Dr. Richard Keatley’s passion for the French language began when he was thirteen years old and has continued throughout a career of scholarly research and teaching. He studied French in high school and college and visited many French-speaking countries while serving as an officer in the United States Navy. He went on to study at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, earning D.E.U.G., Licence and Maîtrise degrees in Lettres modernes, and completed his PhD in French at Yale University. His recent book, Textual Spaces: French Renaissance Writings of the Italian Voyage (Penn State University Press, 2019) analyses the French “invention” of travel during the sixteenth century. He brings over twenty years of experience teaching and growing language programs and is excited about helping grow the reach of the Alliance Française in metro Atlanta and build support for our cultural and teaching programs. During his free time, Richard enjoys cooking, playing classical guitar and traveling through idyllic landscapes.