James Duncan Robertson *73

Duncan died Nov. 26, 2023, at his home in Augusta, Ga., after a long illness.

Duncan was born March 14, 1944, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and grew up near New Haven, Conn. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale in 1966 and a Ph.D. in Romance languages and literatures from Princeton in 1973.

He taught at the University of Michigan and the University of San Francisco before joining the faculty of Augusta University in 1990. In the Department of English and World Languages, Duncan taught French, Latin, and Spanish until retiring in 2010. He was the author of The Medieval Saints’ Lives and Lectio Divina: The Medieval Experience of Reading and was a co-editor of The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval Religious Literature.

While his specialty was medieval studies, Duncan’s scholarship and interests spanned the literature and cultures of many countries and eras. Active in the Alliance Française, he was fluent in several languages and advocated reading texts in their original languages. He was an avid amateur musician who played piano and guitar and was a member of several choirs.

Duncan is survived by his wife of 34 years, Susan, and his sons, Michael and David.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.