Marisa Galvez

Marisa Galvez is a Professor of French and Italian at Stanford University, with courtesy appointments in German Studies and Comparative Literature. She serves as Faculty Director of Structured Liberal Education and Director of the French and Italian and SLE Curriculum. Her research bridges medieval literature, troubadour poetry, and material culture studies.

• Ph.D., Comparative Literature, Stanford University
• B.A., French, Yale University

Research Focus: Galvez explores the intersection of lyric poetry, performance, and literary preservation in medieval Europe. Her work on troubadours, crusade literature, and crystal metaphors challenges Eurocentric frameworks by linking medieval textuality to contemporary understandings of desire, materiality, and global cultural heritage.

Projects: She leads the Performing Trobar initiative, which examines troubadour lyrics through philology and performance, and the Unthought Medievalism project, reinterpreting medieval lyric forms for Eurocentric comparison and Global South cultural studies.

• Awarded John Nicholas Brown Prize for her analysis of vernacular songbooks
• Contributed to Seeking Transparency: Rock Crystals Across the Medieval Mediterranean (2020)

Teaching & Leadership: Galvez teaches courses on medieval/Renaissance French literature, love lyric, and interdisciplinary studies of the medieval imaginary in modern art. She directs Stanford's Global Medieval Sourcebook research unit and offers courses like FRENCH 205: Songs of Love and War, featuring student documentaries.