Background

Michel Zink was born on May 5, 1945 in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France. He is a son of Emile Georges and Marthe Zink. He has two sisters, Anne Zink and Odile Favaron.

Education

Michel Zink attended Lycée du Parc. In 1964 he studied at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and completed an agrégation de lettres classiques in 1967. In 1970 Zink received his doctorate from the University of Paris IV (Paris-Sorbonne University or Paris IV), a Doctor of Philology degree in 1975.

Career

From 1968 to 1970 Michel Zink was an assistant professor at Paris-Sorbonne. From 1972-1976 was an associate professor of Medieval French Literatures at Paris IV-Sorbonne University. From 1976 to 1987 he served as a professor at Toulouse-Le Mirail University (now University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès). From 1987 to 1994 he was a professor at Paris IV-Sorbonne University. From 1994 to 2016 Zink was a professor of French Medieval Literatures at the Collège de France.

From 1999 to 2000 he was a visiting professor at Geneva University (Switzerland). In 2002 he was a visiting professor at Columbia University. In 2005 he was also a visiting professor at Wesleyan University. Currently, he is the Permanent Secretary of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, a title he has held since 2011.

In his early book, Belle: Essai sur les Chansons de toile, published in 1978, Zink reproduces both text and music for the Old French "chansons de toile," accompanied by a scholarly discussion of the texts that exhibits "a sound basis of solid research as well as a real appreciation of the poetic value of the best of the texts."

Zink’s award-winning volume La Subjectivité littéraire autour du siecle de saint lx)uis, which was published in English in 1999 as The Invention of Literary Subjectivity, draws upon the cultural and psychological insights of French philosophers Georges Dumézil and Jacques Lacan to inform a longstanding inquiry into the problem of subjectivity in medieval secular and ecclesiastical literature.

Among Zink’s numerous editorial projects is an edition of the written works of Chretien de Troyes, the most famous French poet of the Middle Ages, published in 1994.

Achievements

• Michel Zink is best known as the author of The Enchantment of the Middle Ages. His works received high praise from critics. He is an officer of the Legion of Honour and of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques, and has been awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. In 2007 he received a Balzan Prize.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Enchantment of the Middle Ages

    (Zink's inaugural lecture to the Collége de France and fou...)

    1996
  • The Invention of Literary Subjectivity

    (In The Invention of Literary Subjectivity, Michel Zink ex...)

    1985
  • Arsène Lupin et Le Mystère d'Arsonval

    (This is a novel.)

    2004
  • Un Portefeuille Toulousain

    (This is a novel.)

    2007
  • Medieval French Literature: An Introduction 1990
  • Seuls Les Enfants Savent Lire 2009

Membership

Michel Zink is a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Institut de France), American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Academie de Versailles. In 2017 he was elected to the Académie française.

Connections

On July 26, 1969 Michel Zink married Odile Vincent, a teacher of classics. They have three children: Guillemette Durliat, Pauline Boulenguiez, Thomas.

Father:

Emile Georges Zink

Mother:

Marthe Zink

Spouse:

Odile Vincent

Daughter:

Guillemette Durliat

Son:

Thomas Zink

Daughter:

Pauline Boulenguiez

Sister:

Anne Zink

Sister:

Odile Zink-Favaron

References

• Contemporary Authors
  2000