Frank Baron, Ph.D.
Alumnus of the University of California at Berkeley
Professor
Frank Baron began teaching at the University of Kansas in
1970, after two years of teaching with the Peace Corps in
Ethiopia and an additional two years conducting research in
Munich on German Renaissance and Reformation literary history.
His
primary teaching and research interests are in fifteenth-
and sixteenth- century as well as twentieth-century studies.
Baron has published books and articles on various aspects
of the European Faust tradition and on the works of Rainer
Maria Rilke, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, and the artist/author
Albert Bloch. He has received grants from the Alexander von
Humboldt Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities,
the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation,
the German Academic Exchange (DAAD), and the University of
Kansas Hall Center.
Experiences
as a child in Hungary during World War II prompted interest
in the topic of the Holocaust and resulted (in collaboration
with Hungarian journalist Sandor Szenes) in a book about Hungary
and Auschwitz.
He is director of the Max Kade Center for German-American
Studies.
Contact:
fbaron@ku.edu
Curriculum Vitae
James Brown, Ph.D.
Alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
James Brown comes to the department this year after earning his
doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His dissertation explores the multiple functions of the rhetorical
device ekphrasis - the verbal representation of a visual representation - and the construction of courtly identity in the thirteenth-century
romance Wigalois by Wirnt von Gravenberg. His research interests include Arthurian romance, intersections of literature and visual art,
medievalism, orality and literacy, and the history of the book.
Contact:
jhb@ku.edu
Heide Crawford, Ph.D.
Alumna of Pennsylvania State University
Heide Crawford joined the department in 2003. Her primary
teaching and research interests are the Enlightenment and
the Age of Goethe, which span the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Her specific areas of interest include the representation
of cultural history and folklore in poetry and other literary
genres. Directly related to these areas of interest are her
current research projects on the origins of the literary vampire
in German ballad poetry, as well as the representation of
magic, the occult and the Faust legend in literature. In addition
to her research she participates regularly in national and
international conferences.
Contact:
hac@ku.edu
William D. Keel, Ph.D.
Alumnus of Indiana University
Professor
and Chair
William
D. Keel's primary teaching and research interests are in German
dialectology, Germanic philology, the structure of Modern
German, and German-American studies. He is internationally
recognized as an expert on German settlement dialects (Sprachinseln)
in the American Midwest and has lectured on that subject at
several German universities and the Institut für deutsche
Sprache in Mannheim.
He
is the recipient of German-American collaborative research
grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and
the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Since 1981, he
has served as editor of the Yearbook of German-American
Studies and, since 1986, as a member of the executive
committee of the Society for German-American Studies.
Publications
include co-edited books German Emigration from Bukovina
to the Americas (1996) with Kurt Rein (University of
Munich) and German Language Varieties Worldwide: Internal
and External Perspectives (2003) with Klaus Mattheier
(University of Heidelberg) as well as and a number of articles
treating Hannoverian Low German, German-Bohemian and Mennonite
Low German dialects in Kansas and Missouri as well as the
settlement history of Pennsylvania Germans in Kansas. His
edited work on The Volga Germans of West Central Kansas
is scheduled to be published in spring 2004.
He
has been active in the Kansas Association of Teachers of German
for a number of years, serving on the executive committee
1994-97. Since 1989, he has lectured in numerous communities
in the region as a member of the Speakers' Bureau of the Kansas
Humanities Council. Keel is the recipient of the Verdienstkreuz
am Bande of the Federal Republic of Germany (1999) for
his contributions to German-American educational and cultural
exchanges. Since 1990 he has chaired the Department of Germanic
Languages and Literatures.
Contact:
wkeel@ku.edu
Curriculum Vitae
Arne Koch, Ph.D
Alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Professor Koch joined the department in 2001.
Specializing in 19th- and 20th-century literary and cultural studies, Professor Koch’s research concentrations include
identity formation in literature and film, intercultural studies, and European Studies. His course offerings reflect his
interdisciplinary interests in word and image studies, non-literary genres (including the popular press and Sachbuchforschung),
and ecocriticism.
Professor Koch has published on the concept of loyalty in
medieval literature, German-American literature, Arthur Schnitzler and Frank Wedekind, as well as the German Road Movies, and he
is the recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation grant (with Walter Erhart, Greifswald). His book on regional and
national identity in nineteenth-century literature appeared in October 2006, and a co-edited volume on E.M. Arndt (with Erhart)
is scheduled for publication in 2007. He regularly participates at national and international conferences, served as director of
the KU Summer Language Institute in Eutin/Germany in 2003, and is the current faculty advisor for KU’s German Club.
Contact:
akoch@ku.edu
Arne Koch's Homepage
Leonie A. Marx, Ph.D
Alumna of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Professor Marx received her Ph.D. in German, Scandinavian,
and Comparative literature. For two years, she taught Danish language, literature, and culture at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison, before joining the University of Kansas. Her teaching concentrates on modern German literature, primarily of the
twentieth century; it includes the study of prose fiction, women authors and interdisciplinary approaches to literature.
She has also taught at universities in Germany and Denmark and received a grant from the Danish Center for Advanced Studies
in the Humanities.
In her research, she combines her interests in German
and Danish literature, German-Scandinavian literary relations, and exile studies. She has published articles on Danish and German
authors. Among her book publications are a pioneering analysis of the contemporary Danish author Benny Andersen (English
edition, 1983; Danish edition 1986), a comprehensive study of the German short story since the late nineteenth century (Metzler,
3rd augmented edition, 2005), a volume focusing on the literatures of Germany and Scandinavia, co-edited with Herbert Knust
(1989). In addition, she has published book chapters, such as: "Der deutsche Frauenroman im 19. Jahrhundert" (Handbuch des
Romans), "Thomas Mann und die Literaturen Skandinaviens" (Thomas-Mann-Handbuch), and "Die deutsche Kurzgeschichte" (Formen
der Literatur).
Contact:
marx@ku.edu
