O'Neal Honored by French Embassy

Professor of French John O'Neal was honored recently as an officer of France's Order of Academic Palms. He had been named a chevalier of the order a decade earlier. The award was conferred by Kareen Rispal, cultural counselor of the Embassy of France, in recognition of O'Neal's service as a teacher, scholar and "distinguished friend of France."

"You are almost French," Rispal observed. "But it is this 'almost' which makes you all the more crucial: As an American, you are a friend of France whose language and literature you chose to adopt — along with a touch of our revolutionary heritage, no doubt." Observing that France loves not only her writers but also "those who make her writers known and loved," Rispal told O'Neal, "You embody this art of transmitting and sharing scholarly knowledge, which you offer ­liberally to all."

O'Neal frequently has directed the Hamilton College Junior Year in France program and has lectured at the Sorbonne and the École Normale Supérieure. He has written extensively in both French and English about 18th-century French literature and thought, including The Authority of Experience: Sensationist Theory in the French Enlightenment, Seeing and Observing: Rousseau's Rhetoric of Perception, and Changing Minds: The Shifting Perception of Culture in Eighteenth-Century France.

The Order of Academic Palms, founded by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1808, recognizes devotion and accomplishment in the areas of teaching, scholarship and research.