Faculty

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Thomas Wild

Primary Academic Program:German Studies
Academic Program Affiliation(s): Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures; Literature; First Year Seminar; Hannah Arendt Center

Biography
Thomas Wild, Professor of German Studies and Literature, works on modern European and German literature and culture. In his research as well as in his teaching he’s particularly interested in the intersections between literature and history, politics, and philosophy. A current focus of his work addresses the poetics and ethics of multilingualism. Thomas Wild has published an introductory book on Hannah Arendt’s life, work, and reception and a monograph on Hannah Arendt’s intellectual relationships with post-war writers. His most recent book on the distinguished poet Ilse Aichinger discusses a contemporary poetics of hospitality. Several editions of letters emerged from Thomas Wild’s ongoing intrigue for correspondences and intellectual networks, including prominent writers such as Uwe Johnson, Wolfgang Hildesheimer, and Joachim Fest. Poetry is an interlocutor in most of his courses and in many of his publications, among the latter are a collection of poems by Thomas Brasch and translations of contemporary American poets. Thomas Wild serves as general editor on the distinguished international team preparing the first scholarly edition of Hannah Arendt’s Complete Works, which appears in print and digitally, presenting all published and unpublished writings of this eminent thinker in the original English and in the original German – a project providing the foundation for future research on Hannah Arendt, digital humanities, and what it means to think in a plurality of languages.
 

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Jana Schmidt

Primary Academic Program: German Studies
Academic Program Affiliation(s): Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures, Literature

Biography
Jana Schmidt, Assistant Professor of German Studies, writes about German and American, transatlantic and exilic literatures. Having earned her PhD in Comparative Literature at SUNY Buffalo, she combines this interest in the forms of exile with a theoretical orientation toward contemporary literary theory on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. Jana Schmidt first came to Bard as a postdoctoral fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center where she also served as Director of Academic Programs in 2022-23. She has held fellowships at the German Literature Archive, the German Historical Institute, DC, and Fordham University/New York Public Library. Her first book, Hannah Arendt und die Folgen (Metzler, 2016), sounds the echo of Hannah Arendt’s thought in the work of a variety of postwar thinkers, artists, and activists. She has written essays for publications such as Philosophy Today, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Journal of Narrative Theory, and German Quarterly. Her current writing project deals with the encounter of German-speaking refugees with African American thinkers and politics from the 1940s onward. In taking seriously the then frequent self-description of Black Americans as “exiles” in their own country, "Futures Not Yet: Jewish Exiles, Black Politics" seeks to illuminate the potentials and failures of this real and imagined dialogue while paying particular attention to the political visions it inspired.

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Stephanie Kufner

Primary Academic Program: German Studies,
Academic Program Affiliation(s): Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures, First-Year Seminar

Biography
Teaching Diploma, English Language and Business Administration, University of Munich; M.A. and Ph.D. in German, SUNY Albany. Articles, papers, and talks on Friedrich Schiller, language acquisition, technology, and language pedagogy. Academic Director, Center for Foreign Languages and Cultures, Bard College (1995– ). At Bard since 1990.

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Thomas Bartscherer

Primary Academic Program: Literature
Academic Program Affiliation(s): Classical Studies, First-Year Seminar, Philosophy

Biography
B.A., University of Pennsylvania; M.A., Ph. D., University of Chicago. Bartscherer works on the intersection of literature and philosophy in the ancient Greek and modern German traditions, focusing on tragic drama, aesthetics, and performance. He also writes on technology, new media, and contemporary art, and has published translations from German and French. He is co-editor of Erotikon: Essays on Eros Ancient and Modern with Shadi Bartsch and Switching Codes with Roderick Coover, both from the University of Chicago Press. He is a research associate on the Équipe Nietzsche at the Institut des Textes et Manuscrits Modernes (Paris) and has held research fellowships at the École Normale Supérieure, the University of Heidelberg, and the LMU in Munich. He has received fellowships from the DAAD, and from the Woodrow Wilson, Nef, and Earhart foundations. Bartscherer previously taught at the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. At Bard since 2008.

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Katherine Boivin

Education:
B.A., Tufts University; M.A., MPhil., Ph.D., Columbia University

Areas of Interest:
Primary field: Western Medieval Art, in particular Gothic Art and Architecture in Germany; Secondary field: Islamic Art. Professor Boivin’s research focuses on the dynamic interactions between figural art, architecture, and human activity.  She is interested in the spatiality of Late Medieval churches, in the diverse functions of architectural space, and in the ability of artistic ensembles to shape human experience.  Her current book project investigates architectural sites of passage and projection.
Selected Awards and Fellowships:
VISTAS Digital Project Grant (2020); NEH Summer Stipend (2017); Samuel H. Kress Foundation Art History Grant (2017); Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Grant (2017); ICMA-Kress Research Grant (2017); Post Doctoral Fellowship, Université de Montréal (2012-13); SAH Rosann S. Berry Conference Fellowship (2013); Fulbright Research Grant, Germany (2011-2012); British Archaeological Association Conference Travel Grant (2012); DAAD Research Grant, Germany (2011).
Selected Publications:
Books and Edited Volumes
Boivin, Riemenschneider in Rothenburg: Sacred Space and Civic Identity in the Late Medieval City (Penn State University Press, 2021).
Boivin & Bryda (eds), Riemenschneider in Situ (Brepols, 2021).
Articles and Chapters
Boivin, “Two-Story Charnel-House Chapels and the Centrality of Death in the Medieval City,” in Picturing Death 1200-1600, eds Stephen Perkinson and Noa Turel (Brill, 2020), pp. 79–103.

Boivin, “The Visual Arts” in A Cultural History of the Emotions in the Medieval Age (350-1300), eds Juanita Ruys and Clare Monagle (Bloomsbury, 2018), pp. 83–99.

Boivin, “Holy Blood, Holy Cross: Dynamic Interactions in the Parochial Complex of Rothenburg” The Art Bulletin 99, no. 2 (2017), pp. 41–71.

Boivin, “The Chancel Passageways of Norwich,” in Norwich: Medieval and Early Modern Art, Architecture and Archaeology. eds T.A. Heslop and Helen E. Lunnon. British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, vol. 38 (Maney Publishing, 2015), pp. 307–323.

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Leon Botstein 

Academic Program Affiliation(s): Bard Conservatory of Music, Bard Conservatory of Music: Music Theory and History, German Studies, Historical Studies, Jewish Studies, Music

Biography
B.A., University of Chicago; M.A., Ph.D., Harvard University, Department of History. Lecturer, Department of History, Boston University (1969); special assistant to the president, Board of Education, City of New York (1969–70); president, Franconia College (1970–75). Editor, The Musical Quarterly (1992– ). Music director and conductor, American Symphony Orchestra (1992– ) and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra/Israel Broadcasting Authority (2003– ). Conductor, Hudson Valley Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra (1981–92). Coartistic director, Bard Music Festival (1990– ). Guest conductor, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bern Symphony, Bochum Symphony Orchestra (Germany), Budapest Festival Orchestra, Düsseldorf Symphony, Georg Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra (Bucharest), Hudson Valley Philharmonic, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Madrid Opera, NDR Symphony Orchestra (Hamburg), New York City Opera, ORF Orchestra (Vienna), Philharmonia Orchestra (London), Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra, Romanian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Wroclaw Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. Recordings with the American Symphony Orchestra (Arabesque, Vanguard Classics/Omega, Koch/Schwann, New World Records, Telarc); BBC Symphony Orchestra (Chandos, Telarc); Hanover Radio Symphony Orchestra (Koch International Classics); London Philharmonic Orchestra (IMP Masters, Telarc); London Symphony Orchestra (Telarc, Carlton Classics); National Philharmonic of Lithuania (Arabesque), NDR Radio Philharmonic (Koch International); NDR Symphony Orchestra (New World Records); Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston (CRI); Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Arabesque). Honors include membership in the American Philosophical Society, the Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts, Austrian Cross of Honor First Class, Centennial Medal from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Frederic E. Church Award for Arts and Sciences, National Arts Club Gold Medal. Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Trustee emeritus, Central European University (board chair, 2007–2022; board member, 1991–2022); board member, Open Society Institute, Foundation for Jewish Culture. Member, National Advisory Committee for Yale–New Haven Teachers, National Council for Chamber Music America. Past chair, Association of Episcopal Colleges, Harper’s Magazine Foundation, New York Council for the Humanities. Articles in newspapers and journals including Christian Science Monitor, Chronicle of Higher Education, Gramophone, Harper’s, Musical Quarterly, New Republic, New York Times, 19th-Century Music, Partisan Review, Psychoanalytic Psychology, Salmagundi, Times Literary Supplement. Essays and chapters in a number of books about art, education, history, and music, including the Cambridge Companions to Music series and the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Contributor to volumes in the Bard Music Festival series on Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Copland, Debussy, Dvoˇrák, Elgar, Haydn, Ives, Janáˇcek, Liszt, Mahler, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Schoenberg, Schumann, Shostakovich, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner, published by Princeton University Press. Editor, The Compleat Brahms (W. W. Norton, 1999). Author, Jefferson’s Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture (Doubleday, 1997); Judentum und Modernität: Essays zur Rolle der Juden in der Deutschen und Österreichischen Kultur, 1848–1938 (Böhlau Verlag, 1991; Russian translation Belveder, 2003); The History of Listening: How Music Creates Meaning (forthcoming, Basic Books); Music and Modernism (forthcoming, Yale University Press). (1975– ) Leon Levy Professor in the Arts and Humanities.

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Christopher Gibbs

Academic Program Affiliation(s): Bard Conservatory of Music: Music Theory and History, Music
Academic Expertise: Music
Area of Specialization: Music History

Biography
B.A., Haverford College; M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Columbia University. Recipient, Dissertation Prize of the Austrian Cultural Institute (1992), ASCAP–Deems Taylor Award (1998); fellow, American Council of Learned Societies (1999–2000). Musicological director of the Schubertiade at the 92nd Street Y in New York City; musicological adviser for the Schubert Festival at Carnegie Hall (1997) and the Bard Music Festival (2000, 2002); coartistic director, Bard Music Festival (2003– ). Program annotator and musicological consultant, Philadelphia Orchestra (2000– ). Author, The Life of Schubert (2000); editor, The Cambridge Companion to Schubert (1997); coeditor, Liszt and His World (2006); associate editor, The Musical Quarterly. Contributor to New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 19th-Century Music, Schubert durch die Brille, Current Musicology, Opera Quarterly, and Chronicle of Higher Education. Faculty, SUNY Buffalo (1993–2003). At Bard since 2002.

Interests
Research Interests: Music biography; reception history; opera; 19th-century music
Teaching Interests: 19th-century music; opera
Other Interests: Vienna

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Garry L. Hagberg

Academic Program Affiliation(s): Philosophy

Biography
B.A., M.A., Ph.D., University of Oregon. Postdoctoral research, Cambridge University. Author, Art as Language: Wittgenstein, Meaning, and Aesthetic Theory and Meaning and Interpretation: Wittgenstein, Henry James, and Literary Knowledge; contributions to Historical Reflections, Henry James Review, Philosophy, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Journal of Aesthetic Education, Mind, New Novel Review, Philosophical Quarterly, Ethics, Perspectives of New Music, Encyclopedia of the Essay, and Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships and grants: Dartmouth College; Cambridge University Library; British Library, London; St. John�s College, Cambridge University. At Bard since 1990.

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Peter Laki

Primary Academic Program: Music
Academic Program Affiliation(s): Bard Conservatory of Music: Music Theory and History, First-Year Seminar, French Studies

Biography
Diploma in Musicology, Franz Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest; Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania. Program annotator, Cleveland Orchestra (1990– ); editor, Bartók and His World (Princeton University Press, 1995); contributor, Cambridge Companion to the Orchestra and Cambridge Companion to Bartók; articles in Orbis Musicae, International Journal of Musicology, Institute for Canadian Music Newsletter, Hungarian Quarterly, others. Visiting assistant professor, Oberlin College (2003– ); has also taught at Case Western Reserve University, Franz Liszt Academy of Music, John Carroll University, Kent State University. At Bard since 2007.

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Gregory B. Moynahan

Primary Academic Program: Historical Studies
Academic Program Affiliation(s): Environmental and Urban Studies, Experimental Humanities, German Studies, Human Rights, Irish and Celtic Studies, Italian Studies, Science, Technology, and Society

Biography
B.A., Wesleyan University; M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley. Recipient, Bundeskanzler/Humboldt, DAAD, and Foreign Language Area Studies (Czech) fellowships. Specialization in modern European intellectual and cultural history and the history of science and technology. Research interests include history of the social sciences, systems theory, and computing/cybernetics in the two Germanys. Author, Ernst Cassirer and the Critical Science of Germany, 1899-1919 (2013, Anthem Press/London). Articles in Perspectives on Science, Science in Context, Simmel Studies, and Qui Parle. Associate Professor of History; Chair, Social Studies Division; Codirector, Science, Technology, and Society. At Bard since 2001.

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Rufus Müller

Academic Program Affiliation(s): Music

Biography
B.A., M.A., Oxford University. Tenor; has had distinguished career in opera, oratorio, and recital. Debuted as Bastien in Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne at Kent Opera (1984); has performed, taught, and coached throughout Europe, Japan, and North America. Has worked under Gustav Leonhardt, Frans Brüggen, Ivan Fischer, René Jacobs, and other eminent conductors. CD recordings include performances in Bach’s St. John Passion (BWV 245) under John Eliot Gardiner, and Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy under Roger Norrington. First prize, English Song Award (1985); winner, Oratorio Society of New York Singing Competition (1999). At Bard since 2006.

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Ruth Zisman

Academic Program Affiliation(s): Human Rights, Philosophy
Academic Expertise: Philosophy
Area of Specialization: German Philosophy

Biography
B.A. (philosophy and literature), Vassar College; M.A. (humanities and social thought), Ph.D. (German studies), New York University. Areas of specialization include the German philosophical tradition (Kant, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger), political philosophy, psychoanalysis, critical theory, feminist theory, and the relationship between philosophy and literature. Has taught at NYU and various workshops and institutes throughout Europe and the United States, held fellowships in Berlin and Weimar Germany, and presented at academic conferences at Cornell, Yale, and the University of Zurich. At Bard: 2004-08; 2011- .  

Interests:
Research Interests: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Freud; political philosophy; psychoanalysis; critical theory
Other Interests: feminism; trauma studies

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Franz R. Kempf

Academic Program Affiliation(s): Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literatures, German Studies, Literature

Professor Franz Kempf is the author of Otherness as Lyric Writing: The German-Language Poet José F. A. Oliver (2024), Poetry, Painting, Park: Goethe and Claude Lorrain (2020), Everyone’s Darling: Kafka and the Critics of His Short Fiction (1994), Albrecht von Hallers Ruhm als Dichter: Eine Rezeptionsgeschichte (1986), and Deutsche Gegenwart (1985, with Robert E. Helbling). He holds an MA in German and MA in Russian from the University of Utah and a PhD from Harvard University. His work includes articles and papers on José F. A. Oliver, Goethe, Fontane, Kafka, Brecht, Dürrenmatt, von Haller, Wieland, and language pedagogy. Member of editorial advisory board, Die Unterrichtspraxis and Colloquia Germanica. President, Hudson Valley Chapter, American Association of Teachers of German (1990–92). At Bard since 1985.

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Daniel Berthold

Primary Academic Program: Philosophy
Academic Program Affiliation(s): Environmental and Urban Studies, French Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, German Studies, Theology
Academic Expertise: Philosophy
Area of Specialization: 19th- and 20th-century continental philosophy, phenomenology and existentialism, environmental ethics, medical ethics, feminist philosophy

Biography
B.A., M.A., Johns Hopkins University; Ph.D., Yale University. Specialization in continental philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, Freud, and environmental ethics. Author of Hegel’s Grand Synthesis, Hegel’s Theory of Madness, and The Ethics of Authorship: Communication, Seduction, and Death in Hegel and Kierkegaard. Articles and reviews in journals including Clio, Environmental Ethics, History and Theory, History of Philosophy Quarterly, Human Ecology Review, Idealistic Studies, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, International Philosophical Quarterly, International Studies in Philosophy, Journal of European Studies, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Ludus Vitalis, Man and World, Nous, Metaphilosophy, Modern Language Notes, Philosophy and Literature, Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, Religious Studies, Review of Metaphysics, Social Theory and Practice, and Southern Journal of Philosophy. Contributor to The Dictionary of Existentialism. Editorial board, Topoi Library. Advisory Council, Hastings Center Program in Ethics, Science, and the Environment. At Bard since 1984.

Interests

Research Interests: Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Freud, Camus, Sartre, environmental ethics, bioethic
Teaching Interests: 19th- and 20th-century continental philosophy, environmental ethics, medical ethics, genetics ethics, existentialism, Freud, feminist philosophy

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Tom Wolf

Academic Program Affiliation(s): American Studies, Art History, Asian Studies, German Studies
Academic Expertise: Art History
Area of Specialization: 20th Century

Biography
B.A., University of California, Berkeley; M.A., Ph.D., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Paintings exhibited at Artists Space, New York; Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art; Koslow Gallery, Los Angeles; Art Gallery of Western Australia. Curator, Dutch Scripture Paintings; Konrad Cramer; Yasuo Kuniyoshi: Painter/Photographer; and Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony. Author, Konrad Cramer: A Retrospective; Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1986); Woodstock’s Art Heritage (1987); Yasuo Kuniyoshi’s Women (1993); among other exhibitions. Essays in Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony (2003); Carl Eric Lindin, from Sweden to Woodstock (2004). Recipient, Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship, Winterthur Museum and Library Fellowships. At Bard since 1971.

Interests:
Research Interests: Asian American artists, American art colonies, contemporary art
Teaching Interests: 20th-century art, American art, decorative arts, feminism, asian american art, contemporary art
Other Interests: literature, popular music