Gabriel V. Asfar *72

Gabriel V. Asfar *72, professor emeritus of French and Arabic at Bard College-Simon’s Rock, died Aug. 11, 2020, age 77, of complications from a fall. 

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Hamilton College in 1966, and master’s and Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures in 1966 from Princeton, where he taught French and was faculty-in-residence at Princeton Inn College, until 1977. He was visiting professor of French at Middlebury College (1983-1987), where he was faculty-in-residence at Le Petit Château. 

At Bard-Simon’s Rock, he founded its summer Foreign Language Institute (1984), where he served as director, and taught until 1999; he was honored with the Glover Teaching Award (2002) and Drumm Award (2013), in recognition of lifetime dedication to the values and philosophy of the college; the Gabriel Asfar Scholarship was established (2012) in honor of his service to the college.   

His publications include works of literary criticism, language pedagogy, translations, and poetry, as well as a memoir “masquerading as fiction” (Story of M, 2020).

Residents of Princeton Inn College in the 1970s fondly remember the many activities he sponsored, such as sing-along guitar sessions, the Table française that he established, his seminar on The Antics of Semantics, and Outdoor Action trips to the Delaware Water Gap.

Gabriel is survived by his wife of 42 years, Denise DeNezzo Asfar ’76.