Full-Time Faculty Directory
Education: Ph.D., 1995, University of Michigan
Interests: Classical Persian texts; history, historiography, & the literature of the early Perso-Islamic world
Education: Ph.D., 2006, University of California, Irvine
Interests: Peninsular Literature and Culture, Poetry, Avant-Garde Literature
Education: Ph.D., 1991, University of Texas at Austin
Interests: Japanese studies, sociolinguistics, Japanese linguistics
Education: Ph.D., 1999, Washington University in St. Louis
Interests: Travel literature, the historical novel, Swiss Studies, feminist theories 1789-present, transnational literature
Fiona Bell
Instructor
Russian
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2025 in Slavic Languages and Literatures Yale University
Interests: Russian literature, global histories of race, gender and sexuality studies, theater and performance, translation.
Maxwell Brandstadt
Assistant Professor, The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Professor in Buddhist Studies
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2022, University of California, Berkeley Interests: History of Buddhism, Medieval Chinese Buddhism, Comparative Hermeneutics, Authority and Religious Reasoning
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., UC Berkeley
Interests: 20th-21st century French and Francophone studies; film and media; memory studies; Holocaust studies; critical geography and the spatial humanities
Education: M.A., University of Utah
Interests: Learning abroad, travel, second language acquisition and pedagogy, literature, culture, and Don Quixote.
Education: Ph.D., 2022, Indiana University Bloomington
Interests: Chinese linguistics, Bilingual phonetic acquisition, L2 production and perception, Dual language immersion
Jason (yi-an) Chen
Instructor (Lecturer)
Chinese
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2025 Indiana University BloomingtonInterests: Sociolinguistics, Chinese Pedagogy, Computer-mediated communication, Computer-mediated discourse analysis, Onomastics
Education: Ph.D., 2006, Florida State University
Interests: Roman archaeology, Latin literature & epigraphy, mythology, classical reception, Roman history
Education: Ph.D., 2013, University of Michigan
Interests: Latin American Literature, Film and Visual Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2000, University of California, Davis
Interests: Modern French literature & culture, film & visual culture, Francophone literatures & cultures
Education: Ph.D., 2010, Pennsylvania State University
Interests: Religious Studies; Jewish Civilization; African Studies; Cultural Studies
Education: Ph.D, 2023, University of Oxford
Interests: Pragmatics, honorifics and relational dynamics in East Asian languages, Korean literature and media, first and additional language acquisition.
Education: Ph.D., 1993, Yale University
Interests: Indigenous Feminist Studies; Business and Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2006, Ghent University, Belgium
Interests: Hindi & Urdu 20th-century short stories; Comparative (socio-) linguistics between Hindi and Urdu; Subversive Indo-Pakistani literature; Sufism and Shi’ism in South Asia
World Languages & Culture
Education: M.A., Middlebury College
Interests: Foreign Language Pedagogy, L2 Russian, Translation, Central Asia
Education: Ph.D., 2014, Indiana University Bloomington
Interests: Sociolinguistics, Phonetics
Education: Ph.D., 1993, Cornell University
Interests: Contemporary German literature; Environmental Humanities; women’s literature; feminist theory; autobiography studies; city literature
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2019, University of Utah
Interests: Mexican literature and Cinema, U.S.-Mexican Border Studies, Mexican Transnational Literature and Cinema, Transborder Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, ChicanX and LatinX Studies.
Education: Ph.D., 2012, University of Kansas
Interests: Germanic Language History, Philology & Dialectology; Mythology; Medievalism; Arthurian Romance; German Film; Old Norse and Danish
Education: Ph.D., 1999, University of California, San Diego
Interests: Latin American Literature and Caribbean Studies
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., King's College, University of Cambridge, 2018
Interests: Medieval French, Occitan, and Catalan literature; Queer & Transgender Theory; Medieval Trans Studies; Hagiography; Medieval Visual Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2018, University of Arkansas
Interests: Portuguese Language and Literature, Business Portuguese, Brazilian Cinema.
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 1999, University of New Mexico
Interests: Sociolinguistics, Spanish in the United States, Bilingualism, Language contact
Jordan Johansen
Assistant Professor
Classics
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2022, University of Chicago
Interests: Ancient Mediterranean Culture and Literature; Greco-Roman Egypt and Nubia; Papyrology; Classical Reception; Gender & Sexuality; Cross-Cultural Interactions
Motomi Kajitani
Instructor (Lecturer)
Japanese
World Languages & Culture
Education: ABD, University of New Mexico
Interests: Cognitive pragmatics, Japanese linguistics, Content-Based Learning, Reflective practices
Education: M.A., 2002, Durham University (UK)
Interests: Japanese Language Pedagogy, Language Teaching and ICT, Curriculum Design
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., University of Cambridge
Interests: Japan; Arab-Islamic World; East Asian (Sinitic) Cultural Sphere; Islamicate Cultural Sphere; Comparative Intellectual History; History of Science and Medicine; East-West Communication
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2018, University of Utah
Interests: Heritage language Education among Korean-American family, language ideologies and identities, Bilingual Education
Education: Ph.D., 2018, West Virginia University
Interests: Russian language pedagogy, bi/multilingualism, and identity, language ideology
Education: Ph.D., 2003, The Ohio State University
Interests: The teaching of culture; pedagogy; cultural aspects of the French business world; the symbolism of culinary art in French culture, literature, and art
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., Yale University
Interests: Classical and medieval Japanese literature; Sino-Japanese literature; folk performance; performance history; sound studies; sensory studies; translation
Education: Ph.D., 2011, Harvard University
Interests: 21st-century Brazilian Literature, Machado de Assis, time studies, intersections of music, politics, literature, and cinema throughout the Lusophone world
Education: M.A.T., University of Utah
Interests: BA, French Literature & International Relations, Brigham Young University
María laura Martinelli
Visiting Assistant Professor
Spanish
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2025, University of MichiganInterests: Latin American literature and visual culture; gender and sexuality studies; historical anthropology; Indigenous studies; settler colonialism; Southern Cone
Education: Ph.D., 1999, Harvard University
Interests: Aesthetics and affect; the sublime; Austrian & German Realism & Modernism; Literary Theory; Lyric poetry; Contemplative pedagogy & empathy
Nick Ott
Postdoctoral Scholar
German
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2024, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Interests: Second Language Acquisition, Accommodation, Study Abroad, Teacher Training, Sociolinguistics, Language Contact, Computer-Aided Language Learning
World Languages & Culture
Education: M.A., Ewha Womans University
Interests: Korean Culture, Contents-Based Instruction (CBI), Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT)
Education: Ph.D., 2015, University of Notre Dame
Interests: Christian systematic theology, Christology and soteriology, interreligious dialogue and ecumenism
Education: Ph.D., 2011, University of Michigan
Interests: Latin American Literature and Culture
Education: M.A., 2008, Brigham Young University
Interests: Second Language Acquisition, Business Arabic, Mastering Arabic through Debate, Arabic Culture, Middle Eastern History, Translation.
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., USC
Interests: 20th and 21st Spanish Peninsular Literature, Film, and Visual Culture; Media Studies; Memory Studies; Critical Theory; Architecture and Urbanism; Surrealism; Experimental and Documentary Cinema.
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2024, University of Michigan
Interests: Latin American cultural studies; Indigenous studies; Science and technology studies; History and philosophy of science; Critical theory; Zapatismo; Mariátegui
Education: Ph.D., 2016, University of Washington
Interests: modern Japanese literature, modern Korean literature, Zainichi literature, empire and post- colonialism, critical race studies, translation
Education: Ph.D., 2010, Pennsylvania State University
Interests: Korean culture, religion, & literature; religion & identity; intellectual history & identity; East-West exchange & influence
Education: Ph.D., 2002, University of Utah
Interests: gender & sexuality, myth & religion, reception of ancient Classical world in film, Mormon feminism
Education: Ph.D., 2000, Harvard University
Interests: Popular culture in Late Imperial China; Chinese vernacular fiction of the Ming & Qing; martial arts novels; Digital Humanities
World Languages & Culture
Education: PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
Interests: Contemporary Peninsular literature and film; post-Franco Spanish politics; historical memory; Iberian national identities
Rawad Wehbe
Assistant Professor
Arabic
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2024, University of Pennsylvania
Interests: Arabic poetry and poetics, affect and emotion, translation, and Arabic language pedagogy
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 1995, Brown University
Interests: Classical Chinese poetry, East-West comparative literature and poetics, translation studies
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D., 2008, Cornell University
Interests: Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, especially of the Hellenistic and later periods; Cicero; philosophy of religion and philosophical skepticism
World Languages & Culture
Education: Ph.D. candidate, East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University
Interests: Modern Chinese literature and culture, topolect literature and culture, translation and translation studies.