Marie-Hélène Girard

Visiting Professor of French 

Marie-Hélène Girard, BPhil, École Normale Supérieure; doctorat d’État Université de Paris IV–Sorbonne, faculty member at Yale since 2002: You are a world-renowned specialist in 19th-century literature, art, and art history, and also studied classics at the École Normale Supérieure and art history at the Université de Paris IV–Sorbonne before obtaining your doctorat d’État from Paris IV–Sorbonne in 1999. A fluent speaker of Italian, German, English, and of course your native language, French, you held prestigious academic appointments at the Université de Poitiers, University of California at Berkeley, Université de Dijon, École du Louvre, Université de Paris IV, Université de Paris X, and the Université de Picardie before you joined the faculty here at Yale in 2002.   

You are one of those extraordinary instructors from whom students dream of learning. Your students testify to your intellect and your extensive knowledge of French art history, describing your courses as “amazing” and “captivating.” One student described your lectures on the history of Paris as a “tour de force” that inspired their advanced studies in French.    

Your expertise transcends the usual boundaries of academic departments, and your classes reflect your multidisciplinary engagement. For example, your course “Media in 19th-Century Paris” explores “devices and innovations of French culture . . . opening new perspectives for further courses about the impact of material or technical changes on artistic and literary creation, as part of an archeology of modernity.” Beyond the traditional classroom, you have even prepared the next generation of conservators and curators by teaching in the art conservation program at the Louvre! Some of the most extraordinary art in the world is preserved by your students. You have also presented at countless international conferences since 1986, curated numerous exhibits, and published an extensive series of articles. It is no surprise that you, too, have mentored numerous students eager to learn from you.   

You are a prolific scholar and a world-famous authority on the work of writer and critic Théophile Gautier. Not only have you published nine celebrated books and numerous essays on Gautier, you also led a number of editorial teams who oversaw the publication of new editions of Gautier’s work for the benefit of new generations of scholars. These publications, along with your own annotated editions of Gautier’s Beaux-Arts en Europe, 1855, and Voyage en Italie: Italia, are remarkable scholarly achievements that illuminate connections between art and the writer, artist, and critic.    Without a doubt, you will continue to pursue your scholarly and creative work after you leave Yale—and we look forward with delight and anticipation to exploring the histories of arts and letters through your future works.