Stanford’s Russell Berman is Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi’s guest next week to give a talk titled “Rethinking the Ph.D. in the Humanities,” in the Chancellor’s Colloquium Distinguished Speaker Series.

Berman

The colloquium is scheduled for the late afternoon of Tuesday (Dec. 2) in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

Berman has played a leading role in the discussion around the future of the graduate training in the humanities. He is a former president of the Modern Language Association and chairman of the association’s Task Force on Doctoral Study in Modern Literature.

He is the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford, with appointments in comparative literature and German studies. He is the director of the Introduction to the Humanities Program and the Introductory Seminars program for freshmen and sophomores, chair of the Department of German Studies and a former chair of the Department of Comparative Literature, and previously served as an associate dean of Humanities and Sciences, and the director of the Overseas Studies Program.

He is an expert on German literature and culture of the 19th and 20th centuries, and on cultural relations between Europe and the United States. He also is interested, more broadly, in the sociology of modern culture, considering literature, history and critical theory.

He has written widely on modern German and European literature and politics, as well as on issues in contemporary cultural theory, in more than 80 articles and five books. The latter include The Rise of the Modern German Novel: Crisis and Charisma (1986), which is regarded as one of the most important contributions to the study of 20th-century literature by an American Germanist; and Enlightenment of Empire: Colonial Discourse in German Culture, which opened German studies to discussions of imperialism and post-coloniality.

Most recently, he has published research on the cultural phenomenon of anti-Americanism and European responses to terrorism.

Berman’s talk and a question-and-answer session will run from 4 to 5:30 p.m., and a reception will follow until 6:30 p.m. RSVPs are requested. For more information, call Ceremonies and Special Events, (530) 754-2262.

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