Ronald W. Tobin, Ph.D., La Médaille d’Or de La Renaissance Française

Ronald W. Tobin is Research Professor of French at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was, until recently, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Programs. His accomplishments in the field of French and Francophone studies have earned him numerous awards and recognitions, namely: The Grand Prix du Rayonnement de la Langue et de la Littérature françaises granted by the Académie Française in 2006.

Knighthoods from the French government including the ranks of Chevalier (1972), Officier (1987), and Commandeur, (2005), the highest in the Order of Academic Palms.

The Academic Palms is not the only decoration by which France has chosen to distinguish Dr. Tobin: in 1984, he received the medal of Chevalier in the National Order of Merit and, in 1998, that of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters.

The Québec Government also honored him in 1999 by inducting him into the Ordre des francophones d’Amérique.

Professor Tobin has enjoyed an impressive scholarly career. In addition to his fifteen books and editions, his journal and dictionary articles, book reviews, and prefaces number about 200. He served for twelve years as Editor of The French Review and has organized numerous scholarly meetings. He remains to this day a productive and original literary critic. Above all, Ronald Tobin has devoted himself to spreading the appreciation of French culture in our country. He has worked tirelessly on behalf of higher education both as a teacher and an administrator.

The Ph.D.s he has trained serve with distinction at institutions in and out of the United States, and his teaching was recognized when he was named 1984 Mortar Board Professor of the Year at UC Santa Barbara. His abiding passion for France has led him to his current activity of organizing presentations on “Why French Matters” to students in the local Santa Barbara high schools and at UC Santa Barbara. In highlighting the mutually beneficial, centuries-old relationship between France and the United States, Tobin is promoting his twin passions of French language and literature.

Elyane Dezon-Jones, Ph.D., La Médaille d’Or de La Renaissance Française

Élyane Dezon-Jones, Professor of French Emerita at Wash- ington University, is a renowned specialist of modern manuscripts and member of the équipe Proust of the Institut des Textes et Manuscrits Modernes (ITEM/CNRS). While teaching at Barnard College, she served as editor-in-chief of the Bulletin de la Société des Amis de Marcel Proust for seven years. She has published critical editions of Proust’s Le Côté de Guermantes (Flammarion, 1987) and Du côté de chez Swann (Livre de poche classique, 1992). She is also the author of Marie de Gournay: Fragments d’un discours féminin (Corti, 1988), a pioneer work showing her interest in French women writers.

In addition to the play Yourcenar sans masque and a study of Yourcenar’s Mémoires d’Hadrien (with R. Poignault, Nathan, 1999), she published an annotated edition of Yourcenar’s notebooks, Sources II (1999), and collaborated with Michèle Sarde on the 1995 and 2004 editions of Yourcenar’s Correspondance (Gallimard). They are currently working on a critical edition of unpublished letters of Yourcenar to one of her famous editors.

Under the pen name Estelle Monbrun, Elyane Dezon-Jones is also the author of the widely translated mystery novels Meurtre chez Tante Léonie and Meurtre à Petite Plaisance, inspired by the creative universes of Proust and Yourcenar (Editions Viviane Hamy). She has been decorated with two French Knighthoods: Chevalier dans l’ Ordre des Palmes Académiques and Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Carl J. Ekberg, Ph.D., La Médaille d’Or du Mérite Francophone

Having been born and raised in Minnesota, I was surrounded by French place names during my youth. I swam in the Rivière St. Croix, fished in Milles Lacs, and lived near Larpenteur Avenue, finally figuring out how this long, straight avenue had gotten its name. My father was an engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and I accompanied him on visits to river towns with names like Prairie du Chien, Le Sueur, Frontenac and La Crosse.

Studying history at the University of Minnesota it was natural that I gravitated toward French history. Completing my M.A. at Minnesota, I moved on to Rutgers University to earn a Ph.D. I spent a glorious year in Paris, working at the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Archives des Affaires Étrangères at the Quai d’Orsay and the Archives de la Guerre at Château de Vincennes. Walking through the Tuileries (with my baguette sandwich) on my way from the BN to the AAE, I thought about the francophile Thomas Jefferson sitting in the Tuileries observing construction of the Hôtel de Salm, which splendid building eventually influenced his architecture, both at the White House and at Monticello.

Completing my Ph.D. at Rutgers, I accepted a position at Illinois State University teaching European and French history. Discovering rich French archives in Illinois and Missouri I gravitated from French history to French colonial history, and I’ve never looked back. My first book on the subject, Colonial Ste. Genevieve: An Adventure on the Mississippi Frontier, appeared in 1985, and it was followed in succession by a half dozen more. All these books deal with the colonial settlements of the middle Mississippi River valley, and it is that French universe of the Pays des Illinois I’ve striven to bring to life. My books have received numerous awards, and I have been decorated by the French government as a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques. My highest honor is now to receive La Médaille d’Or du Mérite Francophone.