School of History

History Department

Teaching and Research Section of World History

Office Address: Room704, RenWen Building , RenMin University, 59 Zhongguancun Street, Beijing 100872, P.R.C.

Day time phone: 86-10-82502722

Current Position: Associate Professor of History, People's University, Beijing, China

EDUCATION:

Post-Doc., Center for Advanced Studies, University of Leipzig, Research Grant, summer, 1996

Ph.D. in History, University of Chicago, 1995

Dissertation: (Defended with Distinction): “Dying with an Enlightening Fall: Poland in the Eyes of German Intellectuals, 1764-1800”

Committee: Michael Geyer (advisor), John Boyer, Ronald Inden, Katie Trumpener

M.A. in History, University of Chicago, 1989

Thesis: “Hegel and India: A Study in Absolute Subjectivity”

B.A. in History, Lawrence University, Appleton, WI, 1987

Graduated Cum Laude

REFEREED PUBLICATIONS:

Book

Dying with an Enlightening Fall: Poland in the Eyes of German Intellectuals, 1764-1800, Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield (2000)

Articles

“The Relevance of Walter Kaufmann’s Heidegger Critique for the 21st-Century,” Studia Philosophiae Christianae, Warsaw (forthcoming)

“Why Teach Archeology Students the Idea of Progress,” forthcoming, Paradigma: Journal of Social Issues, Politics and Policy, University of Indonesia (forthcoming).

“The You that Wasn’t Enough: Walter Kaufmann and Martin Buber,” Shofar: an Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, (Summer, 2011), 98-123.

“Paperback Authenticity: Walter Kaufmann and Existentialism,” Philosophy and Literature, (Winter 2010), Vol. 34, 17-31.

“Philo-Semitism in Serbia 1940 and After,” Sociologija (Belgrade), Oct-Dec 2008, 433-448.

“At Home and at War with Germany: Walter Kaufmann’s American Nietzsche,” in The Fruits of Exile: Central European Intellectual Immigration to America, eds. Richard Bodek and Simon Lewis, University of South Carolina Press (2009), 156-76.

“Did Somebody Evade Totalitarianism? On the Intellectual Escapism of Slavoj Žižek” in Humanitas, Vol XXI, 1&2, 146-67. First published as

“Da li je neko izvrdao totalitarizam? O eskapističkom učenju Slavoja Žižekain Zenit: Magazin za Književnost, Umetnost I Filosofiju (Zenith: Magazine for Literature, Art and Philosophy), translated into Serbian by Aleksandar Bošković with assistance of the author (May 2008), 70-82.

“Walter Kaufmann and the Future of the Humanities,” Journal of Thought (Fall and Winter 2007), 87-103.

“German Intellectuals, Poland and the Enlightenment,” Germany and the East, ed. Charles Ingrao (Purdue University Press, 2007), 78-88.

“Wishes of the Heart: Walter Kaufmann, Karl Jaspers and Nietzsche Scholarship,” Journal of Nietzsche Studies (2007) Vol. 33, 5-24.

“Jewish Nietzscheanism: Walter Kaufmann’s Critique of Christianity,” Jewish Studies Quarterly (March, 2007) Vol. 1, 72-95

“The Walter Kaufmann Myth: A Study in Academic Public Opinion” Nietzsche-Studien, Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, (2003) Vol. 32, 226-58.

“Overeducated and Underemployed: On Learned Women, Hegel and Beautiful Souls Circa 1805” in Genie-Satire und Frauenerziehung. Zwei Studien und zwei literarische Dokumente, (March 2003) ed. Phillip McKnight, Wehrhahn, Hannover, 7-36.

“To Discover A Mind: Walter Kaufmann’s Celebration of Goethe, Critique of Kant

and Evisceration of Heidegger” (Summer-Fall, 1999) South-Central Review, Vol.16, 68-90.

“When the World was Half a Thousand Years Younger: Contrast

and Color in Huizinga’s Autumn of the Middle Ages” (Winter 1998)

Fifteenth-Century Studies, vol. 25, 127-36.

“Georg Forster and Therese Huber: An Enlightened Dysfunctional Marriage” Selected Papers of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1750-1850 (1998).

“Might, Right and Poland: The 'Other' Revolutionary Challenge”

Selected Papers of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1750-1850 (1995).

OTHER WRITING:

Regular contributor to the online Vietnamese journals of news and ideas, Vietnamnet and the magazine, Tia Sáng (The Light)

Conference Papers and Invited Lectures (1997-2010):

December 2012 “Entrepreneurship and Critical Thinking,” invited talk, Sampoerna School of Education, Jakarta

November 2012 “Roots of Critical Thinking in German Philosophy,” invited talk, Marmara University, Istanbul

June 2012 “Polemical and non-Polemical Incommensurability in the Study of Genocide,” conference talk, Incommensurability 50, National Taiwan University, Taipei

March 2012 “Globalization in East Asia and what it means for Bolivia,” invited talk, Universidad Católica Boliviana, Santa Cruz

January 2012 “Preparing for Globalization,” invited talk, Universitas Muslim Indonesia, Makasar, Indonesia

July 2011: “Understanding Jewish Civilization,” invited talk, Shandong University, Jinan, China

March 2011: “Globalization and Critical Thinking,” invited talk National University of Malang, Indonesia

November 2010 “Goethe, Marx and the Asian Economic Miracle,” invited talk, Center for Policy and Analysis, Hanoi, Vietnam

August 2010 “Philo-Semitism, Secularism and Modernity,” International Conference on Globalization and Cultural Pluralism, Nanjing, China

June 2010: “Karl Marx and Asia,” invited talk for Dialogues on the Left, National University of Vietnam, Hanoi

June 2010 “On European Views of China,” invited talk, Department of History, People’s University, Beijing, China

March 2010 “Obama’s Dilemma in Afghanistan” and “Optimism in American Life,” Invited Talks, Center for the Study of the USA, Faculty of Political Science, Belgrade, Serbia

Nov 2009 “Jews in American Literature,” Invited Talk, Department of English, Guangdong Technical University, Guangzhou, China

Nov 2009 “US College Students in China: A Romance?” Invited Talk, Department of Sociology, Hong Kong University

May 2009 “The Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Invited Talk, Dept. of History, People’s University, Beijing, China

March 2009 “Murder, Numbness and Memory in Serbia,” American Comparative Literature Association, Harvard, MA

Oct. 2008 “Shapes of Serbian Philo-Semitism,” Midwest Jewish Studies Conference, Chicago

May 2008 “Totalitarianism as German-Jewish Concept,” Invited Talk Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, Belgrade, Serbia

April 2008 “US Foreign Policy and American Self-Perception,” Invited Talk, Department of History, University of Sofia, Sofia, Bulgaria

Feb 2008 “Shapes of Serbian Philo-Semitism,” Invited Talk, Department of Political Geography, University of Pećs, Pećs, Hungary

Nov 2007 “Philo-Semitism and Serbian Nationalism,” Invited Talk New Bulgarian University, Sofia, BG

April 2007 “Not Another Other: Rethinking the German Image of Poland,” Polish-German Post/Memory: Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics, Indiana University

March 2007 “German-Jewish Intellectuals and the Idea of Totalitarianism,” Invited Talk, Department of History, Augustana College, Rock Island, IL

March 2006 “Walter Kaufmann and the Future of the Humanities,” American Comparative Literature Association, Princeton, NJ

Sept. 2005 “From Leo Baeck to Walter Kaufmann: Courage and the Jewish Critique of Christianity,” Seventeenth Conference of Midwest Jewish Studies, Madison, WI

Feb. 2005 “Christianity in German-Jewish Eyes,” Invited Talk, Department of Religion, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

Nov. 2004 “Walter Kaufmann as an Intellectual Émigré,” Fruits of Exile Conference, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC

April 2004 “Walter Kaufmann’s Critique of Christianity,” Invited Talk, Department of History, University of Arizona

March 2004 “Hannah Arendt, Violence and the David Story,” Western Jewish Studies Conference, San Diego, CA

Oct. 2003 “Existentialism’s Critical Enthusiast,” Invited Workshop Presentation, University of Virginia

Oct. 2003 “Nietzsche for the 21st-Century,” Invited Talk, James Madison University

April 2003 “Telling a Story: Walter Kaufmann and the Reception of Existentialism in America,” Invited Workshop Presentation, University of Chicago

March 2003 “Walter Kaufmann and Martin Buber: an Unexplored Dynamic,” Western Jewish Studies Conference, Eugene, OR

Oct. 1999 “The Ends of Impudence: J.C.F. Schubart and the Limits of Anti-Authoritarian Speech,” German Studies Association Conference, Atlanta, GA

April 1999 “The Learned Woman who Forgot her Sex: Thinking Women in Germany Circa 1805,” Southwest Social Sciences Conference, San Antonio, TX

Oct. 1998 “Hard Lives of the Mind: On Writing Biographies of 18th Century Intellectuals,” The 23rd Colloquium on Literature and Film, Representing Identities: Biography and Autobiography, Morgantown, WV

April 1998 “The Higher Groveling: Lessing on Friendship and Money,” American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, South Bend, IN

March 1998 “Georg Forster and Therese Huber: An Enlightened Dysfunctional Marriage,” The Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, Tallahassee, FL

April 1997 “Perfect Selflessness is Perfect Selfishness: Madame Guyon and the Unlikely Origins of Introspection in Enlightenment Germany,” The International Conference on Narrative, Gainesville, FL

TEACHING EXPERIENCE:

People's University, 2013 - present

Associate Professor

Courses:

The Western Intellectual Tradition: Antiquity to the Enlightenment

Arizona State University, 1999 – 2013

Honors Faculty Fellow

Courses:

The Human Event I & II: Interdisciplinary Humanities Seminar

The Modern Middle East: Conflicting Perspectives

Power and Powerlessness in Modern Jewish History

Jewish Life and Culture in East-Central Europe

Jews and Germans: Reflections in a Broken Mirror

Freedom and its Opposite in Modern German History

Liberty: The French Idea of Freedom

Memory and Identity in the Modern Mediterranean

Graduate Tutorial in 18th-century German Intellectual HistoryChina and the West: 1620 to the Present

Indonesia and the West: From Colonization to the Present

What is a Grown Up?

The Asian Economic Miracle

People’s University, Beijing

Summer Session, 2011

Course:

The History of Germany: 1800 to the Present

James Madison University

Assistant Professor, 1996-1999

Courses:

Image Community and Terror: German Culture in a Generation of War, 1914-45

Freedom and Self-Deception I & II: An Interpretation of European Intellectual History, 1750-1970

The Enlightenment and its Others

World Civilization I: to 1650; World Civilization II: Since 1650

University of Chicago

Von Holst Graduate Lecturer, 1995:

Order, Truth and Freedom: German Intellectual History in the 18th Century

FELLOWSHIPS AND HONORS (1992-2009):

2007-08 Fulbright Scholar in Belgrade, Serbia; nine-month research project on Serbian philo-Semitism and teaching US history at the University of Belgrade

Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching: Barrett, The Honors College at ASU, 2006-2007

Participant 2006-2007 Ford Foundation Workshop on “Difficult Dialogues,” or teaching controversial topics in religion and politics to undergraduates

Participant 2005 NEH Summer Seminar “Terror and Culture: Revisiting Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism” Stanford University, Russell Berman, Director

Drescher Faculty Development Grant Recipient, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008. Awarded at the Barrett Honors College, Arizona State University for research into the life and work of Walter Kaufmann, and for Serbian/Croatian language study

Drescher Faculty Development Grant Recipient, 2000-2001

Awarded at the Barrett Honors College, Arizona State University for intensive summer Italian language study at Dilit Institute, Rome, and Hebrew University, Jerusalem

“Favorite Teacher” Recognition at Arizona State University, 2000-01

Awarded by Manzanita Student Residents

Uriel Weinreich Yiddish Language Program Scholarship Recipient, 1998

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research,

Honorary Member for Outstanding Teaching, 1997, Golden Key National Honor Society

Von Holst Prize Lectureship awarded for self-designed course, “Order, Truth and Freedom, “at the University of Chicago, 1994

German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) dissertation research grant, Berlin, October 1992-October 1993, extended to January 1994

Summer Study Abroad:

Indonesia, Director, 2011

China, Co-Director, ASU Five-Week Study Tour, 2007-2010

Serbia Entrepreneurial Exchange, Director, 2009

Athens, Rome, Dubrovnik, Director and Faculty, ASU Honors Program 2002-03-05

Romania and central Europe, ASU Program, co-director 2004

Athens, Rome, Tunis, Faculty, ASU Honors Program, 2001

Paris 2000, Faculty, ASU Honors Program, 2000

LANGUAGES:

German: near fluent reading and highly proficient speaking knowledge

Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian: good to very good reading and speaking knowledge

Hebrew: good reading and speaking knowledge

Yiddish: good reading knowledge

Indonesian: intermediate knowledge

Italian: reading knowledge

French: reading knowledge

Vietnamese: beginning level

Chinese (Mandarin): beginning level

FILM:

Consultant and participant, A History of God, TV documentary based on the Karen Armstrong book, A & E Television Network, Inflo-media, Chicago, IL