News and Stories
March 21, 2006
Professor to be "knighted" at Wednesday ceremony
Catherine Perry, associate professor of Romance languages and literatures at the University of Notre Dame, will be decorated with the insignia of the Ordre des Palmes Academiques at a presentation ceremony at 1 p.m. Wednesday (March 22) at the Morris Inn on campus.
Richard Barbeyron, French consul general from Chicago, will conduct the ceremony.
Perry was appointed a Chevalier ("knight") in the Ordre des Palmes Academiques earlier this year by the French Ministry of National Education.
Created in 1808 by Napoleon I, the Palmes Academiques originally was designed to honor outstanding members of the faculty of the University of Paris. Membership later was expanded to include people beyond the French university system, including other nationals and French scholars living outside the country whose work promotes French language, culture and educational activities.
Perry, who specializes in French literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries, also serves as undergraduate advisor for the Program in French and Francophone Studies at Notre Dame. She is a faculty fellow in the Nanovic Institute for European Studies and in the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. She was president of the international Francophone Studies association "Conseil International d'Études Francophones," and is the current editor in chief of that organization's academic journal, Nouvelles Études Francophones.