• Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
• BRANDEIS HOME

Program Faculty

Faculty Executive Committee

Tom King: Coordinator, Performance Studies Cluster
Associate Professor, English and American Literature

Ellen Smith: Coordinator, Museum and Memory Studies CLuster
Lecturer, Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Faculty Advisory Committee

Research interests: Eastern Zambian Ngoni communities. African-American families in rural Georgia (USA).

Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman
Assistant Professor, English and American Literature

Research interests: Nineteenth- and 20th-century African-American literature and culture. Gender and sexuality studies. Critical race theory and multiethnic feminisms.

Ulka Anjaria
Assistant Professor, English and American Literature

Research interests: Postcolonial literature. South Asian literature and film. Theories of the novel and narrative theory. Literary and social theory. Modernity, nationalism and the postcolonial state.

Research interests: Medieval and early modern literature. 20th century poetry. Poetry of women in English. Travel literature. History of science and cultural studies.

Cynthia Cohen
Director, Coexistence Research and International Collaborations, Slifka Program in Intercommunal Coexistence

Expertise: Contributions of cultural work and the arts to coexistence and reconciliation.

Judith Eissenberg
Professor of the Practice of Music

Founding member and second violinist of the Lydian String Quartet, as well as founder and director of MusicUnitesUS, a program that links the creative arts with academic inquiry in explorations of culture, history and tradition.

Tory Fair
Assistant Professor, Sculpture

Artist-in-residence who teaches sculpture and drawing.

Jane Hale
Associate Professor, French and Comparative Literature

Research interests: Theater. Education. West African and Caribbean literature.

David Sherman
Assistant Professor of English and American Literature

Research interests: Modernism, Contemporary, British Narative Theory, Continental Philosophy, Elegy, Trauma and Witnessing.

Peter Kalb
Assistant Professor of Contemporary Art on the Cynthia L. and Theodore S. Berenson Chair

Research interests: 20th century and contemporary art.

Allan Keiler
Professor, Music

Research interests: Heinrich Schenker and the history of theory. 19th-century music (especially Liszt). Interdisciplinary studies that emphasize structuralism and historiography.

Research interests: Early modern English drama and social performance. Performance studies. Queer studies. Gender studies.

Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow
Associate Professor, Classical Studies

Research interests: Roman and Greek art and archaeology. Latin language and literature. Mythology in Greek and Roman art. Roman social history and daily life.

Jim Mandrell
Associate Professor, Hispanic Studies, Comparative Literature, Women's and Gender Studies and Film Studies

Research interests: Food and fashion in 19th-century Spain. "Queerness" in postwar U.S. popular culture.

Charles McClendon
Sidney and Ellen Wien Professor in the History of Art

Research interests: Close connection between art and architecture in the centuries from the decline of the Roman Empire to premodern times.

Laura J. Miller
Assistant Professor, Sociology

Research interests: The intersection of cultural and economic factors within information industries. The cultural meanings attached to marketing and consumption. The role of commercial institutions in community life.

Rick Parmentier
Professor, Anthropology

Research interests: Semiotic approaches to language and material culture.

John Plotz
Professor, English and American Literature

Research interests: Victiorian Literature. Politics. The novel. Aesthetics.

Dirck Roosevelt
Associate Professor, Education

Expertise: Elementary education. Teacher education. Children's writing. Child study. Democracy and education.

Fernando Rosenberg
Associate Professor, Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature

Research interests: Recent production in literature, performance and film in the context of debates that pertain to the judicial sphere and issues of justice in general.

Jonathan Sarna
Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History

Research interests: American Jewish history, religion and life.

Harleen Singh
Helaine and Alvin Allen Assistant Professor of Literature

Research interests: Postcolonial studies on the cultural legacy of empire. Interactions between Europe and its colonies. Literatures of the Third World.

Ellen Schattschneider
Associate Professor, Anthropology and Women's and Gender Studies

Research interests: Psychoanalytic, phenomenological and practice approaches to culture.

Nancy Scott
Associate Professor, Fine Arts

Research interests: Nineteenth-century European art. Early 20th century American modernism.

Ellen Smith
Lecturer, Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Research interets: Jewish museums and Jewish-American cultural history. Cultural politics of museums, memorials and heritage sites.

Faith Smith
Associate Professor, English and American Literature and African and Afro-American Studies

Research interests: African and Afro-American literature. The Anglophone Caribbean.

Andreas Teuber
Associate Professor and Chair, Philosophy

Research interests: Film theory and criticism. Philosophy and literature. Intersections of political thought and aesthetic form.

Kathryn Graddy

Professor of Economics, International Business School

Specializations include: Culture and economy. The Economics of art auctions

Debra Booth

Associate Professor Design, Theatre Arts

Specializations include: Set design, visuality and performance