He has been a professor of English and Creative Writing and Translation at the University of Arkansas since 1982.
Born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1940, to Thaddeus Ernest DuVal and Helene Dupont Cau, John DuVal grew up in Jenkintown, a suburb of Philadelphia.
[citation needed] DuVal's teaching areas of expertise include Translation Theory and Practice; Creative Writing; Comparative Literature; World Sonnet; Dante; Medieval Literature; and Epic Poetry.
DuVal was named Fulbright College Visiting Fellow to Wolfson College of Cambridge University (UK) for the year 2010–2011 to complete his translation of the French epic, The Song of Roland.
[citation needed] His daughter is the historian Kathleen DuVal, with whom he edited the anthology Interpreting a Continent.