PEOPLE / The Carolina-Duke Graduate Program in German Studies

Meet the people behind this innovative program.

The faculty of the German Departments at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are scholars of the languages, cultures, and intellectual traditions of German-speaking lands. In addition to serving students intending to specialize in German Studies, each department maintains a strong presence in the broader university community.

Faculty Profiles (2008-09)

Ruth von Bernuth

Assistant Professor, UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D., Humboldt Universität zu Berlin), Early Modern German Literature and Culture; Yiddish Studies; Disability Studies.

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William Collins Donahue

Associate Professor of German; Chair, Department of Germanic Languages and Literature, Duke University (Ph.D., Germanic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University). 19th- and 20th- century German Literature and Culture; Holocaust Studies; Politics and Literature; Contemporary German literature and Culture.

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Eric Downing

Professor of German; Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Adjunct Professor of Classics; Director of the Program in Comparative Literature, UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D., Comparative Literature, University of California at Berkeley). 18th to 20th Century Narrative Fiction; Literary Theory; Realism, Aestheticism, Modernism; Ancient-modern Relations.

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Jonathan M. Hess

Professor of German; Director of Graduate Studies; Adjunct Professor of Religion; Director of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D., Comparative Literature and Literary Theory, University of Pennsylvania). 18th-Century Studies; German-Jewish Cultural History; Aesthetics & Literary Theory; Philosophy & Literature.

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Clayton Koelb

Chair and Guy B. Johnson Professor of German; Professor of English and Comparative Literature, UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D., Comparative Literature, Harvard University). Modern Literature (Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka); Literary Theory; History of Criticism; Philosophy & Aesthetics.

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Richard Langston

Associate Professor of German, UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D., German, Washington University at St. Louis). Postwar & Contemporary Literature; Avant-Garde Studies; Popular Culture & Literature; Literary & Cultural Theory.

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Michael M. Morton

Associate Professor of German, Duke University (Ph.D., German, University of Virginia). 18th- & Early 19th-Century Literature (Enlightenment, Goethezeit); Philosophy & Intellectual History; Critical Theory; Literary History & Criticism.

Jakob Norberg

Assistant Professor, Duke University (Ph.D., German, Princeton University). Postwar Literature and Society; 20th-Century Austrian Literature; Political Theory; The Public Sphere.

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Thomas Pfau

Eads Family Professor of English and German; Director of Graduate Studies, Germanic Languages and Literature Duke University (Ph.D., Comparative Literature, State University of New York at Buffalo). Romanticism; 19th-Century Literature; Critical Theory; Literary History & Criticism.

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David Pike

Professor of German, UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D., German, Stanford University). 20th-Century Literature; East German & Soviet Culture & Politics.

Ann Marie Rasmussen

Associate Professor of German, Duke University (Ph.D., Germanic Languages and Literatures, Yale University). Medieval Literature and Culture; Gender Studies; Manuscript Studies; Poetics.

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Paul Roberge

Professor of German; Professor of Linguistics, UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D., Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan). Historical Linguistics; Older Germanic Dialects; Comparative Germanic Grammar; Pidgins & Creoles; Afrikaans; Language, Ethnicity & Politics; Origin and Evolution of Human Language.

Kathryn Starkey

Associate Professor of German, UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D., German Literature, University of California at Berkeley). Medieval Literature; Visuality & Textuality; Gender & Sexuality; Historical Linguistics; Older Germanic Dialects.

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Ingeborg Walther

Associate Professor of the Practice of German and Associate Dean of Trinity College, Duke University (Ph.D., Germanic Languages & Literatures, University of Michigan). Applied Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition; Pedagogy; 20th-Century Literature.

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Christina Wegel

Lecturer in German, UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D., Germanic Languages, UCLA). Pedagogy. 20th-Century Literature. Drama; Performance Studies.

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Active Emeriti

Siegfried Mews

Professor Emeritus of German, UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D., Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois at Urbana). 19th- and 20th-Century Literature (Bertolt Brecht, Günter Grass); Literature & Politics; Comparative Literature.

James Rolleston

Professor Emeritus of German, Duke University; Editor, The German Quarterly (Ph.D., Germanic Languages and Literatures, Yale University). 19th-Century Literature; 20th-Century Literature; Critical Theory; Literary History & Criticism.

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Post-doctoral Lecturing Fellow

Christophe Fricker

Visiting Post-Doctoral Fellow of German, Duke University (Ph.D., German, Oxford University). Poetry 1770-present; Stephan George and his circle; Aesthetics and Hermeneutics; Intellectual History.

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Adjunct Faculty

Helga Bister

Adjunct Associate Professor of German, UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D, German Literature, University of California at Berkeley).Germanic Linguistics; Socio-linguistics.

Norman C Keul

Associate Dean for Humanities and Interdisciplinary Studies; Adjunct Assistant Professor of German, Duke University (Ph.D., German, University of California at Berkeley). Medieval & Early Modern Studies; Linguistics; Literary History & Criticism.

Heidi Madden

Librarian for Western European Studies, Duke University Libraries; Adjunct Assistant Professor of German, Duke University (Ph.D., and M.A. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Comparative Literature; M.L.S., North Carolina Central University)

Dan Thornton

Associate Director of Scholarships and Student Aid; Adjunct Assistant Professor of German, UNC-Chapel Hill (Ph.D., Germanic Languages, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). Dutch Language and Literature.

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Jochen Vogt

Adjunct Professor of German Studies, Duke University; Professor emeritus, Universität Duisburg-Essen; Professeur associé, Université du Luxembourg (Dr. phil., Ruhr-Universität Bochum). Early Modern German Literature, "Goethezeit," 20th-Century Culture and Literature; Hermeneutics & Narratology; Literature, Journalism & the Media; International Crime Literature; Pedagogy.

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