Michael Taormina is an Associate Professor of French Michael Taormina is an Associate Professor of French Literature, Culture and Language in the Romance Languages Department at Hunter College, CUNY. His research explores the intersection of eloquence, patronage, and noble identity in French lyric poetry of the early seventeenth century, and he has published articles on the work of Théophile de Viau, Saint-Amant, and Vincent Voiture. He is also a translator of French theatre and philosophy. He holds a Ph.D. in French and Romance Philology from Columbia University.