France Through the Ages

Dr. Paul B. Sturtevant has been enthralled with the Middle Ages since he began building balsa wood castles for his toy knights when he was eight years old. Fast-forwarding just a little, he has now become an expert on the contemporary public’s understanding of the Middle Ages. In the intervening years, after a brief career as an actor, he moved to the United Kingdom where he earned his master’s and his Ph.D. from the Universities of York and Leeds, respectively. He then taught for universities in the United Kingdom, the U.S., and Portugal on subjects as diverse as medieval history, film theory, and museum studies.

Paul has published widely on the intersection of contemporary issues and the medieval past both in academic books and also public venues like the Washington Post and BBC News. He is particularly fond of two of his stories, one in which he successfully debunked a pernicious ghost story about one of his ancestors, and another on the history of American barbecue. He founded and ran an award-winning medieval history online magazine called The Public Medievalist, and worked for a decade for the Smithsonian Institution as an audience research specialist. Paul now lives with his partner in Portugal, where they are developing cutting-edge, historical study abroad-style experiences for visitors to Europe.

Cassandra Potts Hannahs is a historian with special expertise in Celtic, Viking, and Anglo-Norman studies. She has enjoyed traveling with Smithsonian Journeys on more than 50 tours and cruises, sharing her passion and knowledge of Great Britain, France, and Ireland.

With a Ph.D. in medieval history, she was a tenured professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, where she taught courses on a wide range of subjects, from ancient history through the Reformation.  A Fulbright scholar and recipient of several grants, she has also spent considerable time living in France pursuing research.  Her publications include a book exploring the Viking settlement of Normandy in northern France during the 10th and 11th centuries, and the revival of monasticism that took place as the new rulers encouraged monks to return to the region after the Viking raids. 

In her research and lectures, Cassandra explores the cultural and political exchanges that have historically linked Britain, France, Ireland, and Scandinavia. She looks forward to sharing her love and knowledge of these lands, their history, music, and literature, with Smithsonian Journeys travelers.

Natalie Latteri holds a B.A. in History from the University of California at Davis, a M.A. in History from Purdue University, and a Ph.D. in History with an emphasis in medieval European interfaith relations from the University of New Mexico. Her areas of specialization include Jewish and Christian religious history and she has extensive training in biblical and medieval Hebrew as well as ancient and medieval Latin, honed during her doctoral research at the archives of Oxford and Cambridge Universities. 

Natalie has been interested in world and religious history since childhood, when she developed a penchant for listening to her two grandfathers’ stories of their service in the Second World War. She has conducted research and traveled through England, Germany, Hungary, France, Basque Country, Mexico, and Italy, and is hoping to explore Northern Africa and East Asia in the near future.  

She currently teaches a variety of Humanities, History, and Religious Studies Courses—including Comparative Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Civilizations, Comparative Mythology, Fairytales and Folklore, and Jewish-Christian Relations—at Foothill College in California’s Silicon Valley and at the University of San Francisco. Her most recent research focuses on global conspiracy theories and their societal impact.  

Mark Cruse is a medievalist and a professor of French in the School of International Letters and Cultures at Arizona State University, where he has taught since 2005. He fell in love with France during his junior year abroad, and lived there for six years in Paris and Dijon. Since 1997, Mark has also been a lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  His teaching and research encompass a wide range of topics, including chivalric literature, illuminated manuscripts, the history of Paris, Marco Polo, and relations between France and the Mongols. He lectures frequently at museums and universities across the U.S. and Europe, as well as at local salons and retirement communities, and is deeply committed to public outreach and lifelong learning. Mark has received internationally prestigious grants from the Institute for Advanced Study and National Humanities Center, and he has been nominated for several teaching awards. He enjoys hiking, learning languages (he currently speaks three and reads six others), sailing, snowboarding, and traveling.

Beebe Bahrami is an award-winning writer and anthropologist who specializes in the intersecting worlds of European, Atlantic, and Mediterranean cultures from prehistory to the present. She earned her BA from the University of Colorado and her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, where she trained in the four-field anthropological tradition of cultural, biological, archaeological, and linguistic anthropology.

Beebe continues to research and write about the past and present of the lands and peoples of southwestern France and northern Spain. Her work covers a wide range of topics, from prehistoric sites, landscapes, and caves, to those of the Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages, through antiquity and into the medieval and the modern era. Working with international teams, she has excavated and written about the Neanderthal sites of La Ferrassie, Pech de l’Azé, and Roc de Marsal. She also is an expert on the Camino de Santiago in France and Spain and has walked some 5,500 miles (8,850 kilometers) and counting, on these ancient routes, studying both the ancient pre-Christian landscapes, as well as the traditions, history, and lore that arose with the medieval pilgrimage.

Beebe has authored numerous books, including Café Oc: A Nomad's Tales of Magic, Mystery, and Finding Home in the Dordogne of Southwestern France; Café Neandertal: Excavating Our Past in One of Europe's Most Ancient Places; andThe Way of the Wild Goose: Three Pilgrimages Following Geese, Stars, and Hunches on the Camino de Santiago; as well as comprehensive travel guides such as Moon’s Camino de Santiago—Sacred Sites, Historic Villages, and Local Food & Wine.

Photo credit: Dennis Sandgathe

Madeline Díaz is an artist, art historian, and educator based in Paris who designs and leads innovative programs for major museums and cultural institutions in France, Spain, and the U.S. She has worked for The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cloisters, the Frick Collection, and the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. She currently serves as consulting educator for the Smithsonian National Museum for the American Latino. In France, Madeline has developed educational programs for institutions such as the Grand Palais, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, and the former American Center. She created a signature education program in collaboration with renowned venues including the Jeu de Paume, the Centre Pompidou, and the Musée d’Art Moderne. She regularly teaches museum education at the University of Versailles and lectures for Smithsonian Journeys programs in France, as well as for the Smithsonian Associates.

As a practicing artist, she has recently exhibited her work at the National Museum of Oman and the American Embassy in Oman, as well as galleries in Spain. Madeline has traveled extensively throughout France, Spain, and Italy in collaboration with cultural institutions, and holds a BA from Brown University and an MA from Columbia University.

Erik Gustafson is an architectural historian of Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Islamic world, whose interests span from the ancient world into the early modern period. He has lived in Italy, France, and Egypt, and has traveled extensively in northern Europe, Iberia, and the eastern Mediterranean. Erik’s academic work addresses how specific sites were historically understood in light of broad intellectual and visual traditions. His current book project, Building Saint Francis, considers how the Franciscan order used architecture to shape and channel the legacy of their founder in the centuries after his death. While completing his PhD on the Franciscan architecture of Tuscany at New York University, he spent several years living in Florence and Rome. Erik has taught a variety of courses on art and architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, Fordham University, Washington & Lee University, and George Mason University. He has published on Italian, Spanish, and French medieval architecture as well as Mamluk architecture in Cairo, and is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome.