Faculty Profiles
 
                   
Professors

                   
                 

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

      Frank Baron      
                 
                   

   

 

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

Heide Crawford
       

 
 

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

William D. Keel, Ph.D.
 
         

                   
                 

Arne Koch, Ph.D
Alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Professor Koch received his Ph.D. in German Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and joined the department in 2001. Specializing in 19th-century literary and cultural studies, he is particularly fascinated by expressions of regional and national identities in Poetic Realism (including the works of Fritz Reuter, Berthold Auerbach, Fontane, Storm, Keller, and others). Directly related to this research are his interests in the representation of alternative communities and theories of narration.

Professor Koch has published on the concept of loyalty in medieval literature as well as different topics of the nineteenth century, and he regularly participates at national and international conferences. In addition to his research and teaching interests, he was the director of the KU Summer Language Institute in Eutin/Germany for Summer 2003.

Contact: akoch@ku.edu

        Arne Koch, Ph.D.        
                 
                   

                   
                 

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.

In her research, she combines her interests in German and Danish literature and German-Scandinavian literary relations. 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, 2nd, augmented edition, 1997), a volume focusing on the literatures of Germany and Scandinavia, co-edited with Herbert Knust (1989).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). She regularly participates in national and international conferences.


Contact:
marx@ku.edu

    Prof. Leonie Marx    
                 
                   

 
     

Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm, Ph.D
Alumna of the University of Texas at Austin

Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm received her Ph.D. from the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin where she specialized in Applied Linguistics. Her research interests include Conversation Analysis, particularly grammar in interaction, cross-cultural interaction, the organization of offers and requests in German and Persian, and foreign language pedagogy. She teaches courses in German Applied Linguistics and Sociolinguistics.

In addtion to her research and teaching responsibilites, Professor Taleghani-Nikazm also coordinates the Elementary and Intermediate German Language Program.

For copies of grading key, grading criteria, student survey, and collection of exercises go to our "German Language Teaching Materials" website at Blackboard.


Contact: nikazm@ku.edu

 
     
       
Professors Emeriti
       

       
     

Professor Emeritus Ernst S. Dick, Dr. Phil.
Alumnus of the University of Münster


Professor Ernst Dick teaches Germanic philology, medieval literature, and modern German. Before joining the German department at Kansas in 1968, he taught at the University of Virginia. For shorter periods he was also affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, the University of Montana, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

His primary research interests are Germanic word studies and medieval German literature, especially in epic and romance. In the modern period, he pursues reception studies of medieval epic, but is also interested in the Novelle and in modern drama (Dürrenmatt).

His major publications include an etymological and semantic study on central terms of Germanic religion and culture (Ae. DRYHT und seine Sippe), several co-edited books, and numerous articles on medieval German literature, Germanic philology, reception studies, and folklore. Reflecting his secondary interest in modern literature, he has also published articles on Annette von Droste-Hüllshoff and Friedrich Dürrenmatt.

Contact: esdick@ku.edu

  Ernst Dick, Ph.D.  
     
       

       
     

Professor Emeritus Helmut E. Huelsbergen Dr. Phil.
Alumnus of the University of Köln


Contact: huelsber@ku.edu

 

   
 

Professor Emeritus Warren Maurer, Ph.D.
Alumnus of the University of California-Berkeley


Contact: german@ku.edu

   

   
 

Associate Professor Emeritus Henry F. Fullenwider, Ph.D.
Alumnus of the University of California-Davis


Contact: hfullenw@cc.helsinki.fi

 
             
Lecturers

 
       

Rex Clark , Ph.D.
Alumnus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Rex Clark received an M.A. from the Freie Universität Berlin and completed his Ph.D. studies at the University of Illinois. His research areas are 18th-century travel literature and utopian fiction, history of the novel, definitions of culture in German thought, and representations of colonialism in German literature. He has also worked extensively with instructional technology and language learning, serving from 1999-2001 on the Technology Committee of the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG). He has helped create the Alexander von Humboldt Digital Library project at the Max Kade Center for German-American Studies.

Rex Clark's Homepage: http://www.ku.edu/home/rexclark/

Contact: rexclark@ku.edu

  Rex Clark, Ph.D.  
       
         

         
       

Jim Morrison
Alumnus of the University of Kansas

Jimmy D. Morrison has over twenty years experience in international business, both in the United States, Europe and South America. He has dealt in international transportation, telecommunications, data transmission, power generation and distribution as well as the automotive industry.

Mr. Morrison is currently involved in lecturing at the University of Kansas on international business issues as well as German business culture. He is also Associate Director of the Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) at the university

Mr. Morrison holds a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Kansas and attended the Universitaet Erlangen/Nürnberg. He is certified by the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce as an "Industriekaufmann" after having completed an accredited program with Siemens in Germany covering all aspects of commercial administration.

Mr. Morrison has served as member of the board of directors of the American Public Transit Association (APTA) as well as the Railway Progress Institute (RPI) governing board. He currently sits on the advisory board of the Max-Kade Center for German-American Studies at the University of Kansas and the university's Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER).

Contact: jdmorr@ku.edu

      Jim Morrison
       
             

Courtesy Instructors
   
     

D. Chris Johnson, Ph.D.
Alumnus of the University of Kansas

Courtesy Assistant Professor Chris Johnson is an Associate Director in the Office of Student Financial Aid.

In addition, he teaches the Introduction to Old Norse course. His research activities are primarily focused on German Dialects in Kansas.

Contact: cjohnson@ku.edu

    Chris Johnson, Ph.D.
     
   

   
 

Pieter Berendsen
Almunus of the University of California, Riverside.

Contact: pieterb@ku.edu

   

   
 

Mark Nesbitt-Daly , Ph.D.
Alumnus of the University of Kansas

Contact: mdaly@ku.edu

   
     
 

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