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Core Faculty

 

Robert F. Barsky

Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Jewish Studies, and Political Science
Professor of Law
Director of the W.T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies

Phone: (615) 322-2652
Email: robert.barsky@vanderbilt.edu

Specializations:

  • Comparative literature, especially of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
  • Jewish radical thought

 

Michael D. Bess

Chancellor’s Professor of History
Chancellor’s Chair in History
Professor of European Studies

Phone: (615) 322-3340
Email: m.bess@vanderbilt.edu

Specializations:

  • Twentieth-century Europe, with a particular interest in the social and cultural impacts of technological change

 

Ari Joskowicz HeadshotAri Joskowicz

Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, European Studies, History, and German, Russian, and East European Studies
Chair, Jewish Studies

Phone: (615) 343-1743
Email: a.joskowicz@vanderbilt.edu

Specializations:

  • Jewish history
  • Modern European history
  • German & French history
  • Minorities & nationalism

 

Letizia Modena

Associate Professor of Italian and European Studies

Email: letizia.modena@vanderbilt.eduena@vanderbilt.edu

 

 

Specializations:

  • Intersections of literature and film with architecture and urban studies

 

 Michelle Murray

Associate Professor of Spanish

Phone: (615) 322-7227
Email: michelle.murray@vanderbilt.edu

 

 

Specializations:

  • Contemporary Spanish culture
  • Migration, political economy, and trafficking in the Southern Mediterranean

 

Alexander Schmidt

Visiting Associate Professor of Max Kade Center for European & German Studies

Email: alexander.schmidt@vanderbilt.edu

 

 

Specializations:

  • History of human rights
  • Enlightenment
  • History of political thought

 

Meike G. J. Werner

Professor of German and European Studies
Director, Max Kade Center of European and German Studies (on leave 2023/2024)

Phone: (615) 343-0404
Email: meike.werner@vanderbilt.edu

 

Specializations: 

  • Nineteenth and twentieth century German literature and culture

                                         

Christoph Zeller

Professor of German and European Studies

Phone: (615) 322-2821
Email: christoph.zeller@vanderbilt.edu

Acting Director of the Max Kade Center for European and German Studies

Director of Undergraduate Studies, European Studies

     Specializations:

  • Eighteenth to twenty-first century German literature, media, and culture
  • Avant-garde movements
  • Theory and history of values