Professor Sarah Alyn-Stacey named a Knight of France’s National Order of Merit
Posted on: 05 April 2017
Associate Professor in French, Sarah Alyn-Stacey, has been named a Knight of the National Order of Merit by French Ambassador Jean-Pierre Thébault during a special ceremony at Trinity College Dublin.
She said: “This is a great honour for me, for Trinity’s Department of French, the School of Languages, and the College generally. It comes as a timely reminder that the College’s core mission is teaching and research and its reputation is founded historically upon excellence in these.”
“The College cherishes its long-standing historical links with France, as evidenced by its founding of the oldest chair in French in the world (1776). We welcome the energy and dynamism of the French Embassy in Dublin and look forward to an ongoing, very fruitful, collaboration.”
Professor Alyn-Stacey studied French at the University of Hull (UK) and graduated with a First Class Bachelor of Arts in French and Italian in 1985 and a PhD in French Renaissance literature in 1992. During her PhD, she was “Lectrice” at Université Paris IV-Sorbonne. After teaching first at the University at St Andrews, then at the University of Wales (Swansea), she joined Trinity College Dublin in 1996, first as a Lecturer, then as an Associate Professor (since 2006).
Since 1999, she has been the Director of the Trinity Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, organising workshops, running international research networks, research seminars, and a refereed publication series, ‘Court Cultures of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance’ (Peter Lang). She is also a member of the Editorial Board of H-France, an interdisciplinary digital journal recognised as the largest scholarly organisation for francophone history and culture. She has also served on the Executive Council of French Studies (2000-2006), the Executive Council of Renaissance Studies (1994-2014), and was Associate Editor of the journal of Renaissance Studies between 1996 and 2006.
In recognition of her research and her contribution to the field of French Renaissance literature, she was elected to Membership of the Académie de Savoie (2005), and made a Fellow of Trinity (2004). She sits on the Board at Trinity and has been a member of the Fellow’s standing committee since 2009. She supervises PhD students on early-modern thought and various Masters in Medieval Language, Literature and Culture. Since 1997, she has been a Year Coordinator in French and administrator of French Outreach Programme.
Her recognised research expertise extends beyond the 16th Century to 17th-Century poetry, contemporary French women’s writing, Franco-Irish links with particular reference to sport and World War Two.
The National Order of Merit is the second national Order after the Legion of Honor. The Order rewards "distinguished merit".