For Professor Bob Hudson (French and Italian), nothing captures the human spirit quite like encounters with another culture. Born in Arkansas and raised between there and Kentucky, Hudson experienced such an encounter when he left the rural South to serve his two-year Church mission in Paris, France. There he fell in love with French civilization and culture and has immersed himself studying all things French ever since. Hudson continues this dedication to French language and culture through extensive teaching and research. Brigham Young University is pleased to award Hudson the 2022 General Education Professorship.
“I am so pleased to be selected for this award because of the number of general education courses I teach,” Hudson said. “I’m grateful that French literature, art, culture, and French and Italian film are being recognized as valuable elements of a universal education.”
While the award recognizes professors who teach general education courses, Hudson was nominated primarily for his extensive research, masterful teaching, and principled scholarship. Hudson believes university education should be universal in scope—including in-depth instruction in language, history, and the arts. In Hudson’s view, this award represents an academic validation not only of the French language and culture but also for the humanities in general.
As a professor, Hudson believes strongly in the role of mentorship. “Mentoring is intrinsically present in the aims of a BYU education,” Hudson said. “It’s something I’ve naturally done since I started teaching at BYU.”
The vitality of mentorship in Hudson’s work is evident to his students. Hudson has co-published two articles with his students and has involved multiple students in academic publishing. As the editor-in-chief of Lingua Romana, the Department of French and Italian’s in-house academic journal, Hudson advises student editors through the peer-review and editorial processes. He served as an adviser to French majors for nine years and, in his general education courses alone, has personally graded papers from over 1,400 students.
“I just feel like it’s an ethical imperative that if I assign student writing that I personally grade it to assess to what extent students are grasping and applying the concepts of analysis to art, film, or literature,” Hudson explained.
As a teacher and mentor, Hudson emphasizes applied learning in his teaching philosophy. Hudson said, “My approach to teaching is multimedia-driven, interactive, and learning-centered. Since equipping students with the tools to analyze cultural realia (films, texts, historical artifacts) and write about them meaningfully constitutes the core objective of my instruction, I model such in lecture and craft writing assignments to encourage the application of these skills. My grading aims to provide thorough, encouraging feedback in a conversational, human tone.”
Students in Hudson’s classes recognize the passion he has for the subjects he teaches. During his recent lecture in French and Italian Cinema (FREN/ITAL 317), Hudson discussed François Truffaut’s groundbreaking French film 400 Blows [Les quatre cents coups] (1959) and Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima mon amour (also 1959). As he taught, his passion for the films was on display.
During the lecture, he engaged students in a discussion on the mise-en-scène of the films and their cultural impact. To introduce 400 Blows, Hudson showed pictures he took of the film’s Parisian shooting locations in 2017, nearly 60 years after the film’s release. Later, he showed the class original copies from his collection of Cahiers du cinéma, a French film magazine that started in the French New Wave alongside these films. In addition to his photographs and personal collection items, Hudson is intimately familiar with his teaching subject. His commentary on Hiroshima mon amour and on the interaction between identity, memory, and warfare revealed his expertise in French New Wave cinema and film criticism. “If I were to guess, I’ve probably seen Hiroshima at least 60 times,” Hudson told his class of his favorite film.
Aside from skillfully teaching general education courses, Hudson’s extensive research in French literature is another testament to his dedicated scholarship. His research focuses on French Renaissance poetry and Gallic identity. His most recent book, Clément Marot’s Epistles (ACMRS Press), is an annotated English-language critical translation of over 70 of Marot’s poems set into verse. Hudson currently serves as chair of the Modern Language Association’s 16th-Century French Executive Committee Forum, organizing the annual conference’s panels on Renaissance France since 2017.
Hudson pursued his undergraduate degree at BYU, graduating with a B.A. and M.A. in French in 2004, and receiving his Ph.D. in French and Francophone Studies from UCLA in 2008. That year, Hudson returned to BYU, where his typical course offerings include French and Italian Cinema, French Civilization, and literary analysis of French and Francophone texts. During the 2022–23 academic year, all six of Hudson’s courses fulfill a BYU general education requirement.
Each year, one professor receives the General Education Professorship, formerly known as the Karl G. Maeser Professorship. Professors are nominated by their departments, and winners are announced at the annual fall university conference. The professorship is for three years.
To learn more about the General Education Professorship and past winners, visit ugrad.byu.edu/awards.