CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT:
Professor Eckart Goebel

DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE STUDIES:
Associate Professor Eckart Goebel

The department offers programs leading to the Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in German studies. Students gain a comprehensive understanding of the major areas in literature, literary theory, and cultural studies with a focus on the modern period, from the 18th century onward.

The department's distinguished faculty members represent major fields of German studies, regularly supplemented by eminent visiting professors from the United States and from other countries. The program stresses multi- and interdisciplinary approaches in collaboration with other departments. Students are trained to carry out theoretically grounded readings of literary, philosophical, and other texts and to place their readings within their historical and cultural contexts. Students have the opportunity for independent study with members of the department or those of related disciplines, as well as for study abroad.

Faculty

Ulrich Baer, Professor, German, Comparative Literature. Ph.D. 1995 (comparative literature), Yale; B.A. 1991 (literature), Harvard.
Nineteenth- and 20th-century poetry; literary theory; intersections of history and literature; theories of photography; Rilke; Celan; contemporary literature.

Andrea Dortmann, Language Lecturer; Language Program Coordinator. Ph.D. 2003 (Germanic languages and literatures), New York; M.A. 1992 (French and comparative literature), Free (Berlin).
German literature from the 18th to the 21st centuries; foreign language pedagogy; curriculum development.

Paul Fleming, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 2001 (German literature), M.A. 1997 (German literature), Johns Hopkins; B.A. 1991 (comparative literature and religious studies), Brown.
Eighteenth- and early 19th-century aesthetic theory; classicism; romanticism; realism, Jean Paul.

Eckart Goebel, Associate Professor; Chair, Department of German. Habilitation 2001 (comparative literature), Ph.D. 1995 (comparative literature), Free (Berlin).
German literature from the 18th to the 20th centuries; aesthetic and critical theory from Enlightenment to the present; Goethe; philosophy and ethics; literature of the Weimar Republic.

Paul North, Faculty Fellow/ Assistant Professor. PhD, Northwestern University
post-Enlightenment literature and philosophy in German, 20th century literary and critical theory, Ancient Greek literature and philosophy, German-    Jewish cultural history, theology, Walter Benjamin, Franz Kafka.

Avital Ronell, Professor, German, Comparative Literature. Ph.D. 1979 (Germanic languages and literature), Princeton; B.A. 1974 (German, philosophy, French), Middlebury College.
Literature; technology; psychoanalysis; feminism; "deconstruction"; philosophy; cyberculture; cultural critique; addiction studies.

Elke Siegel, Assistant Professor. Ph.D. 2003 (German literature), Johns Hopkins; M.A. 1999 (German literature, history, and journalism), Hamburg.
German literature and culture from the 19th century to the present; literary theory; feminism; psychoanalysis.

Friedrich Ulfers, Associate Professor. Ph.D. 1968 (19th- and 20th-century German literature), M.A. 1961, New York; B.B.A. 1959, City College (CUNY).
German romanticism; 20th-century novel; poststructuralist/deconstructionist theory.

ADJUNCT FACULTY

Robert Cohen, Adjunct Professor. Ph.D. 1988 (German), M.A. 1986 (German), New York.Twentieth-century German literature; Weimar modernism and avant-garde; Marxist theory debates of the 1930s; literary representations of the Holocaust; the Nazi period in postwar literature; Brecht; Peter Weiss.

VISITING FACULTY

Elisabeth Bronfen, Global Distinguished Professor.
Visual culture; 19th- and 20th-century literature; gender studies; psychoanalysis; cultural theory.

Vivian Liska, Professor of German and Chair of Jewish Studies, University of Antwerp (Belgium).
Modernism; German-Jewish relations; Kafka; literary theory.

Werner Hamacher, Professor of German, Frankfurt University (Germany).Literary theory; philosophy; aesthetics and hermeneutics; Goethe; Kleist; Walter Benjamin.

FACULTY EMERITI

Reinhard P. Becker, Doris Starr Guilloton, Margret M. Herzfeld-Sander, Bernd R. Hüppauf, Joan B. Reutershan, Volkmar Sander.