Georges Van Den Abbeele is the Former Dean Emeritus and Professor in the School of Humanities at the University of California at Irvine. He has previously served as dean at Northeastern University in Boston and at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has also taught at Berkeley, Davis, Miami and Harvard universities. A native of Belgium, he earned a bachelor's degree from Reed College and the Ph.D. from Cornell University. He is the author of Travel as Metaphor, co-editor of Community at Loose Ends, A World of Fables and French Civilization and its Discontents. He has also published over fifty articles on travel narrative, critical theory, and Renaissance literature. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and recipient of the Blaise Pascal medal.