Joan Grimbert

Joan Grimbert is Professor Emerita of French and Medieval Studies at Catholic University of America, where she began teaching the language, literature, civilization, and culture of France in 1987. Before completing her graduate studies in Romance Philology at the University of Chicago, Joan lived and worked in Paris for six years as a student, researcher, and translator. Her research is focused on medieval French literature, and she is an expert on Chrétien de Troyes and the legend of Tristan and Iseult from the 12^th century to the present.  Joan has published six books and numerous scholarly articles, primarily on Arthurian literature and film. A dual citizen of France and the United States, she was recently named Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes académiques in recognition of her work promoting French culture.

Kevin D. Murphy

Kevin D. Murphy holds the Andrew W. Mellon Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University where he is also Professor and Chair in the Dept. of History of Art. He is an architectural historian who has spoken and lectured widely on French art and architecture. His first book concerned the restoration, in the mid-nineteenth century, of the Church of the Madeleine at Vezelay, a famed Romanesque pilgrimage church in Burgundy. Also, Murphy has published articles on Le Corbusier and other modern French architects in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians and other academic journals and general-readership magazines.

Murphy knows France well. As an undergraduate, he lived for six months in Grenoble, and then as a doctoral candidate, for several years in Paris. He once hitchhiked from Nice to Bourdeaux and has made several tours of the Loire Valley to which he is anxious to return. Throughout his career, Murphy has taught onsite in the US and abroad. Recently, he traveled as a faculty expert on a trip to the Netherlands and Belgium. A former Fulbright Fellow, as well as Mary Davis Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (National Gallery of Art, Washington), and Chester Dale Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Professor Murphy received his Ph.D. in Art History at Northwestern University, his M.A. in Preservation Studies from Boston University, and his B.A. in Art History from Swarthmore College.

(Photo © Daniel Dubois/Vanderbilt)