In Memoriam:  Michèle Longino, who passed away on November 21, 2024

Composed by Faith E. Beasley and Ellen Welch, followed by a tribute to Michèle by Faith E. Beasley

Michèle Longino, Professor Emerita of Romance Studies at Duke University, was a cherished and admired member of the seventeenth-century French Studies community for over forty years.  We all looked forward to her interventions at both SE-17 and NASSCFL conferences, and remember the stimulating annual gathering of NASSCFL in North Carolina in 2014 which she co-organized when she was co-president with Ellen Welch.  A groundbreaking scholar, devoted mentor, generous colleague, and caring friend, Michèle profoundly influenced the field on both sides of the Atlantic.

Michèle’s research on seventeenth-century French literature developed new perspectives on gender and literary ambition, the epistolary genre, representations of the other in French drama, and writing by seventeenth-century French travelers. In her early work, Michèle changed our view...