Philippe Desan

Philippe Desan is Howard L. Willett Professor of French and History of Culture at the University of Chicago. Originally from France, Desan is among the top Montaigne scholars alive today. He received his PhD from the University of California Davis (1984), and has published widely on several topics pertaining to the literature and culture of the French Renaissance, often in relation to their economic, political and sociological context. At the University of Chicago, he has served as Master of the Humanities Collegiate Division and as Chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. He is the general editor of the Montaigne Studies. He has been awarded numerous honors for his scholarly work, including being named Knight of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques (1994) and awarded the Ordre National du Mérite (2004) and the Ordre des Arts et Lettres (2011). He has also received the Prix de l'Académie Française (for the Dictionnaire de Montaigne) in 2005, the Grand Prix de l'Académie Française for "le rayonnement de la langue et littérature française" in 2015 and the Prix de l'Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques for his "Montaigne. Une biographie politique" in 2015. Bibliography Naissance de la méthode: Machiavel, La Ramée, Bodin, Montaigne, Descartes (Paris: A.-G. Nizet, 1987), Humanism in Crisis: The Decline of the French Renaissance, editor (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), Les Commerces de Montaigne (Paris: A.-G. Nizet, 1992), Penser l'Histoire à la Renaissance (Paris: Editions Paradigme, 1993), Montaigne, les Cannibales et les Conquistadores (Paris: A.-G. Nizet, 1994), Literary Objects: Flaubert (Chicago, 1996), Montaigne dans tous ses états (Fasano: Schena Editore, 2001), Reproduction en quadrichromie de l’Exemplaire de Bordeaux des Essais de Montaigne (Chicago: Montaigne Studies, 2002), L'Imaginaire économique de la Renaissance (Paris: Presses de l'Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2002), Dictionnaire de Michel de Montaigne, editor (Paris: H. Champion, 2004, 2007), Reproduction fac-similé de l’édition de 1582 des Essais de Montaigne (Paris: Société des Textes Français Modernes, 2005), Montaigne politique, editor (Paris: H. Champion, 2006), Portraits à l'essai: iconographie de Montaigne (Paris: H. Champion, 2007). Montaigne.