About
I am an independent scholar residing in metro Washington, DC. I began studying French at an early age, did undergraduate work in Romance Languages and earned a PhD in French from Yale University. My doctoral dissertation on the medieval “lives” of the Provençal troubadours, was published in New York (Garland Press) in 1984 as The Vidas of the Troubadours. A French study and translation, Les Vies des Troubadours, was published in Paris (Gallimard) in 1985. During the same period I also published scholarly articles on medieval literature.
My research on the medieval French Lunaries grew out of a graduate seminar in paleography. Here I was first introduced to textual transcription and to this medical/scientific class of manuscripts. For several years after completing my graduate degree, I collected and analyzed thirty-seven different texts, supported by two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and research grants from Yale University.
This web-based collection of French Lunar Almanacs is the first and only open-access digital aggregation of the known French texts in this genre.
Publications
Essay on the Vidas of the Troubadours, in Classic and Medieval Literature Criticism, Jelena O. Krstovic, ed. (Gale, Detroit 2004) vol 66, 273-283
The Vidas of the Troubadours (Garland Press, New York 1984)
Les Vies des Troubadours (Union Générale d’Éditions, Paris 1985)
“Commentary, vita poetae and vida. Latin and Old Provencal ‘Lives of Poets’,” Romance Philology, XXXVII, 1, August 1983, 36-48
Selected Reviews
“The Poetry of William VII, Count of Poitiers, IX Duke of Aquitaine by William VII by Gerald A. Bond,” Speculum, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Oct., 1985), 1036-1038
“Li Lais de Courtois: Commedia francese del sec. XIII by Giuseppe Macrì,” Speculum, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Jul., 1980), 601-603
“The Songs of Jaufré Rudel by Rupert T. Pickens,”Speculum, Vol. 55, No. 1 (1980), 172-173
Academic and Other Work Experience
| 1998-present | Private language instructor and translator |
| 1997-98 | Princeton Township Charter School, Co-author, foreign language curriculum |
| 1989-92 | Volunteer technology teacher, Princeton Regional School District |
| 1987-90 | Princeton University, Visiting Lecturer, Romance Languages |
| 1986-88 | Language Instructor (Spanish & French), Berlitz (Princeton NJ) |
| 1983-84 | National Endowment for the Humanities (Research Fellow) & Visiting Fellow, NYU |
| 1979-83 | Yale University, Asst Prof of French |
| 1979-83 | Dean of Branford College, Yale University |
| 1980-81 | National Endowment for the Humanities (Research Fellow) |
| 1976-79 | Wesleyan University, Asst Prof of Romance Languages (Spanish & French) |
| 1975-76 | Yale University, Visiting Lecturer in Spanish |
Education
| 1976 | Yale University (PhD French; Spanish minor) |
| 1972 | Yale University (MA French) |
| 1970 | University of Delaware (BA High honors, Phi Beta Kappa) |
Academic Awards
| 1983-84 | National Endowment for the Humanities, Year Research Fellowship |
| 1980-81 | National Endowment for the Humanities, Year Research Fellowship |
| 1978 | American Council of Learned Societies, Summer Fellowship |
| 1970-76 | Yale University Fellowship for Graduate Study; Griswold Award |