book is ”Concepts of the World: French Avant-Garde and the Idea of the International, 1910–1940” (Northwestern University Press, 2022), and she is the co-editor with her Princeton colleague André Benhaïm, professor of French and Italian, of ”1913: The Year of French Modernism” (Manchester University Press, 2020). She is also the director the Humanities Council’s Program in European Cultural Studies.
Dr. Rentzou serves as director of the Program in European Cultural Studies at Princeton University, with a joint faculty appointment in the Department of French and Italian and the Department of Comparative Literature. She is a founding member of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism and served as the organization’s president from 2021 to 2023.
Additionally, she currently serves as co-curator of the exhibition “Honneur à l’objet!” which will open at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris in February 2025.
She is the second faculty member of the Department of French and Italian to receive such a decoration in recent years, following Florent Masse’s appointment as Chevalier in the separate Order of Arts and Letters.
Dr. Rentzou received her Bachelor’s degree in Classics from the University of Athens. She holds a maîtrise degree, a diploma of advanced studies, and a Ph.D. in French literature from the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne.
